Who Belongs in the Zoo?

It may be that some animals just can't be kept humanely in captivity. Zoos may have to reinvent themselves — once again

  • BILL GREENBLATT / UPI / LANDOV

    A new baby male giraffe looks around while Jessie the mom, has a some leaves during the babies' debut at the St. Louis Zoo on May 23, 2006.

    (2 of 3)

    Hancocks goes further than most zoo professionals would, but there is growing agreement that zoos are on the verge of yet another wave of transformation. This time the question is whether some animals--not just elephants but also giraffes, bears and others--belong in zoos at all. "On the one hand," says Ron Kagan, executive director of the Detroit Zoological Society, "people want to see the signature animals like elephants, gorillas and giraffes. But we believe that the American public wants us to create facilities for these animals only if we can provide them with a good life." It was that calculus that last year led Kagan to eliminate an elephant exhibit on humane grounds.

    One key consideration was Detroit's harsh winters. Although elephants can tolerate cold weather, standing on snow and ice increases the risk of slipping and falling. The only alternative was to have the animals spend most of the winter months indoors, where hard concrete led to foot problems and boredom. Many zoos, like the one in San Diego, have phased out certain species, like the moose, that do better in other climates. "Bringing cold-weather animals into the warm Southern California climate is a bad business decision and a waste of precious resources," says Larry Killmar, the zoo's deputy director of collections.

    That's part of a national trend. Zoo directors routinely phase out species that don't thrive in the local environment. The ultimate example: the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, outside Tucson, which houses 300 animal species and 1,200 kinds of plants on 21 acres of desert. Unlike conventional zoos, the museum doesn't even try to take on species that are not native to the area because its mission is not to give visitors a snapshot of wildlife everywhere but to give the full story of a single ecology. "It has a completely different mind-set than most zoos," says Hancocks.

    The largest zoos can't really afford to adopt that approach. The San Diego Zoo, for example, draws some 3 million visitors a year and like many big city zoos is a major contributor to the local economy. Zoo officials consider it part of their mission to inspire visitors to care about wildlife and the habitats that nurture it. "We're trying to engage people emotionally," says Andy Baker, senior vice president for animal programs at the Philadelphia Zoo, the nation's oldest. "It's much less about natural history and life cycle these days and more about empathy."

    That being the case, Philadelphia, like most major zoos, is not about to transform itself into a place that shows only native fauna--black bears, raccoons, wild turkeys and chipmunks, say. Indeed, the institution has just opened up Big Cat Falls, a flashy exhibition showcasing lions, pumas, jaguars, leopards and tigers. Although the exhibit has drawn fire from animal activists, many experts believe that those animals can do fine in captivity, since even in the wild they spend much of their time sitting around digesting their last meal. Hancocks, for one, thinks gorillas and other primates can reasonably be kept in zoos. "If you can give them an intellectual environment," he says, "so they are using their minds and manipulating their fingers, they can be satisfied."

    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3