Questioning Zootopia

A natural history museum can educate with taxidermy, whilst an art gallery can shock with images of blood and bone, an environmental charity can publicise a plight, whilst governments can draft legislation. But what of the 1200 zoos across the globe, whose visitors number 600,000,000 annually ? What do wide-eyed infants gain from a precious link with nature in the heart of urban environments ? What good can it do to gawk at a Gnu ?

The concept of a menagerie is not a new one, although such institutions have undergone numerous inceptions. The zoo begins as the royal coffers, of lions gifted from Abyssinia, or Rhinos plundered from Java. In the case of France, it took a revolution to sweep the animals out of the gardens of Versailles and into the hands of the people. As the scientific cataloguing of Lineus and Lamarck became more in vogue, so too did the idea of zoological gardens as repositories of expeditions. Cages were replaced by dioramas in attempt to recreate the natural habitat of the birds and the beasts, and in doing so began to instill an ecological sensibility in the observer.

Gerald Durrell, a one time animal trapper, and famed director of Jersey Zoo during the 1970s was the first to promote the idea of zoos as a tool for conservation of animals, not only by educating the public but by stocking and propagating animals endangered in the wild. Today, the organisation and investment in exchanges in animal insemination is astounding, with Studbooks maintained for each animal, documenting everything from date of birth to dietary requirements. Captive breeding and reintroduction programmes whilst not always successful, stem from collections in zoos, bringing back the few remaining individuals from the perpetual abyss of extinction.

Animal welfare too has greatly progressed, with daily observation by keepers, and enrichment of enclosures (hiding food, adding swings) all enhancing the mental well being of the residents. But when can a concrete pit compensate for a unwalled habitat ? Nenette, a 43 year old great-grandmother, is a wild-born Malaysian orangutan, resident at Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. At first, observing her in her enclosure was a thrill, to see her reluctantly playing with faster-paced juveniles, before hunkering down on a plastic barrel and fixing her gaze directly at me. It was in her eyes that I began to project my human emotion, trying to fathom her thoughts, to think of all she had seen (more than I). How did she feel about being observed day in day out? Was she content or do orangutans strive for more than food, sleep and sex ? Wouldn't she be better in the wild ? But then given the terrifying rates of deforestation, how long will it be before there remains no more wild for her to go back to ?

But to ask these questions, as I am sure many visitors do, is already a step in the right direction. The act of projecting our emotion allows us to associate ethics at our own level. We know animals are not natural to zoos, whether or not we disagree with zoos as a place of entertainment & conservation. We also know that an animal is not a hollow object, but is what it is as a result of its environs of origin. To understand an animal is to understand it's context, which requires no mental projection.

The Zoo de Vincennes, which shut its doors in 2008, is currently undergoing invigoration before its inauguration in 2014, when it will reopen its doors as a collection of 5 biozones (Savannah-Sahel, Europe, Patagonia, Guyana, Madagascar), connected by a 5km pathway. Thus the visitor will traverse continents, encountering animals in an ecosystem context, as opposed to monoliths in a concrete cage. Associating an endangered primate with it's exotic habitat, thus promoting the complex ecology asssociated with every living creatyre. A new vision then, but will this closer encounter result in a clearer connection with our own uncaged habitat?