A precious and cynical child might well think a trip to the museum is just as good, if not better, than a trip to the zoo. Many museums now have vast exhibits of animals, exotic and otherwise, in areas conveniently compact and indoors, well buffeted from climatic elements all year round.
It true, of course, that the museum animals do lack a rather distinctive quality: which is to say that they're dead -- and stuffed! The truth is though, recalling from my childhood, many of the zoos I visited had animals which were so inanimate, they might well have been stuffed.
One can say now though, with some relief, that behind us now is the days when zoos were largely animal museums. In fact, it's almost come to the point that the barometer for measuring the best zoos in America is precisely the degree to which one distinguishes itself from these older model zoos.
The best zoos now are not storage displays - warehouses with bars - but active participants in the cultivation and preservation of the earth's wildlife. They have facilities and missions for research and enterprise to help preserve wildlife in its natural habitat.
The result of these mission defining initiatives is a symbiosis: the lessons learned about optimum wildlife habitat preservation enables more rigorous habitat design within the modern zoo. This creates an environment far better suited to the zoo's animals. The result is a greatly more stimulating and rewarding experience for everyone involved.
Now that animals in zoos can live in environments so much better fit to their evolved dispositions, a whole new level of vitality is injected into the experience. The animals enjoy levels of energy and curiosity which had been suppressed under the conditions of closed confines characteristic of earlier zoos. As a consequence, they are far livelier, playful and engaged with their habitat and fellow residents.
The benefits to both their psychological and physical healthy are considerable. Likewise, though, these superior living conditions for the animals allow the zoo visitor exciting experiences. The increased energy and vitality of the animals in this more stimulating setting, so much better suited to their evolutionary characteristics, allows zoo visitors to observe animals that not only are healthier, and more engaging, but also living a life more representative of their nature.
And of course since the action of the animals is now well suited to their natural environment, the zoo is an educational experience in a far more complex and deep way than the stand-and-gawk zoos of my youth.
One of the great outcomes of this new style zoo has been the construction of far vaster ranges for the animals to live within. This improvement in the living conditions of the animals, though, has posed challenges regarding the means to allow zoo visitors to experience the animals in this new habitat, without undermining its initial virtues. Leaders in the zoo community addressed these challenges with various kinds of carry-through technology and process reorganization. These have included monorails, safari tours and walk through zones.
The best zoos in America , or elsewhere, are characterized by this kind of synthesis. A conservationist mission, revised facility designs, and innovative applications of technology dovetail into an entirely new kind of institutional style that is not unfairly described as a zoological renaissance.
Such a renaissance has had profound impacts upon the modern zoo visitor. In place of the old museum zoos we now enjoy experiences as rich in learning opportunities as in sheer exotic awe. Our new zoos inspire an experience which verges on the otherworldly. We now enjoy the remarkable opportunity for a kind of communion with other kinds of life. These other lives, certainly, are different from our own. And yet, at the same time, no doubt due to the consequence of a common evolutionary past, in some uncanny sense there remains something that strangely resonates with us.
This is the extraordinary magic of the best zoos: they marry the insights of science and technology to create a sense of the sublime.
It true, of course, that the museum animals do lack a rather distinctive quality: which is to say that they're dead -- and stuffed! The truth is though, recalling from my childhood, many of the zoos I visited had animals which were so inanimate, they might well have been stuffed.
One can say now though, with some relief, that behind us now is the days when zoos were largely animal museums. In fact, it's almost come to the point that the barometer for measuring the best zoos in America is precisely the degree to which one distinguishes itself from these older model zoos.
The best zoos now are not storage displays - warehouses with bars - but active participants in the cultivation and preservation of the earth's wildlife. They have facilities and missions for research and enterprise to help preserve wildlife in its natural habitat.
The result of these mission defining initiatives is a symbiosis: the lessons learned about optimum wildlife habitat preservation enables more rigorous habitat design within the modern zoo. This creates an environment far better suited to the zoo's animals. The result is a greatly more stimulating and rewarding experience for everyone involved.
Now that animals in zoos can live in environments so much better fit to their evolved dispositions, a whole new level of vitality is injected into the experience. The animals enjoy levels of energy and curiosity which had been suppressed under the conditions of closed confines characteristic of earlier zoos. As a consequence, they are far livelier, playful and engaged with their habitat and fellow residents.
The benefits to both their psychological and physical healthy are considerable. Likewise, though, these superior living conditions for the animals allow the zoo visitor exciting experiences. The increased energy and vitality of the animals in this more stimulating setting, so much better suited to their evolutionary characteristics, allows zoo visitors to observe animals that not only are healthier, and more engaging, but also living a life more representative of their nature.
And of course since the action of the animals is now well suited to their natural environment, the zoo is an educational experience in a far more complex and deep way than the stand-and-gawk zoos of my youth.
One of the great outcomes of this new style zoo has been the construction of far vaster ranges for the animals to live within. This improvement in the living conditions of the animals, though, has posed challenges regarding the means to allow zoo visitors to experience the animals in this new habitat, without undermining its initial virtues. Leaders in the zoo community addressed these challenges with various kinds of carry-through technology and process reorganization. These have included monorails, safari tours and walk through zones.
The best zoos in America , or elsewhere, are characterized by this kind of synthesis. A conservationist mission, revised facility designs, and innovative applications of technology dovetail into an entirely new kind of institutional style that is not unfairly described as a zoological renaissance.
Such a renaissance has had profound impacts upon the modern zoo visitor. In place of the old museum zoos we now enjoy experiences as rich in learning opportunities as in sheer exotic awe. Our new zoos inspire an experience which verges on the otherworldly. We now enjoy the remarkable opportunity for a kind of communion with other kinds of life. These other lives, certainly, are different from our own. And yet, at the same time, no doubt due to the consequence of a common evolutionary past, in some uncanny sense there remains something that strangely resonates with us.
This is the extraordinary magic of the best zoos: they marry the insights of science and technology to create a sense of the sublime.
About the Author:
Mitchell Jone's top five list of the best zoos in America is required reading when you're organizing a family excursion around a zoo adventure. Also, you'll enjoy our YouTube video .
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