{"id":6249,"date":"2015-09-20T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=6249"},"modified":"2015-09-20T07:00:03","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T06:00:03","slug":"a-visit-to-the-zoo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/my-travels\/a-visit-to-the-zoo-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A visit to the zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"In<\/a>
In Melbourne Zoo recently – a campaign to promote recycled toilet paper. The kids loved it – giggling at the open-air loos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I like zoos. There you are. I\u2019ve said it.<\/p>\n

Of course regular readers will have figured that out by now \u2013as this isn\u2019t the first zoo related picture to appear on this blog.<\/p>\n

Nor was my recent visit to Melbourne Zoo a first.<\/p>\n

Zoos can be and sometimes have been controversial. There are people who say animals shouldn\u2019t be caged for our amusement.<\/p>\n

I understand and agree with that \u2013 but that\u2019s not what I see when I walk through a modern zoo.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I remember visiting a zoo for the first time when\u00a0I was very small. I was so excited at the thought of seeing the animals I had read about\u00a0in books and seen on TV.<\/p>\n

I found\u00a0animals in cages. Animals that could barely move around, who lay on the cold concrete or timber or steel and their blank eyes stared out through the bars like lost souls.<\/p>\n

I know there are still places like that, but hopefully they are disappearing as zoos come to terms with what I think is their real function.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"These<\/a>
These faded old photos were taken at Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney when I was about 15. I was excited to see the animals, but even then I recognised that this sort of display was sad and wrong. It’s all changed now, of course.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are rare animals in the world that exist only in zoos or in reserves which have been re-populated by breeding programmes led by zoos. That\u2019s part of what zoos are for \u2013 to protect and preserve our wonderful wildlife.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>
How much better is this… young bears playing in the snow at the Bronx Zoo. I took this photo a couple of years ago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once the animals were on displayed purely for the benefit of visitors\u00a0\u2013 and were even poked and prodded (carefully) by those visitors.\u00a0Now they are housed in realistic environments. There are times when the paying humans visiting the zoo don\u2019t get to see them. That\u2019s fine by me. There are days when we all want to hide in a dark corner and not see anyone. Everyone is entitled to those moments of privacy, even a leopard or an otter.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This panda seemed so happy, eating his breakfast on the early morning sun at Washington Zoo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It would be nice if some of the environments were larger, but\u00a0its good to see them filled with\u00a0things to allow the animals to play and enjoy their lives. \u00a0I do think there are some animals that should not be in small zoos.\u00a0Elephants are one. Rhinos another. I have been fortunate enough to see both in game reserves in Africa \u2013 wandering free over huge land areas. That\u2019s where they belong, and they are awesome when seen there. They shouldn\u2019t be in some small enclosure surrounded by thick bars.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I don’t like to see very large animals in inner city zoos. I know to kids love to see the elephants, but to me this is a very sad picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Free range zoos and wildlife parks are wonderful. The best of both worlds. But, as poaching statistics and the recent shooting of Cecil the lion show, reserves don\u2019t always offer protection.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I saw this elephant in his natural environment in Africa. He was little distance away and hard to photograph, but he was so much more majestic and powerful when seen in his natural environment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And that brings us to what I think is THE most important role of a zoo – to show people, especially kids, what wonderful creatures share this planet with us. If kids gaze wide-eyed in wonder at a tiger or a gorilla; if they look into the dark brown eyes of a zebra or watch the totally human actions of a chimpanzee\u2026 maybe the future of those animals will be a little bit brighter.<\/p>\n

\"Who<\/a>
Who knew that zebras had such long eyelashes.. taken at a reserve in South Africa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a big planet and we can share. We should share with the other living creatures who do so much to enrich our lives. And I am always happy to visit a modern zoo, or an open range zoo, where I can feel confident that the animals are being treated with the respect they deserve. There is something quite wonderful and inspiring about looking deep into the eyes of a mountain lion \u2013 knowing that it can see me too.<\/p>\n

It puts the world and my place in it into a different perspective.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This cougar in Flushing Meadows Zoo was watching us as much as we were watching her. Her face was threatening and intelligent and beautiful. A wonderful photo taken by webmaster John.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like zoos. There you are. I\u2019ve said it. Of course regular readers will have figured that out by now \u2013as this isn\u2019t the first zoo related picture to appear on this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}