Thursday, September 11, 2008
Like "Circus", which has many meanings, when you say "Zoo" this is the other end of the spectrum
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Wade G. Burck
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A Blog designed for discussion of topics related to, but not limited to, Circus, Zoos, Animal Training, and Animal Welfare/Husbandry. Sometimes opening up the dialog is the best starting point of all. And if for nothing else when people who agree and don't agree, get together and start discussing it, it will open up a lot of peoples minds. Debate and discussion even amongst themselves opens a window where there wasn't one before.
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6 comments:
I never did understand the derogatory term "roadside zoo".
All zoos are built by the roadside.
Despite the fuel pumps, this one seems to be quite well presented - from the outside at least.
Steve,
"Roadside Zoo" is not a derogatory term, it sounds better then "Shit Zoo." And these were "real" close to the main road, not set back at the end of a flower planted drive and normally had a 700 lb. overweight black bear named Smoky or Yogi chained in front or in a patched together corn crib where you could feed him cheetos in return for a bear wave. The fancier places often had a chimp that smoked and spit a stream of urine at unsuspecting animal lovers. The Circus missed the boat by not coming up with a similar term for some of the rag bags that's traveled across the country. Roadside zoo does distinguish them from the Bronx Zoo, St. Louis Zoo, Lincoln Park Zoo, etc.
Wade
Wade
Here in Australia we HAVE come up with a term for those rag bag shows. We call them "shit circuses"
I worked my way through school doing shows in a half a dozen "roadside zoos" ranging from very good "tourist attractions" like Silver Springs and St Augustine Alligator Farm -- to a couple of joints that were little more than chicken wire cages out behind the gas pumps. Frankly I thought that when the big effort was made to close such places down in the 1980's it wasn't entirely fair. Certainly there were horror stories, but I saw a lot of very well cared for animals in some of those roadside attractions where the "crime" was more in presentation. I would much rather see a healthy animal in crappy enclosure than an unhealthy animal in a beautiful enclosure. We talk about "standards" here. My experience was that in the mid-1980's about half the roadside zoos closed for economic reasons -- Interstate highways killed them. But many more were closed because they didn't have enough the resources to meet new standards within the allotted period of time -- and the owners, who tended to be older threw in the towel. In a sense that was a shame because some of these places provided more "contact" with exotic animals than any conventional zoo or any circus. Moreover, many of these places displayed largely "local" wildlife. Coyotes, and prairie dogs, and rattlesnakes out west. Gators, and snakes, and cougars, and bears in the southeast. Now you can drive coast to coast and never see an animal. No wonder kids hate car travel.
Let me add, part of what bothers me about the seeming idea that "We have Animal Planet on television. We don't need circuses, or zoos, or animal shows to learn about animals." is how sterile the process is. I don't think you can watch animals on video and form any kind of legitimate emotional investment. You either come away from video with a distorted animal liberation view, that if we'd just keep our distance animals would be okay, or you think they're all "cute," or you don't care at all.
What does every kid notice when they actually spend time around animals? The first thing they remark on is smell, and they quickly notice that animals shit -- which is funny and gross -- and in a contact setting, or on a ride, then there's what the animal feels like. They come away with a legitimate impression. That's what those roadside places did. They helped a couple generations of tourists and travelers form grounded opinions on wildlife. And if now and then somebody got bit by a squirrel monkey in the process, or got sick after purchasing and trying to swallow a hatching turtle . Mostly they recovered from that.
Ben,
Let's not forget education. I went to one of those roadside deals, the other day. They didn't throw in the towel as they have been there since 1927, and started as a mink farm and blacksmith shop.
After walking through the stuffed animal gallery and horns collection, which is all right, because the placard assured me they were collected on safari, and were not animals that had died at the zoo(although I questioned the long horn, yak, and Scotch Highland head mounts).
As per the brochure,I was assured my admission would help special programs to restore endangered and threatened species back to the wild including:
South Korea's elk herd
Fallow deer to Taiwan
Wild turkeys in many states
Assist in relocating endangered species threatened by human contact, and was shown the largest flock of turkey buzzards in any zoo as proof
And the last breeding pair of endangered Hokkaido Bears were once kept at the facility, and now the species continues in Japan.
I was so impressed with their habitat layout of elk, Himalayan bears, wild ponies, woodchucks, skunks, Kodiak bear, pigs and ring tailed lemurs, that I was moved to give them another 20.00 so that they could continue their Herculean conservation efforts, after they assured me it would not me used to buy new cars for the antique car museum next door.
Wade
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