This is NOT a response to the weekly question by HiveLearners, posted for last week. After all, the deadline has passed, plus I would not qualify anyway for not complying with all the rules. But that's okay, I'm not doing it for the prize anyway. However, by looking at some of the contestants' posts, I had a number of ideas pop into my head, which I would like to share. By the way, this contest seems to be more popular than any other Question of the Week type contests I've participated in, with dozens of replies. Great job, HiveLearners! The topic in question is about zoos and wildlife parks, and whether they are a good thing.
Zoos from the Eyes of a Child
Kids love zoos, at least that is what is commonly understood. One personal anecdote my parents have told me about my first zoo visit (from a time I was too young to remember), is how they tried to get me excited about exotic animals with very moderate results. Apparently, I couldn't care less. However, when we sat down on a bench to take a few minutes rest, I was thrilled about a little sparrow that kept landing close to me, looking for the breadcrumbs people kept feeding it with. It flew off when I got too close, but kept coming back right away, much to my delight. The bird was of course part of our native wildlife, so there was no need to go to the zoo to experience it.
Another visit to the zoo that I actually remember, was actually a bit disappointing. This time I was really looking forward to seeing some cool animals, like elephants, tigers, or sea lions. And sure enough, they were all there, but in a state that bothered me immensely. None of them seemed to be actively suffering, but all of them were obviously bored out of their minds. The lions were lying in the corner, looking more like a rolled up rug, and the seals were swimming endless circles in their - admittedly nicely made - aquatic area. I fully understood, and I was quite sorry for them. Honestly, I had a much better time going through the aquariums and the botanical collections, where the fish and the plants were actually acting like I would expect them in nature.
Keeping Nature Natural
Zoos have come a long way, from merely displaying animals from far-away places in close confinement, to playing an active part in the preservation of species that out in the wild are facing extinction. Whereas the former ignores all the basic necessities of the animal in favor of human entertainment, the latter places a much greater emphasis on making sure the protected specimens are happy enough to naturally procreate. It is this modern tendency that has transformed zoos into offering large enclosed areas with rocks, trees, and natural looking water pools, imitating the animals' original habitats. Still, there is one aspect I've found completely neglected: the natural way of dealing with life and death, in other words the circle of life we all know from the Lion King.
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Eating or Being Eaten
Out in the wild every species is constantly aware that their life may end abruptly, most typically due to a hungry predator seizing the moment of opportunity. At the same time, most animals rely on other species for food, which requires skills, speed, and opportunity be caught. Apart from the threats of being eaten and going hungry, there is the issue of competition from others relying on the same food source. It's a tough reality, but then again, each one of us has evolved for this very purpose! This is literally what we're made for (including us humans). So depriving us of the chance to literally run for our lives, is ultimately even worse than becoming prey to a hungry beast.
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The above quote from Game of Thrones sums this up perfectly. Applying it to nature, you could also include escaping a predator who wants to eat you, or catching a prey that wanted to escape you. These are the moments that make life worth living. Take them away, and what you are left with is the eternal boredom I saw, even as a child, looking at the animals in the zoo. It was the same desperate look I recognized immediately on the blank stare of people taking the train to work in the morning.
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But What About Safety?
And yes, that is the constant argument, both for animals at the zoo and well situated middle class humans. Unless you are surrounded by crime, war, and violence (which granted, many of us are!) human existence resembles life in a zoo in many ways. In order to escape this boredom, we are given pools to swim endless laps in, just like the seal, or otherwise a couch with a screen, where we can lie and get fat, just like the lion. Rarely, if ever, do we get to celebrate the feeling of being alive while having barely scraped by death. However, when it comes to dying, I'm sure most people would prefer a quick though violent death than having to go through years of increasing pain, gradually losing the ability to see, hear, speak, walk, think straight, or take care of oneself without help. This is an obvious downside to our safety.
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Conclusion: What's Best for All of us?
So while zoos got bigger and better areas for each species, I think there is still plenty of room to continue this trend. Increasing spaces further would soon take us into the realms of natural reserves, where a good amount of eating and being eaten takes places, along with well monitored human guidance. By this time it's rarely about one species, but rather the stability of a whole ecosystem. If it's well managed, it will also provide plenty of food, shelter, and other benefits for humans, so ultimately it should be in the interest of everyone to convert their exploited landscapes (whether they may be agricultural, industrial, urban, etc.) into well managed wildlife habitats / food forests / sustainable living spaces. In such an environment us humans too could live a life climbing trees, run across fields, ride horses, etc. The kinda things we evolved to do. But this is where the utopian permaculturist comes out in me. At the moment I see no chance of any of this happening, but who knows? Maybe I just lost my optimism somewhere along the way.