A giraffe in a cage is worth two on the box
Yann Martel
ZOO: A HISTORY OF ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS IN THE WEST by Eric Baratay and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier Reaktion, £28, pp. 400, ISBN 1861891113 Y0. will notice when you enter a park that squirrels and chipmunks flee at the sight of you. Badgers, skunks, racoons and groundhogs have already disappeared before that, without you even becoming aware of them. And birds will never get close to you. It is the same when you enter a forest: big carnivores — bears and tigers that could easily have you for lunch, literally — give you such a wide birth that you never see them. You are alone. Every step you take provokes a quiet stampede of animals. True, if you have a bag of peanuts, the squirrels come close — but look how tense they are. And — true again — you might have a dog with you; they're friendly. But essentially you are alone. And you don't like it.
This is perhaps one of the definitions of a human being: an animal that seeks friendly contact beyond its own species. If the zoo, that urban frontier of the wild, is the purest expression of the attempt to meet the animal Other, then the history of zoos is the history of a long, colourful and, for the most part, quite depressing friendship, as Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West ably shows.
When Europeans first started collecting exotic animals in seraglios and menageries — as opposed to collecting domestic animals of economic value — they hardly recognised the sentient quality of what they had before their eyes. Animals were objects, to be used like objects, to show off and to have fun with. A king, duke or cardinal with an elephant was greater than a king, duke or cardinal without an elephant. And when His Majesty got bored with the elephant, it was tossed into an arena with a tiger or a rhinoceros to see what would happen. Animals were prized decorations in perfectly organised gardens that proved the triumph of Man over Nature, of Reason over Passion. Animals were collected like baubles, living and breathing additions to the cabinets of curiosities so popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. Animals were toured about and displayed. At Versailles around 1770, the public was 'enraptured' by an Indian elephant 'that uncorked and drank bottles of wine or ma de vie, and chewed tobacco'. Considering the life it had, no wonder the elephant was driven to substance abuse. Animals were poorly treated and died quickly; which was not a problem since Nature was endless in her abundance. Never did anyone look an animal in the eyes and see something worth respecting.
Little by little, the Otherness of animals incited the curiosity of some. Scholars started paying closer attention. Progress was slow, but indubitable. Witness one Claude Perrault, who in the late 17th centuiy, in a scintillating bit of science, 'demonstrated that chameleons did not become furious when placed in fig trees, as had been claimed by Pliny'. Now you know.
With the French Revolution, the menagerie at Versailles was transferred to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and the zoo as a public institution was born. The captive animal no longer existed for the pleasure of the privileged few, but for the pleasure — and education — of the many. The cruelty done upon zoo animals was incessant, be it in the way they were captured, the way they were caged or the way they were treated. The public was cruel:
In 1891, the director of the Jardin des Plantes noted, on the subject of free admissions, that the growth in the number of visitors multiplied the number of incidents: birds' wings were burned or pulled off; animals were hurt by blows from canes and stones, or food poisoned with phosphorus, alcohol or tobacco or laced with fish hooks or razor blades. A zebra was attacked with a needle attached to a walking stick. Locks were changed constantly and patrols mounted to counter raids at night.
And why shouldn't the public be cruel to animals? No one minded a caged animal, since men and women were themselves caged, so to speak, in relationships of inequality. If you or I have to bow before our master, why shouldn't an animal be made to bow before us? Things would change for the better for animals only once they changed for the better for their keepers — with the advent of greater democracy and the concept of human rights.
But don't get your hopes up. Animal stress and mortality in zoos is still dreadfully high, their scientific value is close to nil (as proved by how little zoological research is conducted in zoos), and their recent incarnation as Noah's Arks saving animals from habitat destruction and extinction barely survives scrutiny. Zoos specialise in charismatic mega-fauna that represent a drop in the teeming bucket of animal life. It would have been better to stave off the Flood than to have to build an Ark.
It's too late for that, of course, and that is why this writer stands where he does: that despite the questionable legitimacy of keeping wild animals in captivity, despite the routine disregard of their real needs, despite zoos' dubious conservation value, despite all their flaws, better to have good zoos — note the adjective — than not. Better to work at making zoos better and see a giraffe in the flesh — and by God a giraffe in the flesh is impressive — than to see it only on television. For if wild animals appear only on television, then their disappearance will carry no greater weight than that of a discontinued TV show.
This is a good book. I recommend it. The history of zoos is covered from antiquity to today, in words as well as in pictures. The style is somewhat academic — flat and factual — but the authors convey much information and the illustrations are lavish.
I will carry away a lasting memory of a photo on page 257. A forlorn little penguin, tiny black wings sticking out, stands in the middle of a concrete Brutalist experiment that couldn't be further from what Nature prepared it for. Two words came to my mind: Ecce homo. Behold the man.
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