San Diego Zoo, Fall 2010

Photo credit: Carter Blanchard

New Noahs

Those of us who can- literally- afford to struggle with ancient questions about our relationship to our fellow animals. - questions older than history. Some answers have been painted on cave walls, found in graves, written in ancient texts, and handed down in stories. In the Jewish Torah, we find in Genesis accounts of our mutual creation and, later, of our mutual salvation, thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Noah. So grateful and charmed by the pairs of species saved, we rarely stop to think about the myriad lost in the great flood.

Today we face various devastating changes to our environment, and the question is who will survive and how. Zoos were originally build for the amusement of the rich, but they may be our modern arks.

As I child, I found zoos exciting, but also creepy. They used to be built like maximum security prisons, with cement floors, steel walls, and layers of bars and fences. Walking through a lacy, treed aviary –a stories-high outdoor sanctuary full of Seuss-like birds – was the exception. As a child I felt excited feeding peanuts to our zoo's four elephants, but discomfitted by the chains around their ankles anchoring them to a cement slab. The more experience I had with animals, the more I grew to hate zoos.

My boycott lasted only a decade. My excuse was that I wanted my children to see in flesh, feather and scale, to experience other sentient beings and come to admire, if not love, them. But it’s me who can't walk away from the experience of entering another's life, from sensing a different kind of intelligence, seeing the world as similar and yet radically different from the one I inhabited.

Recently I found myself drawn to the zoo again, taking advantage of courses offered through the local adult education program for classes and tours. After learning about big cats, one of their keeper's - a petite brunette- took us behind the scenes to meet the two tigers and very senior lion. I was surprised at all the training that goes on, coaching the animals to come to the fence for shots, and to stand on a scale to be weighed, as well as tricks. The cagey old lion has learned to use a wall to make himself sound younger and bigger. Check out his bona fides here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmzKQKl3Gjw

We learned that, at eighteen he’s eight years older than a lion in the wild would be, and his mane is full and well-groomed, where a wild adult lion’s mane would be worn and mangy. After another class - on lowland gorillas - I got to spend an hour and a half watching the resident tribe of eight. Guarding a four day old baby from her curious father and two eager sisters, the mother snatched a few minutes rest before foraging for snacks the keepers tossed in various places for them to find. Any mother could relate!

It’s lucky that I went back, because, as Paul Simon sings, “It’s all happening at the zoo.” By visiting most zoos today we support modern arks, spaces nurturing and stimulating to many species, some of which are threatened with extinction in the wild. A number of the animals in today’s zoos have been rescued from private attempts to keep wild animals and from aging out of circuses. Today’s zoos share resources, knowledge and stewardship of the gene pools of species in captivity.

Noah would be jealous of today’s zoo keepers, who are much better equipped to keep their charges healthy, both emotionally and physically. Of course we’d rather the animals were free and able to live their wild lives out in their homelands - and it's tragic that they're so threatened. Fortunately zoos provide us with a way to observe and appreciate other ways of being, learn what we can do to protect all the homelands, and wonder anew at the variety and beauty of Creation. Zoos may be one way we can serve as Noahs.

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To find out more or peek at animals doing their thing via webcams, please check out these sites as well as your local zoo: http://www.zoonewengland.org/Page.aspx?pid=219, http://www.rogerwilliamsparkzoo.org/, http://www.sandiegozoo.org/

To learn more about a pioneer zoo director and get a behind the scenes look at the challenges of zookeeping, look for "My Life in a Man Made Jungle," by Belle J. Benchly.