In the Koko the gorilla documentary I watched last night, the San Francisco Zoo director in 1978 outlines the zoo-keeper complaint against the Koko project: it denies her of her essential gorilla-ness. This seems to be the complaint of the keepers I volunteer with as well; they don't think that it's right for Koko to live outside a family unit in a trailer and wear a leash. And, it's true that in the film Dr. Penny at one point reprimands Koko for biting Michael, a perfectly normal adolescent gorilla behavior. Zoo keepers recognize that the zoo is an artificial environment, but they try to restore as much "wildness" to the animals as is safe and serves their purpose of education, research and conservation. Of course, the orangs eat cooked pasta and work on computers and the gorillas play with plastic stools, but they try to maintain their "wild" social dynamics without much interference.It seems like a bind to me. You want to exhibit wild animals, but by necessity you need to control their reproduction and health and environments. But, there's always that risk that they may become more "wild" than you allow. I don't worry about this with our apes but it's always on my mind; we follow the safety rules very carefully but they are seven times stronger than a person of the same weight and they're definitely very "ape."
4 comments:
This quote is sad, yet also a little weird.
"It's not a safe place for kids," said his mother, Marilza Sousa [about the zoo]. "People go there to have a good time, not to get killed."
Sad, weird, and true.
It's sad gorillas play with plastic stools. They should get to play with their real poo-poo stools.
Mandara does plenty of that with her real stool.
But the plastic stools are one of their favorites-- they get to move them around and sit on them and balance them on their heads. They enjoy them.
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