A Stretch, But Bear with Me Here

 We stopped going to Brookfield Zoo as a family because the summers were taken up with travel softball, so, it’s been a while.  That explains some of the shock Michele and I felt yesterday, along with the $34 admission for two.  Thank heavens we saved $10 by walking in instead of driving.

Along with museums and ballgames, the zoo used to be a summer staple for kids.  No more.  A family going to see the animals had better be prepared to pay, and pay.  Oh, and don’t expect to see that many animals.  Statues of animals, yes, but not the real thing.  As God is my witness, we saw two lion statues to one lion at the lion exhibit.

In place of animals were ever so many places to spend money on food and souvenirs.  There were also signs everywhere telling us how we could save particular species along with the environment.  Message received.  So, why not just make a contribution to the World Wildlife Fund instead of walking around to find where the bears have been moved?

I’m old enough to remember when they sold marshmallows at the zoo to feed to said bears; as a kid, I also saw bears begging for sweet rolls and elephants being pelted with peanuts whether or not they put out their trunks.  It was all very amusing, but not at all good for the animals.  Even though major zoos have stopped that sort of thing, they continue to face extraordinary pressure from animal-rights’ groups challenging their very existence.  I’ve heard PETA say kids can learn about animals by watching YouTube, a sentiment seconded by one of the zoo signs we saw yesterday.  From the looks of it, PETA has won, and zoos are on their way to extinction.

How sad.  Kids won’t know to watch the video if they haven’t seen the creature up close.  Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!  We see these as children, and we come away with an appreciation of nature.  Once you start depending on a screen to show this, you run the risk of Sponge Bob getting in the way.

Already, there is a generation of Chicagoans that has never seen an elephant at the zoo.  I get the criticisms—these glorious animals need space and numbers to be truly happy as social creatures, and why would they want to deal with Chicago winters?  Fair enough, but poachers don’t feel that same concern for their prey.  It’s time to rethink how zoos work, not to close them down or turn the experience into another day at Great America, with the smell of manure added in.

The future will be a function of land and money.  With both, zoos can have the same number of species as before while giving them the space they require to thrive.  Zoos with limited funding and/or expansion possibilities need to specialize on what animals they want to show.  As for major urban areas like New York and Chicago, the elephants have to stay in order to work their magic and majesty on young imaginations.  There has to be a way to create warm spaces in January short of putting elephants in a pen.  We owe it to ourselves and the animals to try.