The Place We Call The Zoo
I’ve always had somewhat conflicted feelings about zoos. I understand the conservation role the largest play, but the zoo-as-attraction unnerves me even as I enjoy it.
It’s my mild claustrophobia, mostly. Looking at a snake, and I don’t much like snakes, I can imagine myself living in the odd rhomboid of habitat with its attendant wall of glass. The animals don’t have to be cute or anthropomorphic for me to identify with their plight. Even as the habitats have become larger and more authentic, so far beyond the grey concrete blocs of feces-carpeted cells I remember from elementary school field trips in upstate NY in the late ‘70s, I can’t look at them without thinking, “trapped.”
Today’s visit to the local zoo (so forward-thinking they nabbed zoo.org as their url), did little to settle my conflicts. Don’t get me wrong – we’re zoo members and love it, but it isn’t untainted love.
Let me start with the Zoomazium, because that’s where we usually start anyway. It’s at the zoo, it’s part museum, and it’s amazing – Zoomazium. Really a bunch of climbable rock formations and a tree to help burn juice off the kids on gloomier days, a toddler play area within line of sight of some big cushy chairs so mother’s can breastfeed, and a tent, desk and racks of stuff for the Nature Exchange, which I’ll get to in just a moment.
After scrambling about for a bit, Liv and I ventured into the Nature Exchange tent to see what was what. A bunch of kids filled one table looking at a couple books together, and an “older” volunteer was trying to push through them to retrieve a small storage chest. Wrestling it out, she looked at us and said “You wanna make some bugs?”
Of course we did. We’ve made bugs here before. So older volunteer lady started pulling bug parts out of the storage chest and setting them on the empty table, and we started making bugs. After she’s been sitting there, morosely scattering thoraxes, mandibles, wings and such, she winces in pain. “Gahd, to they have to screech like that.” And she looks up at me, pissy, as though I am going to agree, “Yeah, noisy fuckin’ kids.”
This lady is a volunteer at Zoomazium. Remember – zoo + museum + amazing? Does that sound like a place kids are going to be quiet? Or might you guess, when applying for the position, that the laughter of children will be part of the job? I checked her ankle for a bracelet, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe this was community service, but no such luck.
After we built a few bugs, we went over to the Nature Exchange desk to turn in a couple of bird cards we made last summer (took pictures of birds at Discovery Park and used WhatBird(great site) to find out what they were and printed it all up on a nifty card). I had grave reservations about this program, or, more pointedly, the ability of the zoo to administer it. When volunteers first started pitching it last summer, they babbled through some vague “you can build a bug or do a scavenger hunt, or bring things in, and earn points!” nonsense, and responded to any questions with the exact same Carroll-esque spiel. Their were hints of promise in there, but I could never get anyone to explain what exactly we were supposed to do, which, as an old ENTROS game guide and guide trainer, just baffled me. I even emailed the program director at the zoo, and her response was pretty much “it’s new.”
But, damn, they have got their act together now. Liv brought the two cards (Hairy Woodpecker and Mallard) to the lady at the desk, and said lady engaged Liv in at least a five-minute discussion about birds, and these birds in general. She didn’t talk down to Liv but kept her interest, and I even learned that when ducks eat with their bottoms in the air, that’s called “dabbling,” which is a fact that delights me. And, she gave us a few other directed activities, including an animal observation exercise we did with gorillas.
Score one for the zoo.
So, my outlook on the upswing, Liv and I headed off for some animal-looking-at-ing. She digs the jaguar, but he was sleeping and their were so many noisy kids in that area that Livvie covered her ears and said we had to leave because they were too loud.
After that were the Day/Night exhibits. The Day side was uneventful, other than my heart breaking just a little at the indignity suffered the grass snakes they have living in a country still life, complete with little antiqued abandoned wagon wheel. The Night side was very cool because I distracted Liv long enough in the entry exhibit for her eyes to adjust to the light, and then she astounded me with her ability to find the nocturnal critters better than me and roughly a thousand times better than the group of guys who marched through, ignoring the “please be quiet” and “give your eyes time to adjust” signs and loudly asking “what, aren’t there any friggin’ animals in here?” Between all of that and the bush baby that launched himself onto the plate glass and stared at us with bulbous eyes screaming “LET ME OUTTA HERE!”, I think the whole building resulted in a zero sum game.
Daddy Dumbass forgot to pack snacks, and we were deep into lunch time, so we had to hit a zoo concessions stand. They call them concessions because you have to make concessions to the ridiculous prices they have ask you to pay, and I get that, I expect that, but must the food also suck? The three dollar bottle of orange juice was bad enough, but for another three bucks I expect the soft pretzel to have a more tender consistency than a MilkBone.
I’m taking a point away for that pretzel. Zoo food should at least be better than prison food. (But, wait, is there a diff… no, stop it, just enjoy the pretty animals!)
Walking up to the raptor exhibit, I thought we were happening upon another example of cranky staff. A woman was leaning over the fence cluck-tutting at an owl that a trainer was holding, insistent that the bird make some noise for her, when the trainer said “It’s not a parrot. It’s a raptor.”
Now, I was all ready to put a check in the con category here, until the woman replied “But, I thought it was an owl,” then looked at us with an expression of disbelief that was obscured by the crazy written all over her face. The trainer tried to be more patient after that while the woman nodded over long sips of her bottled Frappucino and then interrupted the trainer mid-sentence to ask where the bathroom was.
I liked the trainer better, but this is a zero sum, too, because of where it segued.
Already, on this unexpectedly sunny day, the crowds at the zoo were getting to me. Not their size, but their make-up. Ever notice how much zoo patrons remind you of bus station patrons? Or the folks lined up with you at the DMV?
As we rounded the corner coming out of Willawong station and skirted the emu and wallaby enclosure, I noticed a group in front of us. Handful of kids ranging from probably six to twelve or thirteen, and two women. Two big, fat, foul-mouthed, slovenly women. Remember the Sir Mix-a-lot song Bremelo? Them chicks. The kind that always seem to have thin, greasy hair pulled tight up on their head into a limp imitation of a ponytail.
Anyway, the whole group had been sitting on some rocks across the path from the enclosure, and were getting up to move on. The oldest boy got up from the rock less-than-quickly. I might call it “at a moderately insolent pace” at the very worst. And, one of these troglotrolls starts slapping the kid in the face, telling him he better get up faster when she talks to him. And not even the kind of full slap that might at least make him a man to take, but the little half-ass pokes and swipes, one after another, that just humiliate. I wanted so badly to say something, to point out that it wasn’t helping, and might conceivably have felt justified if she had really walloped him. But, this was obviously a woman that would escalate, and I had Liv with me, and I know how I can get, and I just, well, didn’t. (Sure put me in mind of the spanking law discussion we had here.)
I wish I could say she was the only shitty parent I saw today, that he was the only kid I saw bullied and/or berated today, but the place was just sick with them. More than I’ve seen anywhere else (maybe because I don’t ever, ever go to the mall). Is it just that the zoo is the lowest-barrier-to-entry somewhat-educational attraction around? You can walk around outside, look at animals, try to get the to behave to your standards, disrespect their space, and still feel as though your doing something for your kids?
Our last stop on the way out crystallized my conflicted feelings. We stopped back at the jaguar exhibit to see if he had woken up and found yet another school group, older this time, probably about fifth-graders, boy-heavy so they annoyed me more right away. They were all plastered against the glass, tapping, yelling, making faces, and the jaguar was pacing along that very patch of glass, quickly back-and-forth across maybe six feet, agitated, so badly wanting that glass to disappear so he could rampage. And, provided I could get Liv out, I kinda wanted that, too.
We’re still going to go to the zoo. Often, even. Liv is really attentive to learning about animals, I finally feel invested in the Nature Exchange and she and I have some projects planned out, ZooTunes is one of the best family events going.
But, and I think this will always be the case, the conflicts remain.
It’s my mild claustrophobia, mostly. Looking at a snake, and I don’t much like snakes, I can imagine myself living in the odd rhomboid of habitat with its attendant wall of glass. The animals don’t have to be cute or anthropomorphic for me to identify with their plight. Even as the habitats have become larger and more authentic, so far beyond the grey concrete blocs of feces-carpeted cells I remember from elementary school field trips in upstate NY in the late ‘70s, I can’t look at them without thinking, “trapped.”
Today’s visit to the local zoo (so forward-thinking they nabbed zoo.org as their url), did little to settle my conflicts. Don’t get me wrong – we’re zoo members and love it, but it isn’t untainted love.
Let me start with the Zoomazium, because that’s where we usually start anyway. It’s at the zoo, it’s part museum, and it’s amazing – Zoomazium. Really a bunch of climbable rock formations and a tree to help burn juice off the kids on gloomier days, a toddler play area within line of sight of some big cushy chairs so mother’s can breastfeed, and a tent, desk and racks of stuff for the Nature Exchange, which I’ll get to in just a moment.
After scrambling about for a bit, Liv and I ventured into the Nature Exchange tent to see what was what. A bunch of kids filled one table looking at a couple books together, and an “older” volunteer was trying to push through them to retrieve a small storage chest. Wrestling it out, she looked at us and said “You wanna make some bugs?”
Of course we did. We’ve made bugs here before. So older volunteer lady started pulling bug parts out of the storage chest and setting them on the empty table, and we started making bugs. After she’s been sitting there, morosely scattering thoraxes, mandibles, wings and such, she winces in pain. “Gahd, to they have to screech like that.” And she looks up at me, pissy, as though I am going to agree, “Yeah, noisy fuckin’ kids.”
This lady is a volunteer at Zoomazium. Remember – zoo + museum + amazing? Does that sound like a place kids are going to be quiet? Or might you guess, when applying for the position, that the laughter of children will be part of the job? I checked her ankle for a bracelet, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe this was community service, but no such luck.
After we built a few bugs, we went over to the Nature Exchange desk to turn in a couple of bird cards we made last summer (took pictures of birds at Discovery Park and used WhatBird(great site) to find out what they were and printed it all up on a nifty card). I had grave reservations about this program, or, more pointedly, the ability of the zoo to administer it. When volunteers first started pitching it last summer, they babbled through some vague “you can build a bug or do a scavenger hunt, or bring things in, and earn points!” nonsense, and responded to any questions with the exact same Carroll-esque spiel. Their were hints of promise in there, but I could never get anyone to explain what exactly we were supposed to do, which, as an old ENTROS game guide and guide trainer, just baffled me. I even emailed the program director at the zoo, and her response was pretty much “it’s new.”
But, damn, they have got their act together now. Liv brought the two cards (Hairy Woodpecker and Mallard) to the lady at the desk, and said lady engaged Liv in at least a five-minute discussion about birds, and these birds in general. She didn’t talk down to Liv but kept her interest, and I even learned that when ducks eat with their bottoms in the air, that’s called “dabbling,” which is a fact that delights me. And, she gave us a few other directed activities, including an animal observation exercise we did with gorillas.
Score one for the zoo.
So, my outlook on the upswing, Liv and I headed off for some animal-looking-at-ing. She digs the jaguar, but he was sleeping and their were so many noisy kids in that area that Livvie covered her ears and said we had to leave because they were too loud.
After that were the Day/Night exhibits. The Day side was uneventful, other than my heart breaking just a little at the indignity suffered the grass snakes they have living in a country still life, complete with little antiqued abandoned wagon wheel. The Night side was very cool because I distracted Liv long enough in the entry exhibit for her eyes to adjust to the light, and then she astounded me with her ability to find the nocturnal critters better than me and roughly a thousand times better than the group of guys who marched through, ignoring the “please be quiet” and “give your eyes time to adjust” signs and loudly asking “what, aren’t there any friggin’ animals in here?” Between all of that and the bush baby that launched himself onto the plate glass and stared at us with bulbous eyes screaming “LET ME OUTTA HERE!”, I think the whole building resulted in a zero sum game.
Daddy Dumbass forgot to pack snacks, and we were deep into lunch time, so we had to hit a zoo concessions stand. They call them concessions because you have to make concessions to the ridiculous prices they have ask you to pay, and I get that, I expect that, but must the food also suck? The three dollar bottle of orange juice was bad enough, but for another three bucks I expect the soft pretzel to have a more tender consistency than a MilkBone.
I’m taking a point away for that pretzel. Zoo food should at least be better than prison food. (But, wait, is there a diff… no, stop it, just enjoy the pretty animals!)
Walking up to the raptor exhibit, I thought we were happening upon another example of cranky staff. A woman was leaning over the fence cluck-tutting at an owl that a trainer was holding, insistent that the bird make some noise for her, when the trainer said “It’s not a parrot. It’s a raptor.”
Now, I was all ready to put a check in the con category here, until the woman replied “But, I thought it was an owl,” then looked at us with an expression of disbelief that was obscured by the crazy written all over her face. The trainer tried to be more patient after that while the woman nodded over long sips of her bottled Frappucino and then interrupted the trainer mid-sentence to ask where the bathroom was.
I liked the trainer better, but this is a zero sum, too, because of where it segued.
Already, on this unexpectedly sunny day, the crowds at the zoo were getting to me. Not their size, but their make-up. Ever notice how much zoo patrons remind you of bus station patrons? Or the folks lined up with you at the DMV?
As we rounded the corner coming out of Willawong station and skirted the emu and wallaby enclosure, I noticed a group in front of us. Handful of kids ranging from probably six to twelve or thirteen, and two women. Two big, fat, foul-mouthed, slovenly women. Remember the Sir Mix-a-lot song Bremelo? Them chicks. The kind that always seem to have thin, greasy hair pulled tight up on their head into a limp imitation of a ponytail.
Anyway, the whole group had been sitting on some rocks across the path from the enclosure, and were getting up to move on. The oldest boy got up from the rock less-than-quickly. I might call it “at a moderately insolent pace” at the very worst. And, one of these troglotrolls starts slapping the kid in the face, telling him he better get up faster when she talks to him. And not even the kind of full slap that might at least make him a man to take, but the little half-ass pokes and swipes, one after another, that just humiliate. I wanted so badly to say something, to point out that it wasn’t helping, and might conceivably have felt justified if she had really walloped him. But, this was obviously a woman that would escalate, and I had Liv with me, and I know how I can get, and I just, well, didn’t. (Sure put me in mind of the spanking law discussion we had here.)
I wish I could say she was the only shitty parent I saw today, that he was the only kid I saw bullied and/or berated today, but the place was just sick with them. More than I’ve seen anywhere else (maybe because I don’t ever, ever go to the mall). Is it just that the zoo is the lowest-barrier-to-entry somewhat-educational attraction around? You can walk around outside, look at animals, try to get the to behave to your standards, disrespect their space, and still feel as though your doing something for your kids?
Our last stop on the way out crystallized my conflicted feelings. We stopped back at the jaguar exhibit to see if he had woken up and found yet another school group, older this time, probably about fifth-graders, boy-heavy so they annoyed me more right away. They were all plastered against the glass, tapping, yelling, making faces, and the jaguar was pacing along that very patch of glass, quickly back-and-forth across maybe six feet, agitated, so badly wanting that glass to disappear so he could rampage. And, provided I could get Liv out, I kinda wanted that, too.
We’re still going to go to the zoo. Often, even. Liv is really attentive to learning about animals, I finally feel invested in the Nature Exchange and she and I have some projects planned out, ZooTunes is one of the best family events going.
But, and I think this will always be the case, the conflicts remain.
posted by JJisafool at 11:54 PM
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