The Otter's Sunglasses
Apr. 18th, 2006 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maxcelcatI dragged myself and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
evildoom_bunny around the Melbourne Zoo today. Took us about three hours, although we were too late to see the frogs...
And... I don't know... It's interesting to see all these wild animals, at one level, but at the same time, it's really depressing seeing them pressed into little cages. Even the elephant enclosure, which must take up fully 30% of the zoo, didn't stop the elephants standing around and swaying back and forth. A sure sign of a bored despondent animal.
Indeed, almost all the animals seemed to be more or less miserable, except the busy small mammals, the seals and the penguins. The seals swum back and forth with a look of utter contentment, the penguins were standing in ranks like a church full of nuns. But the tigers and other cats paced round and around, the gibbons sat on their little shelf, the giant tortoises slept. Which is typical of reptiles, I confess.
I understand that many of these animals are not going to survive in the wild (there's a whole other topic) and that the zoos play a vital roll in preserving the genetic diversity of the planet. But...
And I understand that millions of kids - we were almost the only people there without a child in tow - get a buzz from seeing these animals. But...
I felt really intensely sorry for all the creatures there, demonstrating for all the world that nature is so under our thumb. I also felt an intense pang of the Travel Bug, to go see the Capybara in it's native landscape.
The Zoo also seems to be a magnet for Parents. The whole place was infested with a large number of Humans, and most of them were pushing those humongous three-wheeled vehicles which pass for prams these days. So many kids!
I think I'll not be back there again, although from memory the Werribee Plans Zoo is far superior, the animals lope about in groups that are unlikely to eat each other, in huge fields.
Possibly the happiest animal there was a little otter who'd found a pair of cheap sunglasses dropped by a visitor, and was busily trying to eat them.
evildoom_bunny around the Melbourne Zoo today. Took us about three hours, although we were too late to see the frogs...And... I don't know... It's interesting to see all these wild animals, at one level, but at the same time, it's really depressing seeing them pressed into little cages. Even the elephant enclosure, which must take up fully 30% of the zoo, didn't stop the elephants standing around and swaying back and forth. A sure sign of a bored despondent animal.
Indeed, almost all the animals seemed to be more or less miserable, except the busy small mammals, the seals and the penguins. The seals swum back and forth with a look of utter contentment, the penguins were standing in ranks like a church full of nuns. But the tigers and other cats paced round and around, the gibbons sat on their little shelf, the giant tortoises slept. Which is typical of reptiles, I confess.
I understand that many of these animals are not going to survive in the wild (there's a whole other topic) and that the zoos play a vital roll in preserving the genetic diversity of the planet. But...
And I understand that millions of kids - we were almost the only people there without a child in tow - get a buzz from seeing these animals. But...
I felt really intensely sorry for all the creatures there, demonstrating for all the world that nature is so under our thumb. I also felt an intense pang of the Travel Bug, to go see the Capybara in it's native landscape.
The Zoo also seems to be a magnet for Parents. The whole place was infested with a large number of Humans, and most of them were pushing those humongous three-wheeled vehicles which pass for prams these days. So many kids!
I think I'll not be back there again, although from memory the Werribee Plans Zoo is far superior, the animals lope about in groups that are unlikely to eat each other, in huge fields.
Possibly the happiest animal there was a little otter who'd found a pair of cheap sunglasses dropped by a visitor, and was busily trying to eat them.
