The Moral Question: How do you deal with negative comments about zoos?

Since the release of the Movie That Shall Not Be Named (MTSNBN), things have... changed, at zoos. In fact, things are almost volatile. It's more common for people to balk when they find out what I do for a living now than to think it's cool or ask me questions.

And frankly, it's heartbreaking. 

As a writer, I've tried so hard on this blog to counteract the damage that MTSNBN has done, but it seems people are choosing the popular path when it comes to how they feel about zoos. They've been emotionally manipulated into believing it's wrong instead of doing their own research or taking action against the real enemies, i.e., poaching, wildlife trafficking, sensationalist "animal welfare" organizations, and climate change. 

It's exhausting. Some days, it makes me question my sanity. It makes me question my career decisions. It makes me wonder if I'm a horrible person. 

Let me make something quite clear: I don't know a single zoo employee who doesn't love the animals in their care as if they were their children. We take better care of our animals than most people take care of their pets. We devote our lives to them. We stay awake for days at a time when they're sick. We're constantly looking for new and creative ways to enrich them. We're always trying not to think too hard about the battles their wild cousins face, because it breaks our hearts. 

And talking to someone who has already made up their mind about how evil zoos are and is looking for a reason to be proven right feels like yelling at a wall. 

Perhaps it's time to stop calling them zoos. Perhaps it's time to shift away from that word, like we shifted away from menagerie, and start calling them what they really are. Except "Environmental Conservation and Wildlife Science Facility" doesn't roll off the tongue quite the same. 

I've been pretty lucky so far that I haven't had any major encounters with anti-zoo visitors at my job. For the most part, unless they're undercover for An Organization That Shall Not Be Named Either, people who don't like zoos don't tend to go to them. But I have had some bad luck in my personal life. 

There's a person I know very well who's vocally anti-zoo, pro-MTSNBN. And it frustrates me to no end. Because she should know better. She should know that I'm not a cruel person. But I think I finally changed her mind. Or at least opened the door for her to do it. 

I told her, a few weeks ago, about what's going on in Africa. How dozens of species will be extinct in the next 20 years thanks to poaching and wildlife trafficking. How zoos may be the only place people will get to see those animals. How without zoos keeping those animals now, we wouldn't understand their social and breeding behavior and be working towards saving them. 

How ultimately, we work to release animals back into the wild. 

I told her about tigers, and how there's more tigers in backyards in the US than left in the wild. 

I told her about the California condor, and how there were only 22 left in the wild thirty years ago, and now there's more than 400, and that's ONLY thanks to zoos. 

As for marine animals? Well. The thing that's particularly frustrating to me about that whole thing is that SeaWorld is the only reason most people know what a killer whale is. Until the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed in 1972, it was legal for the US Navy to use them for target practice. They were seen as scary, dispensable monsters. Now millions of people love them, all because of what SeaWorld has done. And no, their early practices weren't sound, but we knew so little about animals back then (yes, even fifty years ago), and their animal care now is top notch. 

Ocean animals are so hard to pinpoint in population, but rest assured with climate change and rising ocean temperatures, they're all not long from being endangered, too. 

And finally, I told her how what I want from her is to be getting mad at the people who ARE actually doing the harm. Get mad at the poachers. Get mad at the traffickers. Get mad at the roadside "zoos" who breed exotic animals for tourists to pose with and then send them off to be killed in canned hunting expeditions. 

Don't get mad at the (usual disclaimer: responsible, accredited) zoos. Honestly. We're the good guys. Trust me when I say, we care more about the animals in our care than ANYONE else. 

Zoo Rant Week Follow-up: Let's talk about poaching

Find my Zoo Rant Week series here (this post links to the previous four).

There are currently five species of rhinos left in the world: northern white rhinos, southern white rhinos, black rhinos, Sumatran and Javan. One of those species, the northern white, has only four surviving members left on the entire planet.

The remaining four are under 24-hour armed guard in Africa, but are either not interested in breeding or are too old or too young. We are watching the extinction of a species, and they're far from alone in their predicament.

Last year, over a thousand rhinos were poached for their horns in South Africa alone. In some cultures, rhino horn is seen as a medicine, or a health supplement, or a rare ceremonial decoration. But a rhino's horn is made of keratin, the same protein that makes up our fingernails and hair. It grows back, just like our nails and hair do. There's nothing magical or medicinal about rhino horn. It would be the same as trying to cure a cold by eating your hair.

But rhino horn is a lucrative business for shady people. And the message that it's a medicine is so ingrained in the cultures that believe it that it would be like telling Americans that Vitamin C doesn't help prevent colds. (Spoiler: it doesn't. But I bet you know someone who thinks so). We can get into the placebo effect later; the important thing is that rhino horn contains nothing special.

In the regions where rhinos are found, there is a war going on every single day between poachers and those who wish to protect the rhinos. Every time the anti-poaching strategists come up with something new, like poisoning the horns (harmless to the rhinos, and marked with a bright pink dye) or removing the horns regularly (since they grow back), the poachers either find a way around it or kill the rhinos anyway out of spite.

And the situation doesn't stop with rhinos. Also popular animals to poach: tigers, cheetahs, leopards (most big cats, really). Gorillas. Sea Turtles. Elephants. Well, here. See a bigger list for yourself.

All of these animals are in danger due to poaching. The three at biggest threat currently are rhinos, elephants, and tigers. As mentioned during my zoo rant week, there are more tigers in backyards in the US than there are left in the wild. Without zoos making serious efforts to breed them responsibly (i.e., with an eye for ample genetic diversity and health), we could also expect tigers to go extinct during our lifetime. This may happen even despite our efforts.

Long story short: if you're looking for someone to hate when it comes to wild animals, hate poachers. Be verbal about the fact that these things aren't medicine, or pretty-- they're far prettier on the animals they come from. Pass legislation against poaching (yes, it even happens here in America). And above all, when you travel, don't buy animal parts as trinkets. No matter how small, or where the person selling them says they came from. Ever.

But don't hate zoos. We're really not the bad guys. We're doing the best we can in an uphill battle against climate change, poaching, and public opinion.

As usual, thanks for reading.

PS-- The New York Times just today published an excellent article about the widespread effects climate change can and will and is already having on the planet, the plants, and the animals. There's a lot in here that directly affects you and I. I suggest taking a look!

Zoo Rant Week: What the future holds for zoos, and a few closing thoughts

Read part one here.
Read part two here.
Read part three here.
Read part four here.

We've been on a journey this week. If you're reading this far, thanks for putting up with my rant.

I want to make it very clear that I don't have all the answers. I am constantly learning, and I'm the type of person who will always, always take in new information, consider it, and add it to my opinions on things. That said, I don't really see a near future where we won't need zoos for the reasons I've described. When it comes down to it, zoos may be the only places we can get to see some animals in the future. They already are, for a select unfortunate few species.

If we continue down our current path, zoos may be the only place we see wildlife in the future.

That's not a world I want to live in, or leave to my children. But the frustration is that we live in a very polarized political climate. On the one hand, I get it-- yes, it's scary. Sometimes it's easier to live in denial than accept a truth that doesn't sound changeable. But on the other hand, even if you don't believe in climate change, why would you not want to do anything in your power to make this planet a better place to live?

And then there are the folks who think all zoos are bad. There are certainly some zoos out there that aren't great, or may even be downright bad. But as I mentioned at the start of the week, there are a few easy ways you can find good zoos to support. And a 1.5 hour "documentary"* is not a good place to go looking for zoos to avoid.

So what is the future of zoos? Well, assuming this slippery path of legislature against certain animals in zoos doesn't hold up, I think the future of zoos is bright. I know this, because the people who work in zoos are driven by passion, compassion, and a drive to change the world. We work with these animals not just because of some pipe dream leftover from when we were children (though that certainly sparked many of us to head in this direction), but because it's hard not to care once you learn what's really facing these animals.

I go to work every day and I have the chance to save species and change lives and maybe even better the world. That's a pretty heavy responsibility, for someone who spends most of their day picking up some form of poo. One of my extracurricular goals each day at work is to look at my animals, my exhibits, and myself, and ask what I can be doing better. What can I do more of, what can I add to my routine, what can I suggest to my bosses? And then I implement it, and I do this every single day.

Zoos will never be static. We will always be striving to do more, because we know and recognize that the system isn't perfect (no system is!), and we've come such a long way in the last forty years alone that we can only dream of what's ahead. But if we're not given the chance to improve, to keep working toward a better and brighter zoo, the only thing that can replace us is worldwide change.

Which is why it makes even less sense to me that SeaWorld has recognized that people want to see change, come up with and implemented a plan, and it's making people angrier at them.

So that's it. Those are my thoughts. Like I said, they may not be the right answers, but this is what I've been wanting to say for a long time. This is the most political I'll ever get on my blog. I hope someone out there got something positive from this and thanks, again, no matter how you feel, for reading.

*I use the word documentary regarding BLACKFISH loosely, because on its original release, the film's own website referred to it as a psychological thriller.

Zoo Rant Week: Why ocean animals are tricky to talk about

Read part one here.
Read part two here.
Read part three here.

This whole rant is thanks to BLACKFISH, and most of my examples so far have been land animals. So it's time to talk about the ocean, the animals that live there, and why there's no easy answer to any argument about them.

It boils down to this, and it's pretty common sense:

The ocean is huge.

There are tens of millions of species that live in the ocean.

We haven't even scraped a corner of a piece of a smidge off the everything there is to know about the ocean.

The Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean, was visited once in 1960 by a manned submersible, and only three other times by robotic subs. We've been to the moon more times than the deepest part of our own planet.

But, somehow, we're still making it a miserable place for animals to live.

Did you know there's a giant floating island of garbage in the middle of the Pacific?

Did you know there are international sanctions and agreements against whaling, but several countries openly ignore those sanctions and do it anyway? For whatever reason, it's not considered poaching, because it's the ocean.

Did you know that if we don't find a way to reverse or even just stop climate change, we can expect rising sea levels and changes in the makeup of our oceans that could cause mass extinctions of many different species, not only in the water, but on land?

SeaWorld is one of only two facilities in the world that have successfully bred emperor penguins outside of Antarctica. These birds require extremely specialized care and conditions to successfully breed, and their habitat is threatened every day by the loss of Antarctic sea ice, rising sea levels, and warmer summer extremes in the Antarctic.

Having said all that, the biggest challenge that faces us in the debate about zoos keeping whales and dolphins is that we simply don't know everything about sea animals. It's impossible to study them thoroughly in the wild. All the speculation about the lifespans of whales is just that: speculation. We haven't been recording the same animals for long enough to know for sure how long they live. But they certainly face more challenges in the wild than they do in a zoo, and their average lifespans are certainly not the oft-spouted high numbers. My great-grandmother lived to be 106, but that doesn't mean I will. Nor will most people.

Sea animals present us with a number of challenges because we simply can't say anything for certain about their lifestyles and habits. We can guess, but we can't know. At least not yet.

In the meantime, we do everything we can to keep our animals healthy, mentally and physically.

Tomorrow: What the future holds for zoos

Zoo Rant Week: Why education and conservation matter

In case you missed it, I'm talking about zoos and BLACKFISH this week. Yesterday was all about why zoos are important for the environment. Today, I'm narrowing that down even further.

I mentioned in my inaugural post that you should look for a zoo that does work with education and conservation if you're looking for a responsible zoo to support.

Public education is one of the best things a zoo can do for itself and the animals in its care. At my zoo, we offer guided tours, interpretive staff, and education programs for school children. We have camps and overnight programs, as well as daily keeper talks and animal presentations. We have signage on all our exhibits and offer online resources through our website. On top of that, each animal area is staffed with knowledgeable employees who are experts on our animals and facility. It's literally as easy as asking to learn. And that is crucial in the fight against extinction.

By fostering public knowledge, we can combat misinformation, including things like the fact that rhino horn isn't medicine (it's actually made up entirely of keratin, the same protein as our fingernails and hair). Or that climate change is really doing a number on animal populations. Or that you can really, truly make a huge difference to local wildlife by following all the rules you learned as a kid: turn off the lights when you leave a room. Recycle. Don't litter. And so forth.

My goal every time I open my mouth and talk to a guest at my zoo is to send them away either having learned something new or caring a little bit more than they did before they spoke to me. Why? Well, aside from wanting to do my job well, I know that the more people care about things, the more likely they are to take action. Whether it's doing any of the little things above, or voting pro-environment in the next election, I want them to hear how they can make a difference. It's so easy to see all of this as someone else's problem. But it's all of ours. It's up to all of us to fix it.

Now, the reason conservation work is important should be glaringly obvious, but you may not realize the extent your local zoo goes to in doing so. Many zoos around the world collaborate with each other to study different habitats and animals. Many zoos even have their own research institutions attached. Including SeaWorld, actually. The goal of these research institutions is to identify why animals and habitats are endangered and find ways to help them.

These facilities, as I mentioned yesterday, are crucial to saving animal species.

The controversial thing I want to say today is this:

That caring that I mentioned earlier? It doesn't happen if people don't have the chance to see these animals. It's really easy to think of the coatimundi, for example, as a South American problem, because most people in the US don't live with coatimundis in their backyards. If you've never heard of these animals, why should you care what happens to them? If you've never seen one in person, it's too simple to say that they don't matter.

Zoo animals do not (if they are living in a responsible zoo) have a bad life. People have this romantic vision of the wild and the "freedom" these animals are missing, but the wild is shrinking every day, and the freedoms out there are more and more often certain death at the hands of humans. Life in a zoo isn't bad. They're treated with the best care we're capable of giving them. It's actually my job to take the best care of my animals that I can. I spend 8 hours a day ensuring their comfort and well-being. In my free time, I educate people.

We need animals in zoos because most people are not going to travel to South America in their lifetime. If they do, they likely won't see or hear of a coatimundi. Same goes for polar bears, and snow leopards, and so on and so forth a hundred thousand times over. The best way we can get people to care about these animals and their plights is to show them why they should care.


Tomorrow: Why ocean animals are a sticky subject

Zoo Rant Week: Why zoos are important for the environment

This week we're talking about all the things I wish people understood about zoos and the role they play in our world.

One of the things that's driving me crazy about BLACKFISH's influence are the folks whose response to the film is to "set the whales free" or even pass legislation to keep them (or any other animal) from being kept in a zoo.

Well, that is about the single worst thing you could do for any animal on this planet.

I won't get into the politics here. Climate change is happening, and we are at fault. Regardless of how you feel about that subject, you should at least accept that humans are extremely damaging to our planet. We litter. We sprawl. We poach. We fight wars. We build. We mow down habitats. Wild animals simply aren't safe. They are, in fact, safer in zoos, in the case of many species.

I've had the opportunity to work with some animals that are extirpated, or, extinct in the wild. They wouldn't exist anymore if it weren't for zoos.

While not extirpated (yet), it recently came to light that there are currently more tigers in private ownership in the United States than there are in the wild.

And there are creatures like the Pere David's deer. The Arabian oryx. The northern white rhino. All extinct in the wild. Their only hope of survival is zoos.

Finally, if you need some proof of what climate change will do to the rest of the planet, there's the plight of the polar bear.

The single biggest followup I hear zoo detractors make to this point is:

Why should I care if a few species go extinct?

Well, this is one of those questions that is almost impossible to answer. I can't tell you why you should care from an emotional standpoint (though you should), because we still live in a world where most people see animals as fourth-class citizens.

If the emotional side of things doesn't appeal to you, the biological imperative behind them might.

Every habitat on the planet has an ecosystem. This ecosystem is like a well-oiled machine: all the parts are there, it works flawlessly, you never have to think about it. But if you take out a single piece, or weaken it, suddenly the machine doesn't work so well anymore. And by the time you notice it's not functioning properly, it might be too late to fix it.

I'm beating you over the head with this analogy. I'm sure you've worked it out for yourself. (Hint: the animals [and plants, and insects, etc.] are the parts of the machine). So what happens when you take out one of these pieces? What's happening to the ecosystems that have lost so many tigers, or oryx, or deer?

Let me tell you a story that hits a little close to home (literally) for most of us here in the US.

The black-tailed prairie dog, a small rodent from the plains of middle America, is seen as a pest by most farmers. Like many rodents, they can be a bit destructive. Farmers dislike them because they pick on their crops. But when efforts to eradicate prairie dogs succeeded, something unintended started happening, too. Other animals began to die off, like the black-footed ferret, who used old prairie dog tunnels for their own homes. Animals that were responsible for killing other small pests like mice and rats. Which in turn made the crops suffer more. It turns out that the black-tailed prairie dog is what's known as a keystone species: it holds up the ecosystem.

In areas where we've driven away wolves and shoot coyotes and other predators on sight to protect livestock, there tends to be an overabundance of deer and other herbivores, who overeat plants and therefore destroy food and habitat for other species. When their native food source is gone, they spill over into human territory, causing car accidents and ruining-- you guessed it, more crops, and people's gardens.

This holds true in every ecosystem. No matter where you are in the world, removing a piece of the puzzle ruins the whole image. One species lost damages everything else, including us.

Obviously the world has lost species before and continues right on. But we are damaging things at a greater scale than we were even fifty years ago. And it's only going to get worse. Where will it stop?

We don't know. We can't predict how far it will go, how long it will take before we can all agree to do something about it and actually get it done. What we can do, though, is start preparing for the worst, and doing our best to ensure if that does happen, these animals won't be gone forever. We will have them around, thanks to zoos.





Tomorrow: Why education and conservation matter

Zoo Rant Week: Introduction

I considered writing these posts for a long time, but I think now's my chance.

There was a documentary released in 2013 called BLACKFISH. I've touched on it briefly here on the blog, and chances are you've either seen it or heard of it by now. Since the release of BLACKFISH, there has been a new wave of mainstream activism that is anti-zoo in general, and anti-SeaWorld in particular.

This is extremely troubling to me. Zoos can be a sensitive subject for many people, and even for me, admittedly. As a child, I wasn't quite able to rationalize them. But having worked for many reputable facilities in my career (including SeaWorld), I can now say with complete confidence that the world very much needs zoos. Responsible zoos, at least. And yes, that includes SeaWorld. I am not necessarily pro- or anti- SeaWorld specifically, but I am incredibly pro-responsible zoo. Responsible zoos need all the help they can get.

This week I'll be putting up a few different posts explaining why. This is not an anti-BLACKFISH post-- I will NOT be refuting the film directly, as there are plenty of excellent posts out there doing so, much more eloquently and succinctly than I could ever hope to. (One of the links above is SeaWorld's own list of erroneous BLACKFISH points. I see the conflict of interest there, however, as a former employee who worked closely with the killer whale trainers and was also involved in animal care, I do not see anything in there that I don't believe to be the truth).

Instead, I hope to explain the other side. Plain and simple, if you've bought into the bias that BLACKFISH has to offer, you do not know the whole story. You simply can't watch a 1.5 hour documentary, search the internet for facts that support it, and consider yourself to be an expert. I don't mean this accusingly. I'm hoping if you're reading this that you want to know more. I'm hoping I can still change your mind.

We need zoos. Believe it or not, we need SeaWorld.

I will be turning off comments on these posts because I don't have the time or wherewithal to deal with trolls et al. Individuals who want to know more or have genuine questions can feel free to email me directly.

So. Today, we'll start off with a little zoo history, and a couple points that will be important this week.

The past, the present, and the future

Zoos originally began as the menageries of the wealthy and powerful. Kings and nobles would collect and display exotic or rare animals as a show of their reach (and riches). As the centuries went on, zoos became less private and more public. Those same kings and nobles wanted not only their compatriots but also their subjects to be awed by the collections of animals they maintained. Eventually, someone got the bright idea to charge for admission, and the modern-day independently owned zoo was born.

The thing about zoos is that they are ever-improving. From literal cages with bars to the most naturalistic habitats we are capable of building. From chains, whips, and chairs to positive reinforcement and even hands-off care. The people who work in zoos in our modern world are there because they care about their animals. There's always more we can do to improve, but even in the last forty years, we've come a long, long way.

The future of zookeeping is either grim or hopeful. We stand at a crossroads right now with the public opinion swaying in the breeze. But if zoos fall victim to the hype, we stand to lose so much (more on this later).

What do I mean by a responsible zoo?

Generally speaking, a responsible zoo is one that fosters education and, more importantly, conservation of the animals in its care. Obviously the care they take of their animals is paramount, but as an outsider, it can be hard to tell whether animal care is "good" or not. Much of what goes on daily in a zoo can easily be mistaken for either good or bad care, and unless you're in the field it can be hard to tell the difference. So, the easiest way to tell as an outsider is to look for education AND conservation programs. The zoo should offer some form of both of these.

In the United States, the best way to tell if a zoo is following animal care guidelines is to look for accreditation by the AZA and the USDA. Zoos that carry these accreditations will usually say so on their websites. (Note: this does not apply to very small operations, like exotic animal rescues and nature centers. There, you will have to use your best judgment, but you can look for education and conservation again as a clue).

Okay, so, what is conservation, exactly?

Conservation means the zoo is interested in helping the environment, specifically the animal species in their care. Many zoos participate in the Species Survival Plan (or SSP) for various endangered species. An SSP is basically a studbook for all the zoo-kept animals of a particular species. That way, we can breed them responsibly to ensure the best genetic diversity.

But conservation can also be closer to home. SeaWorld, for example, does local marine mammal rescue, rehabilitation, and release. They also have a facility designed entirely to help with oiled wildlife recovery during catastrophic oil spills. I was fortunate enough in my time there to be trained in the recovery of oiled birds, which is an undertaking that requires tons of manpower and resources, and was done in addition to our regular keeper duties, all behind the scenes.

And what about education?

Okay look. I know you probably know what education is. But at a zoo, the things you should look for are guided tours, signage at exhibits, and public presentations.



Stay tuned this week. Tomorrow: why zoos are so important to the environment.