Focus 580; A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain Future

In this part of focus 580 will be talking about Zeus about their history their past their present and their future and our guest for the program. As someone who has worked as a zoo designer and director he's worked at a couple of very highly regarded zoos in this country and the moment he's making his home in Australia where he is director of the open range zoo and worry be he is also the author of a book that will be talking about that's come out recently it's titled a different nature the paradoxical world of Zoos and their uncertain future. It's published by the University of California Press in which he makes the argument that to zoos really need to reinvent themselves they ought to be thinking much more about the educational component of their mission getting people to connect with the living world to think about their place in it and to think about the issues of preservation of living things. He's spending some time in the United States talking about the book and he's joining us this morning by telephone as we talk with David Hancocks you

certainly should feel free to be a part of this conversation if you're here in Champaign-Urbana where we are. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the number to call. We also have a toll free line that's good. Anywhere the signal travel if it would be a long distance call for you use that number that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 and if you. Match the numbers in the letters on the phone you get w while L.. So three three three. Wy lo and toll free 800. Two two two. Wy Hello. Mr. Hancock solo. Yes good morning. Thanks very much for talking with us oh thank you. It's an opportunity. How does one get to be a zoo architect. Well I did it maybe the way I fell into it by accident David. I didn't intend to be as a monk addict and I didn't know anything about when I was studying architecture. The short version

of the story is that I was fresh out of I was in my final year actually of architecture school and just got my first degree and I was debating over dinner one evening with a girlfriend about the frustrations that I was developing about modern architecture. How modern in the modern movement was obsessed with form and with a sigh. But but I had no interest at all in how the buildings affected people in the human behavior. And she made a very perceptive observation I felt she should listen to my complaining about modern architecture. She said if you went to work at the zoo you would learn how to do animal behavior and and then maybe you could try to impose those lessons to them to designing around human behavior. And that's how come I made my very

first visit to who I went to the London Zoo. I found out they had an architecture department. I had an interview was offered the job walked out into it who from that office for the first time saw what it was and I was both old and fascinated. So I became interested in food. I'm purely accidentally. I'm sorry to say I've met I've met other people who specialized in who design who had much more noble intentions. I was interested to read your account of the fact that you had not you hadn't visited Is it your first visit to a zoo was essentially when you were an adult. Yes yes in fact that's a part of the motivation for it. Wanting to write a book I found that most people of course do go to says children. I happen not to do that I grew up in a fairly

remote part of England close to the Welsh border. The world knows who's there and what I found is that because most people do go to move as children and grow up with food and then take their children to the zoo. We all tend to just accept what they are and assume that they've always been that way and always will be that way. And I'm trying to make a point in the book that if we haven't seen who and if we didn't know what they were and if we needed to invent something like a zoo I think we would develop an institution entirely different from what we have today. In the book you write that there are there have been basically four sorts of justifications for zoos given and that you find all of them perhaps save one rather wanting.

Yes. And maybe we could talk a little bit about those things. Starting off with the idea that it is a. A recreational place a place where people would go to have a nice day out and stroll and be out in the fresh air and at the same time see some animals do you think. Perhaps it for most people who go to zoos and that it's actually not. It's not all that much fun. I don't know as much. No not for the people that would be for them to decide. I often question whether it's much fun for the animals but much more than that. DAVID I think that. Well look can I just say before we do that these four justifications this is do with recreation being number one I mean it's not not things that I made up. These are the sort of the

official two justifications that that cited by almost every zoo in the country over and over. And my argument is that recreation is not a justifiable it in fact it's a very poor excuse if will justify the justification of having animals in a zoo. It's something that I think I'm honestly have mooted come September and in fact. If it is used as a justification at all I suspect that it carries some rather negative overtones of fuming that just purely for the casual recreational fake we can do whatever we want with animals. Well I guess that that that harkens back to the the earliest zoos we have with that were

the province of royalty had being able to have a menagerie of exotic animals was an indication of your status and that in some sense we might almost say that they were decorative. Yes and that image. That and the fact that that that's where zoos began. And in some sense continue that way tells us something rather important about how it is we continue to see the world or how how we think about the place of human beings in the world. Yeah it's all part of that attitude of having dominion over the beast they think. Yes in fact I think throughout our entire history ever since the time when people began to to live in the settled communities and to acquire wealth and then seek status. The idea of gathering some exotic wild animals in a private collection has always been an issue of power and

prestige. I think that the optimistic side of that I think is underlying that attitude of wanting to gather wild animals to reveal this universal fascination that humans have for wanting to see to get close to to understand and to learn more about the other life forms that we share the planet with. Let me just quickly here reintroduce our guest for anyone who might have tuned in the last little bit we're speaking with David Hancocks. He's director of Victoria's Open Range zoo and Werribee Australia and has also been director of a couple of highly regarded zoos in this country. He's the author of the book a different nature the paradoxical world of Zoos and their uncertain future in which he's rather critical of many zoos how they develop but also makes suggestions about what

zoos could be with the right kind of approach. His book published by the University of California Press and he's spending some time here in the United States talking about his book and was good enough to spend some time with us. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Maybe you're turning for a moment to the justifications that have been made for zoos. Some people have said that we can justify them on the basis that it gives us some opportunity to do research to perhaps come to understand animals better. Does does in fact much of that you think go on in zoos. I think that really almost all of the very much that happens to focus on finding better ways. To care for the animals in zoo it's almost all related to the. Which

is a good thing the well-being and the care of animals in captivity and we should be doing that. But I can't see that that in itself is a justification for for having made for the truth in the first place. It's in the central part of the responsibility that you take on when you have animals and humans that it cannot be used as a justification because very very little very very little of the research that happens in zoos is directed towards conservation of wildlife or the claim in the wild. It is used I think for a self-perpetuating reason. Well and I suppose on the face of it that's when you don't have to think about it very long before you realize that. Studying animals in a zoo environment wouldn't really give you the opportunity to know very much about what the animals would be like in their native environment because they're not in their native trees.

That's that's a that's a very important point you make. Yeah. Well yeah. Yet another justification this one maybe seems a bit more compelling is the idea that zoos have a conservation function and that it's it gives us an opportunity to to try to protect and preserve some species that have experienced a lot of pressure on their native environments and perhaps might might be lost if we did not. If we did not do that this seems to be something that that there's perhaps at least a if we're looking for a reason to have animals in captivity of those things that we've talked about so far this would seem to be the best. And one also fears I think you raise the issue that in fact in future if we do lose more habitat human beings encroach on the places where animals live that indeed this might become a very important function of Zoos and wildlife preserves and that is

keeping the animals from being wiped out. Yeah this is a really contentious issue. I think it was probably in the early 80s that we that there was growing awareness of the need to try to do something about the looming crisis of loss of habitat loss of species that it was then that through I see a rabbit to eagerly grab it. Saying that we are going to conservation is going to be central to the occasion and the marketing people in zoos in particular I think seem delighted to to wrap themselves in that cloak of concealment and defense and. That there are several aspects of it that concern me. One is that at the heart of it it's a

very noble thing to do. And as you point out David it may be something that that in fact has to be done more and more in the future that more species are going to have to be protected and held in captivity for eventual release back into the wild. But but if you. Going to do that who's not the best places for carrying out that sort of activity. They don't have enough numbers to hold all of the. The end of a number of individuals that you would need to to to save the species. They don't have the right sort of space and I certainly don't have the right sort of environment. If you're going to be raising animals for release back into the wild you don't want them in a place where they're rubbing shoulders as it was day by day with them with the public that they need to be somewhere kept away from people. I know that the very first time that this that I became conscious

of the weakness of this argument of saying that breeding animals in the zoo is going to save them from extinction when I was working at the zoo in Seattle in the in the mid 70s. We were one of the few zoos in the world that were breeding snow leopards and we were breeding them very successfully. And not just breeding them but but they were in conditions where the mother was raising the young with them. What was the best way for that to be happening. And I had very eagerly like many others who seized upon this notion of we can while the pieces and the zoo in Seattle we not only had these extremely rare snow leopard but we were breeding quite regularly but we also had most of the other cats that virtually every other who in America got we've got a lion. We've got cougars and

tigers and so on. And I made the suggestion that we should send all of those cats away to others who didn't just have to know that. And then we would have enough room to be able to keep maybe you know eight to 10 pairs of Snow Leopard that would all be reproducing. Well the the the suggestion did not get very that recommendation fell extremely flat in the public's eyes. They did not want to come to a zoo and see nothing but snow leopards about reflection I can I can see why they would say that but it was the first jolt I had that made me realize that this isn't the right sort of environment to be trying to say that we're going to be saving whales because we use a completely different type of production than that the claim is also that. You know each time an endangered species is known at the zoo. Unfortunately

the marketing and promotion people tend to grab the headlines and say Here is another contribution that we make and conservation. In truth what I think this is we should be saying in zoos is that we're breeding endangered species because it's it's we need to do it just to keep ourselves in business. But to claim that we are breeding rare species to put them back into the wild is not justifiable and it's really pretty well a false claim to me. We have a caller to bring into the conversation. Let's do that. There Ian are Bana line 1. Hello. Oh yes I just have a few comments to make I have to agree with everything the speaker said and did it really bothers me to see so many animals when I go to a zoo pacing back and forth knowing their pains are not big enough. The environment

is not what it should be for that particular animal. I wish cities would take more responsibility and close down some of these so called to there and there is no room for research that I can see because as especially for those. People visiting. We don't have enough time with them we need days and nights. All of that and not hordes of people clamoring to see these animals it bothers me that so many people would have let the what do you fight but you might want to happen. I'm afraid I'm not sure what happened there. Mr. HARRIS We lost the caller but I think I think we took we take your point. Yes I do indeed. It's interesting the point she was saying about she wished that local authorities would close down those bad zoos. The it's it's frustrating for those of us who work in zoos and want to change them. The fact that all zoos all use the same title and

call themselves very frustrating because there are places that are really dedicated to trying to do something useful and meaningful and challenging. For every one of those there's probably 50 that that your caller was saying should be closed down. And yet we seem to have a very inadequate legislation against bad conditions. And again I mean. Animal welfare means we seem to be fairly weak in that regard. We are at our midpoint and I'd like to introduce Again our guest was speaking with David Hancocks. He is currently director of Victoria's Open Range zoo and were Australia and has also been involved with two very highly regarded zoos here in the United States and has written about zoos and problems with their design and also places with that he thinks they're doing better in this book that we've mentioned

it's titled a different nature the paradoxical world of Zoos and their uncertain future as published by the University of California Press and if you're interested in looking at it it should be out in a bookstore. Also your questions here are welcome. Three three three. W y l l toll free 800 to 2 to WY a lot I know from having looked at the book that one of the challenges or one of the difficulties perhaps you designers have when they're trying to do something different is the expectation of the public because people come to that they have an idea what is it supposed to be like. They come expecting to see a representative sample of megafauna you know all they want to see big animals they want to see giraffes and rhinoceroses and lions and gorillas and they want to be able to see them. And they like Apparently the idea that the place is neat and well groomed so it seems as if all of those things run smack up against some of the ideas now that so many zoos are trying to explore and that they attempt to

create natural environments that are better for the animals. But perhaps they're not quite as user friendly as far as the people are concerned and I'm and I'm sure that that's it's difficult as I say because people arrive with a certain set of expectations and if they're not met then they're going to they may well go away unhappy. Yeah it's as I had who did only it to them that the marketing people into becoming more and more prevalent. And who's it being for still being told to make their own way economically. And to stand on their own two feet rather than rely on taxes. We're finding that marketing people are gaining more status in management and they're the ones more and more who are calling the shots. Watch what type of dues we should have and what should be in them and how it's presented.

And of course what the marketing people want and what a lot of the traditional who goes expect to see as you say is directly against what is needed for any of them to be useful institutions in our society. And the really sad thing is that very often it's directly against what the animals need and want. I've always been an advocate of saying that the list of all of the criteria that need to be satisfied in designing Mizu environment number one on the list has to be to meet the animal's needs social needs behavioral needs psychological needs. And very often that means they want from time to time places to go and they want to get out of trying to be each other. They should have the freedom to get out of sight of people whenever they

want to. And as you can imagine somebody who's got the job of marketing and promoting his who thinks that that's Justin that's the man. Yeah so there are a lot of conflict beginning to become apparent I think get into management and that is the the ironic thing I think David is that if we would start to examine what the purpose of booze is instead of simply accepting what they are and trying to figure out a way to do the same thing it's even better in better fashion if we would say that the purpose for just a second. If we would say that the purpose of a zoo is to really get people to understand what nature is and how nature works rather than simply saying the purpose is to see what

some big animals look like then I think we'd stop doing things in an entirely different way. We wouldn't be having this problem with saying we've got to figure out a way to you know to make sure that the bays the visible we would be we would be addressing completely different types of questions. Well there I think we get at the fourth of the justifications we're talking in the first part of the program the ways in which the Jews have been justified and the difficulty with using them as justifications or that brings us to the one that perhaps Truly if we were this is something we actually can make a reasonable argument that Zeus could have important educational functions for people who go. And that we could encourage them to think about humans place in nature and the problem with the vanishing habitat and and so forth and so on and yet it seems that while this is maybe the best justification it's the thing that zoos have

done the least. Yes yes it really is ironic isn't it that. I think it's not just an important justification it's a vital one. It seems to me that more and more today we're becoming divorced from any contact with nature. And that we have less and less understanding. Well that's not true. We have we seem to have a better intellectual and a standing nature but because we are losing contact with it we don't have that emotional connection and I think that what zoos have one of the very few institutions that. Can begin to make both that intellectual and emotional connection with nature. If we look at all the other Natural History institutions that we have to meet the museums will tell you the fact that BET haven't got the empty emotional connection the

Botanical Gardens has restrict themselves severely to. And so they come tell the full story. And and it's the same with all of the other Natural History. You shouldn't think of them. And so what I why I get frustrated that about Jews and what they're doing is that I see they have just an enormous potential for good. And they seem to be squandering it. Well putting recreation is their primary purpose. And it's still seems to be the case that with that with some few exceptions perhaps that zoos haven't that they're they're still almost 19th century institutions that they're still really shaped by the way that we thought about this enterprise back in the going back to the times when when people

Europeans primarily were going out into the world collecting things and who had this great passion for for classification and. For cataloguing and for collection and that they still seem to be rather just big living collections of things and that in so many places they simply haven't progressed past that point yet. It's sort of scary isn't it. That that Western European view of exploring and defining things by dissecting it into pieces and putting it into categories. It's a bit it's been a useful tool for the for coming to understand what was an apparent chaos of nature. But but and I think that today we can see that we need something other than that we need a holistic view

of nature and what we've inherited. You suggested that out of that utopian mindset of seeing nature as them discrete parts that could be put into tidy classifications out of that. The natural history institutions that we've inherited. And that's why these you can go to almost any city and you will find in one part of town there's the Botanical Gardens and that's got all of the plants in it. And they've they have defied all of the plants in two classifications in them and on the other side of town we've got this to a logical garden where they till very recent times anyway in some instances well will again set or set their animal collection to the component and it's just a

natural and an increasingly satisfactory way of looking at the world and I think that it is entirely inadequate for the new generation the kids who are growing up today. I think we need a different understanding of the world and more than anything else they need to be able to understand comprehend how nature works. It's not just the naming of the parts of nature that's important but it's coming to an understanding of how the systems will come in and why there is a fabric of interconnection between all living things. And then of course the big problem for the for the fight for the generation growing up today is how do we then give the message of hope to realize that we can try to retain some of those connections and some key parts of that have become whole because it's

falling apart is a fairly alarming rate at the moment. As I understand it and now in and correct me if I've got my dates wrong but maybe it was in the sort of the 1970s one started in zoo design. The idea of something called landscape immersion. Yeah which is very interesting and you have some examples in the book. They're actually in the book people could see some photographs of what it is we're talking about and that it's an idea that here you're creating a landscape that provides those things for the animals that you talked about that he has the ability to hide away from each other to have some private space to not be where people can see them. And also for the for the human beings it gives the opportunity of feeling that you are also in that landscape that may in some sense be allusion but that not so much this idea that the you're on one side and then there's this

big gulf and on the other side there is the place where the animals are and. We've gotten gotten past the point where they were in cages so we were looking through bars but they're still in a lot of ways and a lot of places it hasn't changed very much the bars aren't there anymore but yet the Gulf is is is there's some big pit then between you and them and they're hanging out on some concrete some that's supposed to look like rocks. Yes. So this so maybe you can talk a little bit about some places where you think that they've done a good job with this. This kind of approach. Yeah. See this before we get to that. David I you know quite what I did was in the 70s that this idea began to be much about landscape emotion and it was based on that it was based on the idea that you cannot and then you cannot really comprehend something unless you see it and experience it in context. And wild animals and natural habitat have to come

take a stand and they look and behave in B and B fashion. If it's too bad. If that is their habitat just just to give you a little example remember going back to my experience at the zoo in Seattle there was there were some birds in that fairly typical zoo type of layout where there were rows of cages and there was one particular bird that used to it had a long beak is a type of Heron and it would stand with the beak pointing straight up into the sky and it looked faintly comical and ridiculous and people when they stopped would look at it and make fun of it. We got rid of those old exhibits and we developed a natural habitat type of exhibit for these birds. And when we put that particular into a representation of its natural habitat it

went and stood amongst the rushes that we had planted. And it stood with its beak pointing up in the air and instantly you understood why it did that because it was a camouflage standing amongst bed of reeds. And suddenly instead of thinking that that the bird with comically ridiculous and something to be joked about the instant response of the public in seeing it in the context of its natural habitat was some of that amazing look at this. You know that it's just got this wonderful ability because it's got a way of standing making itself look almost invisible in its environment and so that was that was the context in which this whole habit this whole idea of building natural habitats was first developed and then having people in the same habitat so that they would experience it. What has happened unfortunately

is that normal zoos have simply copied the image of that concept rather than the concept itself. And so we find that. Treasons who's more or more made of the puck and the rocks are made of concrete and the the animals are in some ways in some instances worse off than they were in the 19th century cages because they are. Isolated in what looks like a natural picture. But in fact it's an environment in which they never come into contact with anything that's natural. That there's a lovely story related to that at Zoo Atlanta. They built a very large enclosure for gorillas and they put all sorts of natural vegetation into it. There were

trees and the gorillas started to destroy the trees. And apparently the I don't know if it was the planets or the horticulturists but somebody random a zoo director and said we've got it we've got to put electric fences around these trees and protect them. And the director said No no he said just plant cheaper trees and that that's the approach that we really need to find out what the animals give them what they want is the number one priority and then move on to other goals in the. It seems that this is an old story that someone in when you look at the history of zoos some innovator. Come along. Who is visionary for his time will do. Make some changes like Carl Hogg and back this man in Hamburg who built a zoo with what we might get for the time at least he would call more natural environments and people saw that and thought wow this is a very exciting idea but then what we had after that was just a pale pale

imitations. It sounds as if that happened again and again someone has come along had an exciting new idea people have seen it but haven't haven't fully implemented it they have just constructed what was a shadow of the idea they picked up the superficial points of the idea didn't really understand why they were doing it. And so you get something that's not it not really what the designer had in mind. It becomes eventually like I'm not sure if I made this point in the book on the open. But I remember when someone telling me that the the mediæval. Detected that the monks would carefully copy them because they didn't have the machine. They would copy them in the illuminated script and as each one got copied there were more and more mistakes made until after a certain number of years. People often carefully copying jibberish they were just copying the mistakes of their previous copiers who copy the mistakes of the previous

copier isn't there. Yeah and I think that's what happened a lot in it. It's often puzzled me that I've been on trips to rain forests and the African savannas and places like that with two people. It's not always of course I'm generalizing here but but in the main the people in those wild places make no seem to make no connection or any understanding of the habitat. They don't they don't have an interest in the environment. They are looking for the species of animals in which they're interested in and I guess it's the bane of being a collector. If you go into a zoo or if you go into into a museum as a profession because you want to be a collector you're only ever going to look at the parts rather than the whole. And

I've seen this time and again with people that. Their focus is entirely in fact. I've also seen it in reverse where I've been standing in front of absolutely awful zouk a huge it was barren empty ugly. And the animal was in in there and I heard Q8 is just fantastic. You know look what a gorgeous animal that is and I thought why are they not seeing what I am. I read recently that one of the changes that's happened in zoos I don't know if it's real racing buddies that now the people who work in them particular the people who work with the animals are people who have university educations and and things like ecology and biology and it used to be in the old days they hired people who had worked in circuses or people who had worked on farms just people who are good with animals and that now they're Lexy looking for people who have formal higher

education in related subjects. Is that something that has the potential to change things in zoos or has it already changed things. I'm I'm hoping that it will change. I don't know. I haven't had it in a day. I'm optimistic that young people going to work in zoos today that first of all that there are women going to walk in. It used to be entirely a male profession. When male females were being high. Zookeepers for the very first time. In the 70s late 70s there was a lot of resistance to doing that and and young people who had had any sort of university education is looked upon with inspiration as you say. My hesitancy though is that for a in large part those

people tend to be occupying positions that are to keep lower managerial levels. I find that that level of the operation ensues you will often find a good healthy skepticism and you will find very good and progressive attitudes. But and again this is one of those generalizations that doesn't apply to it in every instance but but in too many instances as you go through the managerial hierarchy and get closer to the top you find less and less of those good attitude and you find more and more people in positions of authority who see the well. And so they see this issue in a different way and probably the reason that they've been hired in those jobs is because they see this issue in a different way.

You see what what is happening is that economic rationalism has decided in its wisdom to say that we're not going to support institutions such as galleries and museums and zoos to to the proper extent that those institutions have been told to make their own way. And so you find more and more zoos are putting more and more of their time and effort into trying to find ways to get corporate functions held at the zoo to have it. You know special events and all that sort of thing. That's where the energy and the time is going much more often than into the basic essential educative role. And so the people who are running the zoos tend to be the ones who are hired who've got the the interest and the ability to promote that aspect of it rather than the educational. We have a couple of minutes left one thing I want to ask you before we find ourselves out of time is for people here in the United States if they would like to visit a zoo

that is State of the art is a good one. What would you recommend they think about. OK. There isn't a single issue that has that it knows who that haven't got things in it that need to be changed and I think the best of directors would recognize that. But that there are very very good places I think the Bronx Zoo in New York has been doing wonderful things particularly in terms of sending money and resources back into the wild and working on wildlife legislation to save wild habitats. And they've done great things at the Bronx. I think that Kagan at Detroit who is doing some great things through Atlanta is a small tube that's made some remarkable changes. Yeah it is on the Sonora Desert Museum has has some lessons I think for almost all zoos to pick up and benefit from.

They're scattered around but it's a good place tend to be in the minority and I hesitate actually to name them because I know I miss some out and I'm going to be a bit late but I think the main thing is to get people to go to zoos and both support and encourage them when they see that doing good things but also to knock on my door and let them know that things that you won't tolerate if you think they're not the right thing. Well at that I think we'll have to stop because we're here at the end of the time if you'd like to read more on this subject by the way you can look for the book we've mentioned it's titled a different nature by David Hancocks it is published by the University of California Press. Our guest David Hancocks is director of Victoria's Open Range zoo in where B Australia is spending some time here in United States talking about his book. Mr. Hancock So we want to say thanks very much for talking with us. I'm very grateful to you. Thanks very much enjoyed talking with you David.