Zoos: What Are They Good For?

This was the only portion of the gorilla I could really make out. Note the grainy-ness of the shot due to the thick glass.

Over the years, and especially as a child, few things would get me more excited than a trip to the zoo. I love animals, biology was always my favourite subject at school and being close to so many rare and exotic creatures never failed to get the hairs on the back of my neck standing up on end. I've been a regular visitor to London Zoo my whole life and I've seen it evolve from being a bit of an embarrassment and it's near closure in 1991 to a far more appropriate and animal friendly attraction. But there have been negative experiences too and, as hinted at in a previous entry, I have a few reservations about zoos and the role they play in conservation. Too often have I seen larger mammals pacing the same patch of ground in an apparently endless and numbing cycle; even when they have what is generally accepted to be a large enclosure. This is to say nothing of the difficulty in getting a picture displaying some natural behaviour without a load of mesh or plate glass getting in the way; a near impossibility.

One particularly negative zoological experience occurred when on a family holiday in France, sometime in the early 90s. The conditions there were very poor. There were large animals kept in very small cages and sanitation was less than adequate. Even as a child I could tell that this was not how things were supposed to be. There was a period when London Zoo was beginning to get like that with its animals not in the best condition and its finances in a far worse one. But even now that they have successfully turned themselves around it still doesn't seem quite right that there are lions, tigers and gorillas in a small corner of Regent's Park. Posters on the underground network currently boast that the zoo has 'London's biggest penguin colony'. How many penguin colonies does London have?! Should it have any at all? With the best will in the world can any inner city sanctuary really claim to have enough space to provide a suitable environment for such animals?

One of London's penguins. You can make out my reflection in the glass.

As an aside, to bring things back to photography for a moment, there have been an increasing number of controversies about using captive animals in your work. By all means take photos of captive animals but you have to own up when you do so and not try to palm it off as a shot you got in the field. One particular scandal was when the winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2009 was stripped of his title and prize money for using what turned out to be a semi-tame wolf in his now iconic shot. I was particularly saddened by this as it is genuinely a brilliant picture, he just should have come clean and said what it really was from the beginning.

Anyway.....


It can be argued that zoos like Chester, Paignton, Whippsnade and Colchester and safari parks like Longleat and Woburn Abbey have the sort of acreage to be able to provide an enclosure that can give the animals what they need - room to roam, room to hide, room to interact with others of their kind or, indeed, to be solitary if that is more appropriate. But then there's still the question: are we keeping these animals here for our own entertainment or is there a tangible benefit to them?

There are several high profile and mainstream organisations that argue zoos, in a perfect world, would be closed and conservation efforts focused on animals in the wild. The Born Free Foundation argues that zoo-based schemes that aim to breed animals in captivity and then release them into the wild are all but a myth. They say that there have only ever been 3 animals successfully reintroduced to the wild by British zoos: the partula snail, the British Field Cricket and Przewalski's horse. Not a single primate or big cat has ever made it to the wild from a British zoo. They go on to say that captive breeding programmes only exist to provide zoos themselves with more animals and have little or nothing to do with increasing numbers in the wild.

Meerkats are the sort of animal I can imagine could have a fairly normal life in captivity

One of Britain's most famous conservationists, Chris Packham, takes a slightly different approach. He is a great believer in zoos, indeed his girlfriend runs one, but he believes they should focus their efforts on animals that they actually stand a chance of helping.  He argues that pandas, tigers and other mega-fauna are too far gone to be saved. On this front I'm inclined to agree; in my day job I'm a geneticist and it's widely acknowledged that you need at least 5,000 individuals to be interbreeding to ensure the long term survival of a large mammalian species; less than 2,000 and you're in serious trouble. There are less than 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the wild and there isn't a singular breeding population of tigers that large either, so even if there wasn't another tree cut down or animal hunted they only have a slow decline into disease and ill health to look forward to. It's not a complete impossibility though; cheetahs, my personal favourite, are so genetically similar that you can graft skin from one animal to another without fear of it being rejected. This can only be the case if at some point in their past there were only a very small number of genetically similar animals left. Indeed, looking at the human genome has shown that at some point in pre-history there were only 20,000 of us left - but then maybe we're a special case.

Packham goes on to say that these large, fluffy animals are emblematic of the struggle to conserve the environment and people are more likely to participate if there is something cute and fluffy to be saved. But the vast majority of the millions spent on conservation goes on just a tiny number of species. He argues that the money would be better spent protecting the environment they live in rather than any individual species; spending those millions on buying up tracts of rain forest would be a better plan; that way you protect the environment as a whole and the full range of biodiversity within it.

Whippsnade Zoo has a very large elephant enclosure. I had to fully zoom in to get even this close.

On the other hand, there is a very high chance that within my lifetime many of the larger mammals we all know and love will be extinct in the wild and if we don't have a breeding population in captivity then they simply cease to exist; and this, for many, is reason enough to validate the existence of zoos. It is simply not enough to have a few battered old examples in the Natural History Museum; and as wonderful as David Attenborough's documentaries are they can't compete with seeing an animal in the flesh. It may be the case that we can't teach a captive born animal how to survive on it's own in the wild, but if we don't at least have a working copy of the design then how will we ever make it work properly? Zoos also work to ensure that the populations they have are outbred and maintain their hybrid vigour by swapping animals for breeding internationally; so if we did ever figure out how to train captive bred animals for life in the wild then we have a stock of animals ready to go. But give me 1 year and a million pounds and I could have that all arranged for you in one freezer's worth of little tubes.

Zoos undoubtedly play a role in education that shouldn't be underestimated. They can teach us more than a few trivial facts about the fastest, biggest or smelliest creatures out there. Good zoos have a strong focus on the environment as well as the organisms within them; they will often have projects in far flung corners of the world trying to preserve the rain forests of Borneo, or showing farmers how to grow crops more efficiently and without killing everything that wanders onto their land; this is all good work which is to be encouraged.

I could probably get away with pretending this was taken in the wild. It wasn't.

Also, is there, perhaps, something to be said for purely having them for entertainment? Is that necessarily a terrible thing? It doesn't sound any worse than laughing at the less talented people that audition for X-Factor (just give me a moment to cleanse my keyboard after typing that word) and 8 million people do that every week. Zoos are fun, I nearly always enjoy myself when I visit them, and I go to quite a few zoos. I also look forward to the day I can take my children and grandchildren to the zoo and teach them about the amazing creatures on display there, hopefully kindling in them a love of biology that I myself have always felt, and that that in turn would open doors to science and critical thinking in general. This could be a reason in and of itself; perhaps zoos exist to inspire the next generation of ecologists without which the natural world is truly doomed?

*          *          *          *          *

I find myself thinking that the Earth doesn't care what species live on it, plant or animal or otherwise. It used to be a steaming hot rock of magma, it also used to be a solid block of ice. 65 million years ago 85% of all the species on Earth were wiped out by a meteor, the Earth didn't care. The big mammals we love so much wouldn't have ever existed if it wasn't for that extinction - neither would we. That wasn't even the biggest mass extinction event that has occurred, there have been at least two that were even more catastrophic. 99.99% of all the species that have ever existed on this planet are extinct and that has nothing to do with us. But the Earth doesn't care. The Earth will be fine.

I don't think there is a right answer to any of this, it's all personal choice. Consider it a thought experiment where the goal is to learn to question everything, even the things you like, at least once in your life. I guess what it boils down to is your personal answer to this question: is a tiger that has never walked through a jungle, never once hunted it's dinner, never located it's own mate, is such an animal still a tiger; or is it merely the shadow of one?

Feel free to leave a comment; what do you think? Do you enjoy zoos? Is there a role for them in the 21st century?

Is this a tiger?

Deconstructed Landscapes

So, what's a deconstructed landscape, then?

That's what I thought, too. The best way I can think of of how to describe it would be as a collage of photos that together make something that is greater than the sum of it's parts. This definition leaves a fair amount of wiggle room, however; it could mean a storyboard type of affair that slowly evolves as you look at different parts of it; it could mean a more polyptych effect or it could mean anything in between.

The reason I've become interested in deconstructed landscapes is two fold. Firstly, it is linked to my new liking of animal close ups - it forces you to look at familiar objects in a new way. I find myself looking for details and subtleties that I would normally miss in composing a wider shot. And secondly, it allows you to make more of an otherwise uninspiring situation. The photos below were all taken in Russell Square, about five minutes from where I work in the centre of London. Now, whilst it is a very pretty square of which I am very fond, it doesn't exactly lend itself to sweeping panoramas or wide open landscapes; if I deconstruct it, though, I can make it up into pretty much anywhere. By concentrating on the finer details and removing the wider context I can turn the photos into a blank canvas. The viewer can look at a chink of sky, a piece of bark or a fallen leaf and be transported to a location of their choice. Sure, it'll probably have to be wooded, but it could be the end of their childhood garden, a favourite dog walking spot, a secluded romantic hideaway from that amazing holiday or anywhere else that they can think of. Imagination is the only limit.

Porto

The Ponte Dom Luis, one of Porto's six bridges that cross the Douro

Porto is a curious sort of place. It has that juxtaposition of new and modern steel, glass and concrete against a core of centuries-old terracotta roofed buildings on a medieval street plan. It's an incongruence that many of Europe's oldest cities has to deal with and it's one of the reasons I generally prefer Old World cities to New World ones; they feel more organic, like they've grown with the need of their citizens as opposed to being artificially plonked down by a non-native explorer. I like the idea that when I'm walking down certain streets in London that there are over two millennia of footprints ahead of me to follow.

Like London, the development of Porto has been dominated by one major feature - its river. In this case, the Douro. Having gone on a little guided tour up and down it I learnt that it was only within the last 150 years that a bridge has been put across it; before that navigation was only possible by barge. There are now 6 bridges spanning the river that cuts it's way between the hills of this coastal region, one of which, no longer in use, was designed by a student of Gustave Eiffel.

Terracotta roofs on the south bank

Porto's south bank is dominated by an expanse of terracotta roofs the bulk of which belong to the still extensive Port cellars that produce over 8.5m bottles of the stuff each year; one of which sits proudly on the shelf behind me. This brings in over a third of a billion Euros to the region every year, little of which is apparently spent on the upkeep of their roofs.

Another mismatch I spotted was that dotted between the well preserved old buildings there were quite a lot of derelict ones. Strangely, though, they didn't look particularly out of place; if anything they actually added even more character to the place.

Nice occupied building

Nice derelict building

One particularly beautiful and well maintained building is Sao Bento train station. It looks more like an ancient bath house or museum piece but is still a fully functional station. The entrance hall is covered from floor to ceiling in ornate, hand painted tiles that depict scenes from the history of Portugal and landscapes too.

Porto has an array of long golden beaches which seem to have some good surf, which you might expect as Portugal bears the brunt of what the Atlantic can throw at it.

I really liked Porto, it felt welcoming, laid back, reserved and, down in the Old District, seemed to have a certain classiness about it. Although I was there for the best part of three days I don't fell that I really made the most of my time there, but that's probably because I went as part of a stag do as opposed to with my wife. For me, the highlight was walking across the Ponte Dom Luis; it gives enough height to afford a stunning panoramic view of the Old District that even my wide angle lens was struggling to capture at 10mm. With a clear blue sky overhead it was a rare treat.