Are Zoos Green?

“Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo, I do believe it, I do believe it’s true…”

I like the zoo.  I think it makes a good field trip with children.  I believe that it’s good for children to be exposed to real animals in real life.  My brother would argue that “that’s not animals in real life.” Last time I talked to him about going to the zoo, he told me about the application he submitted to work for PETA once upon a time. From the PETA website:

Zoos claim to promote education, but the only thing to be learned at these sad facilities is how animals who want to be free act when they are confined. How animals who want to be free act when they are confined. Zoochosis is so rampant that some zoos even resort to administering mood-altering drugs such as Prozac to address the public’s complaints about abnormal behaviors.

I believe that there are some situations that are not good for animals, but that many zoos have programs that are very beneficial to animals, that enable research that allows us to help animals and provide an exposure that many people wouldn’t otherwise experience.

What do you think about zoos?  Are you pro or con?  Tell us in the comments.

This zebra kept following the giraffe around their enclosure.

Nice to meet you!

Sign in a dining facility at the zoo

Children petting a miniature horse

The kids really had a great time following our progress around the zoo on their maps.  They decided where we would go and how we would get there.  It was a great exercise for them!

This is an explanation that white tigers were created from inbreeding. This caused other recessive traits to be reinforced as well, so the Franklin Park Zoo  does not breed its white tiger, so as to avoid having more tigers with these problems.

Posing in front of the lion, with their map!

My son was completely fascinated by the movie about bats. I couldn’t get him to move until he watched the entire thing. He tells me now: “Bats are very important.  A whole ecosystem would be destroyed without the bats.  In the dessert the flowers make the most pollen at night and the bats distribute the pollen to pollinate other flowers.”

Pygmy hippo

We have been fascinated by lemurs ever since my brother (the same one that applied to work at PETA) lived in Madagascar – the only place in the world where lemurs live in the wild.

This lemur looked like he REALLY wanted to play!

Christor wanted to play with him too!

Squish!

Kids pinpointing EXACTLY where we were on the map.