A precious and cynical child might well think a trip to the museum is just as good, if not better, than a trip to the zoo. Many museums now have vast exhibits of animals, exotic and otherwise, in areas conveniently compact and indoors, well buffeted from climatic elements all year round.
It true, of course, that the museum animals do lack a rather distinctive quality: which is to say that they're dead -- and stuffed! The truth is though, recalling from my childhood, many of the zoos I visited had animals which were so inanimate, they might well have been stuffed.
The days when zoos were largely animal museums are happily mostly a thing of the past, now. Indeed, in a certain sense, the more opposite to this that a zoo is capable of making itself, the more it may raise itself up into the league of the best zoos in America - or, indeed, the best in the world.
The best zoos in American, and the world, no longer resemble warehouses with bars. And more to the point, they are vigorous participants in the cultivation and preservation of our planet's animal life. This participation often entails facilities and missions for research and enterprise that contributes to preservation of the natural habitat of such animals in the wild.
Such zoos distinguish themselves through contributing to a creation of a symbiosis, in which knowledge of how best to preserve natural habitat contributes to their ability to better design a zoo experience that is suited more to the natural disposition of their own animals. As a consequence of this ongoing learning and adapting process, today's zoo is stimulating and rewarding in entirely new and unprecedented ways.
Now zoo animals enjoy a zoo experience far more closely resembling their natural habitat, in keeping with their evolved dispositions. Consequently, their vitality is invigorated. Such animals experience and exhibit greater qualities of energy and curiosity. They become more stimulated and engaged with their environment and each other.
The benefits to both their psychological and physical healthy are considerable. Likewise, though, these superior living conditions for the animals allow the zoo visitor exciting experiences. The increased energy and vitality of the animals in this more stimulating setting, so much better suited to their evolutionary characteristics, allows zoo visitors to observe animals that not only are healthier, and more engaging, but also living a life more representative of their nature.
Furthermore, as the animals' living experience is so much better suited to their evolved disposition, such zoos become far more effective learning opportunities than ever could have been the old stand-and-gawk zoos of my youth. This is a wonderful development for all zoo guests.
This concern for a more natural habitat generally results in greater ranges for the animals. The challenge then can become one of managing to get zoo visitors to the animals without disrupting the benefits of the improved habitats. Innovative zoo keepers have solved this problem with the application of new organizing principles and technology. Notable among these have been development of solutions such as monorails, safari tours and walk through zones.
The best zoos in America , or elsewhere, are characterized by this kind of synthesis. A conservationist mission, revised facility designs, and innovative applications of technology dovetail into an entirely new kind of institutional style that is not unfairly described as a zoological renaissance.
Such a renaissance has had profound impacts upon the modern zoo visitor. In place of the old museum zoos we now enjoy experiences as rich in learning opportunities as in sheer exotic awe. Our new zoos inspire an experience which verges on the otherworldly. We now enjoy the remarkable opportunity for a kind of communion with other kinds of life. These other lives, certainly, are different from our own. And yet, at the same time, no doubt due to the consequence of a common evolutionary past, in some uncanny sense there remains something that strangely resonates with us.
This it seems to me is the real miracle of the best zoos in America and anywhere: they facilitate a marriage of science and technology to inspire in us an experience of the sublime.
It true, of course, that the museum animals do lack a rather distinctive quality: which is to say that they're dead -- and stuffed! The truth is though, recalling from my childhood, many of the zoos I visited had animals which were so inanimate, they might well have been stuffed.
The days when zoos were largely animal museums are happily mostly a thing of the past, now. Indeed, in a certain sense, the more opposite to this that a zoo is capable of making itself, the more it may raise itself up into the league of the best zoos in America - or, indeed, the best in the world.
The best zoos in American, and the world, no longer resemble warehouses with bars. And more to the point, they are vigorous participants in the cultivation and preservation of our planet's animal life. This participation often entails facilities and missions for research and enterprise that contributes to preservation of the natural habitat of such animals in the wild.
Such zoos distinguish themselves through contributing to a creation of a symbiosis, in which knowledge of how best to preserve natural habitat contributes to their ability to better design a zoo experience that is suited more to the natural disposition of their own animals. As a consequence of this ongoing learning and adapting process, today's zoo is stimulating and rewarding in entirely new and unprecedented ways.
Now zoo animals enjoy a zoo experience far more closely resembling their natural habitat, in keeping with their evolved dispositions. Consequently, their vitality is invigorated. Such animals experience and exhibit greater qualities of energy and curiosity. They become more stimulated and engaged with their environment and each other.
The benefits to both their psychological and physical healthy are considerable. Likewise, though, these superior living conditions for the animals allow the zoo visitor exciting experiences. The increased energy and vitality of the animals in this more stimulating setting, so much better suited to their evolutionary characteristics, allows zoo visitors to observe animals that not only are healthier, and more engaging, but also living a life more representative of their nature.
Furthermore, as the animals' living experience is so much better suited to their evolved disposition, such zoos become far more effective learning opportunities than ever could have been the old stand-and-gawk zoos of my youth. This is a wonderful development for all zoo guests.
This concern for a more natural habitat generally results in greater ranges for the animals. The challenge then can become one of managing to get zoo visitors to the animals without disrupting the benefits of the improved habitats. Innovative zoo keepers have solved this problem with the application of new organizing principles and technology. Notable among these have been development of solutions such as monorails, safari tours and walk through zones.
The best zoos in America , or elsewhere, are characterized by this kind of synthesis. A conservationist mission, revised facility designs, and innovative applications of technology dovetail into an entirely new kind of institutional style that is not unfairly described as a zoological renaissance.
Such a renaissance has had profound impacts upon the modern zoo visitor. In place of the old museum zoos we now enjoy experiences as rich in learning opportunities as in sheer exotic awe. Our new zoos inspire an experience which verges on the otherworldly. We now enjoy the remarkable opportunity for a kind of communion with other kinds of life. These other lives, certainly, are different from our own. And yet, at the same time, no doubt due to the consequence of a common evolutionary past, in some uncanny sense there remains something that strangely resonates with us.
This it seems to me is the real miracle of the best zoos in America and anywhere: they facilitate a marriage of science and technology to inspire in us an experience of the sublime.
About the Author:
Mitchell Jone's top five list of the best zoos in America is required reading when you're planning a family trip around a zoo holiday. Also, you'll enjoy our YouTube video .
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