Dear All,
I’ve always remained in two minds when it comes to zoos. On the one hand they do an awful lot of good with regards to conserving the species and looking after the animals in their care, but on the other, the animals are not living their lives as they would in the wild (although it has to be said that they may very well live longer lives than if they had been “out there”). On one recent birthday day out, we were on our way somewhere else entirely when the elephant symbol on the motorway signs beckoned to us and, instead of our arranged destination, we instead, rather surprisingly, found ourselves at the zoo, and, even more surprisingly I suppose, it turned out to be a rather wonderful way to spend the day, not least because of a rare chance to see those rather amazing creatures that generally fail to turn up in the fields and forests of Lesser Blogfordshire.
TTFN
M.
On balance I think these day zoos are a good thing. When I was a kid we went to zoos all the time. London, Bristol, Dudley and of course Whipsnade. Of these Whipsnade always disappointed me because the animals were in huge enclosures instead of cages and were hard to see.
ReplyDeleteThe perspective of a child looking for entertainment.
The other thing I strongly recall about that day when I found myself rather surprisingly to be looking at elephants was when a tiger (in a cage) growled about 100 yards away and I found that the sudden urge to run away kicked in almost immediately and I was rather surprised to discover that something so very basic affected me on an almost primal level. M.
ReplyDeleteFight/flight - the oldest and most basic of all our instincts.
ReplyDelete