Zoo Blues

This week, I accompanied my alumnos (students) to the Aurora Zoo in Guatemala City. I was really excited about this field trip because I usually love zoos and seeing exotic animals, and we had heard that the zoo is one of the few places in the city that has open, safe green areas for picnics and walking around outdoors.

Mister Lion

The visit itself was just great! The kids were really excited to see the animals (hippos, albino peacocks, monkeys, a leopard, elephant, giraffes, and zebras, to name a few) and their enthusiasm was invigorating! The zoo had beautiful, open grounds to walk around on, and you felt really safe.

An albino peacock struts his stuff :

Sadly, I left the zoo feeling depressed and heartbroken for the animals. Human walking space was much greater than the paltry areas the animals had as their homes. A cheetah, one of the world's fastest animals, had less than 1/2 a football field to walk around on, let alone run. The porcupine had the size of two large dining tables, and his area was nothing but dirt and concrete with a little hut to sleep in. The elephant paced back and forth on his tiny strip of land, and the lions were literally pawing on the steel doors to be let back into their sleeping quarters. The owls and other birds might as well have had their wings clipped. While they were in cages, this was no aviary; they were resigned to 2-story caged bedrooms. As an added affliction, the zoo is a stone's throw away from the airport, and twice while we were there, we had to cover our ears because the noise was so loud when planes took off. You could read the plane airline logo with the naked eye. This has to stress the animals out! It's something I assume they never get used to.

Crocodile and his shrunken surroundings

There is only a dirt ground for their walking area :(
You do have to love zebras and giraffes, though!

It is hard to enjoy the beauty of animals when you feel like they are being trapped in unnatural and cramped settings. My mom was telling me that this is how all zoos used to be until people got more progressive and tried to model animals' captive cages after their natural habitats; larger areas, more hiding places, and keeping pack animals in packs, etc. Sure, the children got to see every animal....I know I have felt disappointed in the past when I looked into a cage and didn't see the animals front and center, but I would take that disappointment over forcing animals into small spaces just so they can be seen at all times.

What a beautiful leopard! Look at the size of those paws!

I suppose all zoos by definition keep animals in captivity, but when you can tell that animals are unhappy and their surroundings are ill-suited, the zeal for the zoo quickly loses its zest.