Jan

9

Nor Iron Bars A Cage.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

January 9, 2008 |

“What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

–William Blake

The news saying “if it bleeds it leads” always takes on an even more powerful meaning when a person is savagely and dramatically attacked by an animal, whether it’s in the wild or, in the case of the Christmas Day attacks at the San Francisco Zoo, involving captive animals. I think this is because these events remind us that, no matter how much we cut down, pave over, and cage up, wild animals can never really be controlled. Unfortunately the cutting down and paving over of the wilderness have made caging up of wild animals a necessity, at least as long as we want to prevent their extinction. As Susan McCarthy writes in Salon, the paradox of zoos is that we’re preserving animals by locking them in small spaces. And it’s not just animals, either. Back when I was growing carnivorous plants I listened to several debates between growers about the value of saving species from extinction. Many argued that someday, maybe, the plants could be reintroduced to the wild, while a few replied that there was no point in saving a single species when its habitat–and potentially many unrecognized other species–was extinct. I always took the hardest position, somewhere in the middle, that we couldn’t save habitats that were already gone but that it was vital that we save the shrinking number that were still out there. And even if we only did save a handful of species it was better than nothing.

Contemporary zoos have tried to make their habitats better for animals, trying to create more “natural environments”. The old days of tiny, concrete-floored cells and black metal bars, which must have made animals crazy and encouraged the idea that tigers, among other animals, were mindless, indiscriminate killers, have given way to larger habitats with grass, enclosures, and even toys. At the Minnesota Zoo tigers are given a fake moose stuffed with meat that they have to tear open. This kind of “enrichment” provides both mental and physical stimulation. In her book The Tribe of Tiger Elizabeth Marshall Thomas says that circus tigers are “happier” than zoo tigers because their lives are more active. Still, circus tigers have to spend time in cages, and travel must be stressful for them. And, as the October 2003 accident of Siegfried And Roy demonstrates, there is no such thing as safely working with wild animals. On the wild side, the tragedy of Steve Irwin only underscores this. All jokes and outrage aside, I think those who worked with him were most shocked by Irwin’s death because, while he was a showman, he was also a remarkable and careful professional. Personally I always expected the guy to outlive his critics.

When considering keeping tigers and other wild animals in zoos, though, the question of whether they’re really happy, or well-adjusted, whether protected captivity is an adequate replacement for life in the wild, is one we can’t ever answer. Stephen Jay Gould speaks about very different animals in his essay, “Can We Truly Know Sloth And Rapacity?” (collected in his book Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams And The Diet Of Worms), and discusses how wonderful it would be to be able to see through both the eyes and consciousness of another species, if only for a few seconds, and be able to retain the memory, to understand how something radically different from us sees the world. What animal would you choose? Gould picks the sloth. I’d go for the octopus myself. Once, at an aquarium in North Carolina, I stood for several minutes watching a small octopus endlessly circling around its tank in a clockwise motion. There’s been a lot of debate about the intelligence of octopuses, and I had to wonder whether it was bored, whether this was cephalopod psychosis, or whether, possibly, it had no idea that it was a captive. As much as I hope for obliviousness, I can’t think of the octopus, or any captive wild animal, without thinking or Rilke’s poem The Jaguar.

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

(translation by Stephen Mitchell)


Comments

5 Comments so far

  1. Joke of the day » Nor Iron Bars A Cage. on January 9, 2008 2:24 am

    [...] post by Just Write and software by Elliott Back This entry is filed under Joke of the day. You can follow any [...]

  2. Jay-Z » Blog Archive » Nor Iron Bars A Cage. on January 9, 2008 8:18 am

    [...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]

  3. Tiny Angels on January 9, 2008 2:32 pm

    The animals born into zoos don’t know any different but it still is a sorry life.

  4. growing muscles » Blog Archive » Nor Iron Bars A Cage. on January 15, 2008 3:31 pm

    [...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]

  5. Nor Iron Bars A Cage. on January 19, 2008 3:07 am

    [...] Nor Iron Bars A Cage. Back when I was growing carnivorous plants I listened to several debates between growers about the value of saving species from extinction. Many argued that someday, maybe, the plants could be reintroduced to the wild, … [...]

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