Belgrade's sad zoo
I recently visited Belgrade's zoo and I left feeling very sad. It reminded me of the 1950s U.S. zoos that I've heard about - with tiny 10x15 foot concrete cages containing huge brown bears, pairs of wolves, a couple of leopards and tons of other animals all pacing back and forth after going crazy in their cramped captivity.It got me to thinking about the concept of zoos in general. As many of you know, Mike and I used to live right behind the National Zoo in Washington DC, and we spent many weekends taking walks through the zoo to check on our friends the apes, elephants and cheetahs. But we also spent much of our time pondering the small cages (the Washington zoo is not much better than the Belgrade zoo in terms of space for animals) and wondering if there is a better way to teach people about the world's animals than a zoo. Or are the animals at the zoo the enslaved representatives of their species that have been forced into the role of teaching humans why it might be worthwhile to save the ecosystems of their relatives?
It's difficult to say if humans would be less inclined to cut down every last forest if they didn't have zoos to teach them the importance of providing habit for the other creatures with whom we share this earth. I think TV has done wonders for teaching us about wild animals - but there is still something about seeing the incredible muscles in the legs of a lion close-up that truly makes people realize how amazing these animals are. So in this sense, zoos still do serve a purpose.
But, in a perfect world, zoos would combine the need for humans to see animals up close with the space required to give animals something resembling their natural environment. There are certainly some zoos I've seen that do this - the San Diego zoo, and some of the exhibits at the Denver zoo. But others, like Washington DC, and Belgrade, continue to simply "display" the animals instead of also care for them.
Now, I know that the building and upkeep of these zoos that give animals a "natural environment" is not cheap - and I don't think a city like Belgrade should be spending a bunch of money on something so extravagant - so I think maybe cities such as Belgrade and Washington should re-think their ownership of such a large zoo. Perhaps it's time for zoos to either close or at least pare down the number of animals to an amount that can be given adequate space and taken care of properly.
I obviously have no say over this, but I thought I'd throw it out there for y'all to think about - cause I know that I would prefer seeing only a quarter the number of animals at the Belgrade zoo in nice large cages where the animals actually looked happy, than the depressing situation that I saw this weekend.
posted by Brooke @ 2:48 PM
3 Comments:
To add to that, when I was in Romania last summer I has horrified to be offered bare paw sandwich and worse of all when we were in Constanta, they had a lion on a short metal chain, muzzled, with a million romanians trying to get their picture taken with it. This too was no happy lion, the amusement park at constanta is no place to keep a lion. (It must have been dosed up loads so that it did not attack anyone!) Hopefully the EU can sort this out when Romania joins next year rather make British bread sizes illegal as it "confuses" the continental folk!
Dave
Hi,
Just been doing the rounds of balkan blogs, updating my links list, so your blog has joined it (what a priviledge!).
Anyway, I'm liking yours lots, and what you wrote about the zoo is probably symptomatic of all zoos in the region. I'm writing this from here in Zagreb and although it's not terrible here, I've definitely seen better- the bears here are in pretty shoddy conditions.
I'll be visiting Beograd in May, although I'm not sure whether I'll have the red carpet rolled out for me- I get a bit of stick from deepest darkest Serbia on my blog!
Anyway, Take care,
ED
Actually I feel the same way about Belgrade zoo even if I've never been there. I just know what to expect.
For your information (this is neutral in tone not sarcastic) Belgrade Zoo is supposed to be run quite well and the conditions relatively good - for the region.
I think that the way we see the zoos of the region has a lot to do with where we are born.
In my opinion zoos are fast becoming outdated places that look cruel no matter how good the conditions are.
The trend is moving towards visiting animals in their own habitat and Western society has begun to adjust to that.
If you want further evidence of the chance, think about the circus and how that is moving foreward (Cirque des Soleil for example) using people rather than animals etc.
My own personal opinion is that zoos should slowly become obsolete unless they are needed to help animals. Safari parks in Western countries can remain open too. :)
Good blog by the way.
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