Derrick Jensen sent me a signed copy of his new book, Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos, which I’ve just started reading. It is, of course, fantastic. It accompanies some amazing photography from Karen Tweedy-Holmes, whom you might remember from her work with nudes in the seventies and her more recent work with National Geographic.
When I tell people I’m reading an anti-zoo book, most people look at me like it is the craziest concept they’ve ever heard, as if I claimed to be anti-cotton candy or something. I, like millions of Americans, frequently went to zoos when I was a child, either as a class field trip or with my family. I’ve also experienced the horrible collision of the two when my mom volunteered to chaperon one of our trips to the zoo in elementary school. I love nonhuman animals, I always have. At an early age—again, like a lot of children in this culture—I wanted to be a zoologist, or a vet. I wanted to surround myself with nonhuman animals and have a special relationship with them. I loved going to the zoo because I loved seeing and interacting with all the different animals.
I think humans, as social creatures, need to interact with other animals to make sense of our own roles as participants within a larger community. Zoos, instead, foster a shallow resemblance to these necessary relationships in that the relationship between human and nonhuman is characterized by a one-sided power relation. Zoos often promote education, but the most fundamental question we may ask regarding zoos is: What do zoos teach us about our relationship with nonhuman animals? They teach us that zoos exist to entertain us; they teach us about power and domination; they have us believe that animals are happier in zoos than they would be in the wild; they teach us to objectify nonhuman animals and forget that their lives are just as important to them as ours are to us.
Let me explain: If you come across an elk in the wild, your relationship with that elk is, for the time being, equal. The elk will reveal as much of herself as she wants to; you will reveal as much of yourself to the elk as you want. The elk is choosing to let you see her and it can take off any time it wants. The elk is free. Perhaps, the next time this elk visits, she will stick around longer, revealing more of herself to you. This is called a relationship; it is, in fact, how any relationship between humans or nonhumans is developed. This is called dignity and respect. If the elk is in a cage, it is exposed for your benefit for as long as you are willing to stare at it. The power is one-sided, objectifying, degrading, and offers only a shallow resemblance of a meaningful, natural relationship.
It is often said that in zoos, animals often live much longer lives. This is bullshit. The media loves pointing out the anomalies, the bear or ape that happens to defy all odds and live a long life in a zoo. The implicit argument here is, first of all, that animals prefer to live a long life in a cage rather than a shorter one living the life it was meant to live. The vast majority of animals in zoos, however, have a very short life, typically a third of their average lifespan. There are many other myths like this that are debunked throughout the book.
Also, the book was put out by No Voice Unheard, a great not-for-profit group that abides by this mission statement:
Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees — all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.
So if you’re thinking about purchasing, buy it from them or from Derrick’s website.
