Zoo: The Modern Ark

Victor Clulow is a professor of zoology at Laurentian University.

This book clearly demonstrates that Franz Maier is the Karsh of animal
photographers. The posture and the truculent expression on one
orangutan’s face is so Churchillian that one suspects a banana or some
other tidbit (not, of course, a cigar) was plucked from his hand a
moment before the shutter opened. This book is worth the money for the
photographs alone; combine the illustrations with clear, thoughtful
text, and the result is a memorable and stirring book.

The volume, prefaced by Gerald Durrell, argues that zoos have become
the refuge of animals imperilled in their natural habitats. Nowhere is
safe for creatures that humans value so much more highly dead than
alive. Relentless demands for ivory, horn, fur, and feathers have
brought many magnificent beasts to the brink. The expanding human
population—with its world-scale changes to vegetation, water
distribution, and even climate—and human’s unwillingness to suffer
competitors for agricultural or timber land are giving the coup-de-grace
to other animals.

The book presents the history of animal collections, zoos, and
menageries from ancient times, and gives a clear-headed analysis of the
motivation of sponsors and users of these facilities. Accounts of the
cruelty and kindness visited upon their residents lead into an
assessment of the disadvantages and benefits of modern zoos. The book
concludes that zoos are now necessary for the survival of many of their
inhabitants.

Illustrations of the current state of world zoos (from Auckland, N.Z.
to Woburn, U.K.) contrast nicely with text, photogravures, and
etchings—all of which convey how things have changed from the animal
park of 2300 B.C. in Ur; through the Aztec gardens of the New World,
with birds, snakes, fish, and deformed humans; through the bear-pits
that persisted in Europe well into the nineteenth century; to modern
zoos. Ten present-day “fine zoos” are described in some detail.
Woven through the book are threads of natural history and biology, which
contribute to its richness and stimulate the reader’s mind.

The “ark” reference in the title is apt, but it leaves one with the
nagging thought that the original vessel was built in the hope that a
bad situation would get better. If so, at least this hope seems to have
been borne out: the modern arks may well be the final repository for
some that enter two-by-two—or by high-tech, intergeneric uterine
implants, as the case may be.

A fine book, a good read, and highly recommended.