In a story the Toledo Blade published following the shooting of a gorilla in Cincinnati over the Memorial Day weekend, the Toledo Zoo’s director said the glass barriers allow him to rest easier about animal and visitor safety.
Two days before the 3-year-old child evaded the barriers and slid down into the gorilla enclosure in Cincinnati, I spent hours looking through Toledo’s glass barriers in the company of my daughter, son-in-law and 3-year-old grandson, Atticus.
Had it not been Memorial Day weekend, we likely would have been at the Cincinnati Zoo, where they are members.
But Memorial Day is the time Christine, Jason and Atticus make an annual fishing trip to Lake Erie, returning to the spot at which Jason spent so many memorable hours with his Grandpa Powers.
I sense that our times together at the zoos in both cities are producing such memories for Atticus and me.
For the past two Memorial Day weekends, Chris and Jason’s membership card for the Cincinnati zoo garnered enough of a discount at the Toledo facility that Cheap Grandpa (me) was able to masquerade as a real grandpa and pony up for the cost.
In human behavioral terms, I suppose that’s symbolic of a bond and helps, in a small way, to further the family bond.
I told the woman in the admission booth that if they had a senior discount, I was 61, and if not, I was 42. In human behavioral terms, I supposed that indicates not only that I’m a liar but that time spent with family can make us more relaxed and playful.
At the polar bear exhibit, Atticus and I saw in the playfulness of a polar bear parent and cub the kind of play that we engage in when we wrestle on the carpet or the couch in their Springboro home.
“I’m donna det you” is his version of my “I’m going to get you,” a line we’ve spoken to one another hundreds of times and that came up again as the larger and smaller polar bears were wrestling with one another.
When the larger seemed to dominate, I was quick to point that out. He may have been quicker as ring announcer to the moments in which cub was “dittin’ da drampa” polar bear.
After I had stood next to him while he rode a dolphin on the zoo’s carousel, I had him pose on his back on the ground next to the metal tiger cub that was paws up on its back in a shaded area.
I sent the dumb phone photo to my wife, left behind in Springfield because she had to work.
An instance of animal behavior seen through glass and made for a 3-year-old and an immature 61-year-old unfolded when we came to the hippo tank.
There, a second hippo in a floating conga line of two had his back end placed strategically near the glass when he decided impolitely to release several dollops of well digested food floating through the water.
About that time, Atticus temporarily drove a spike between his parents when his dad agreed to reach in to his pocket and feed the machine that fashioned a red plastic model of a hippo we christened “Cornelius” before agreeing to call him by the simpler nickname “Red.”
My daughter, the budget keeper, wasn’t pleased.
We didn’t make it to the ape exhibit, which last year produced my most memorable through-the-glass looking moment when I stood inches from a large animal fully capable of making me a dismembered member of the Toledo Zoo.
Not getting to that exhibit brought my top through-the-glass looking moment in the Reptile House.
Glad to be out of the warmth of the sun, I was leaning against a thick pane of glass that separated us from Baru, a 17-foot saltwater crocodile that inhabits a modest-size pool, when three dollops of thought came to me: That Baru’s tail was nearly as long as the rest of his body; that he represents a connection to the time of dinosaurs; and that my relationship with Baru would have become quite different if the zoo staff had temporarily removed the pane of glass that separated us.
I have opinions about what happened in Cincinnati, none of which add to what has already been said.
To satisfy the curious, I’ll mention three: 1) The child had to be saved at any cost. 2) Legislation instantly envisioned that would have held the parents responsible for the gorilla’s death should be a reviewed by a committee of parents who, even for a moment, have lost track of a child while shopping. 3) The loss of the Lowland gorilla Harembe was, of course, a great misfortune. 4) A thorough investigation seems both forthcoming and necessary.
More interesting to me than any of these things is how different the public reaction to the event is than it would have been 30 years ago, a difference I think reflects a re-ordering in the way we see the complex relationships between humans and other animals, the most important of which happen outside of zoos.
Last month, I was taken aback by a story about how those working to save endangered rhinoceroses are now sawing the horns off of them to slow the pace at which poachers kill them. I suspect what once would have been considered mutilation is seen as a last defense against the power of human greed and cultural practice in the face of extinction.
No less shocking to the public of 30-years-ago would have been the announcement made in January that Barnum & Bailey Circus will discontinue its elephant acts earlier than planned because of a concern for the animals. In the old days, a circus without elephants would have been, well, not a circus at all, and the animals’ welfare would simply not have been considered.
Related to the issue of extinction is the extent to which zoos and their breeding programs — of which the Cincinnati Zoo’s gorilla Harambe was a part — have become part of a stopgap program to sustain biodiversity in the face of the habitat destruction that seems to be the engine powering the extinction train.
Despite its much more dramatic consequences, this more widespread threat to animals seems not to power the kind of outrage expressed after the death of a single animal in a zoo.
Another change from our society of 30 years ago: The extent to which companion pets that contribute so much to human well-being have risen to the status of family members and inform our treatment toward animals as a whole. It’s a phenomenon at times that seems to inject the reaction to animal mistreatment with a greater passion than the mistreatment of vulnerable and often marginalized humans — also driven by greed and cultural practice.
A parallel factor in our changing attitudes is changed technology of longer standing: Internal combustion engines that have made us less dependent on hoofed horse and oxen power have us valuing animals for something other than their utility in performing labor.
Although some will roll their eyes at the mere mention of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the organization has stubbornly posed a fundamental question to a society in these changed circumstances: The extent to which humans are obligated to consider the view from the other side of the zoo’s glass — or the dinner plate — in deciding how we value and treat other animals.
In the event I’ve not angered people on all sides of the question, I’ll mention something that might vex those who view zoos as animal prisons: The extent to which the excitement Atticus and other children feel at zoos encourages in them a sense of connection and sympathy for the animals otherwise unavailable to them.
To me, watching all the changes unfold is like trying to watch the Indianapolis 500 through a pair of binoculars in which clear glass lenses have been replaced with prisms that reflect the accelerating changes from all points of view in real time.
It makes me wonder how differently we human will see these things 30 Memorial Days from now and what the consequences will be for other animals.
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