Braided Stream: April 2011

The last few weeks have been pretty busy, hence the lack of posts.
But I have a few stored up in my brain and bookmarks for future posting.

Ural Owl

Recently came across the site Zooborns and it brought up a lot of my conflicted feelings about animals in captivity. I am still conflicted about zoos. I can admit that some are obviously better than others. Some zoos offer captive breeding programs where certain species will be returned to its natural habitat. And educating the public, especially children leads to individuals that are interested in animals and their welfare. And in captivity it is possible to study animals more closely and then use this information to aid wild populations. And in the case of many species, the populations in zoos are far better protected than those in the wild.

Amur Leopard

But there is still something conflicting about the whole idea. No matter how well a zoo enclosure has been designed to mimic a certain environment it will never be accurate. And regular prepared meals and exposure to human handlers means that many of these creatures could never be returned to the wild and never survive on their own. And their captivity somehow robs them of their animalness.

Silver Fox

That being said, I'm not made of stone. Wobbly-kneed, fluffy, watery-eyed baby animals of tiny size and ridiculous proportions are incredibly cute. And cuteness is a great way to draw people in and (hopefully) educate them.

As a child I would have loved this website-if there had been websites-instead I had these. I still have them, and the pages are well worn. I read them often, half memorized them and alienated myself as a child by knowing too many things about the capybara. I suppose not much has changed, if this blog is to attest.

Capybara

For the credit of Zooborns, they focus on all the zoo animals, not just the obvious tiger and panda cubs. and I have discovered that I have a strange affection for baby birds.