Word: zoo
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...alone. Over the past five years, major zoos across the country--San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, the Bronx Zoo in New York City--have quietly made the decision to stop exhibiting elephants altogether, some as soon as they can find homes for the animals and others after the deaths of the ones they have. For zookeepers, it's a continuation of a reform movement that began a generation ago and swept through most major U.S. zoos. The old concrete-and-steel cages that resembled prisons for animals are mostly gone. In fact, the cages themselves are mostly gone. The barriers...
...such confinement, elephants are prone to arthritis, foot problems and even premature death. Billy's head bobbing, they contend, is typical of elephants in distress and probably results from an inadequate physical environment. "I've come to the conclusion after many years that it is simply not possible for zoos to meet the needs of elephants," asserts David Hancocks, an outspoken zoo consultant and former director of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle...
Hancocks goes further than most zoo professionals would, but there is growing agreement that zoos are on the verge of yet another wave of transformation. This time the question is whether some animals--not just elephants but also giraffes, bears and others--belong in zoos at all. "On the one hand," says Ron Kagan, executive director of the Detroit Zoological Society, "people want to see the signature animals like elephants, gorillas and giraffes. But we believe that the American public wants us to create facilities for these animals only if we can provide them with a good life...
...consideration was Detroit's harsh winters. Although elephants can tolerate cold weather, standing on snow and ice increases the risk of slipping and falling. The only alternative was to have the animals spend most of the winter months indoors, where hard concrete led to foot problems and boredom. Many zoos, like the one in San Diego, have phased out certain species, like the moose, that do better in other climates. "Bringing cold-weather animals into the warm Southern California climate is a bad business decision and a waste of precious resources," says Larry Killmar, the zoo's deputy director...
That's part of a national trend. Zoo directors routinely phase out species that don't thrive in the local environment. The ultimate example: the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, outside Tucson, which houses 300 animal species and 1,200 kinds of plants on 21 acres of desert. Unlike conventional zoos, the museum doesn't even try to take on species that are not native to the area because its mission is not to give visitors a snapshot of wildlife everywhere but to give the full story of a single ecology. "It has a completely different mind-set than most zoos...