This ridiculously photogenic vulture was very interested in what I was doing by her cage. I'd tried to take a picture of her when she was up on her perch.
But she insisted on coming down.
And then her mate joined us.
Inside the Butterfly House, I came across this thing. It's a Cattleheart Butterfly.
A butterfly that had recently emerged from its cocoon.
Owl butterflies resting on the wall.
Sleeeeepy serval.
You'd think with Britain's lion fetish that they'd have the enormous African lions. Instead, they have four Asiatic lions. The young male's on the platform, Mom's asleep on the ground, and the sister's next to her. The two cubs are a little over two years old.
And then there's the big guy up on the platform.
Regal-lookin' fella.
Tyger, tyger, burning bright/in the forests of the night.
Some more of the zoo's Victorian architecture. This was once the Parrot House.
Pretty sure these are the world's dumbest emus. They spent the entire time pecking at the wires and trying to eat them.
The aquarium under the Mappin Terraces is quite cool, but the lighting wasn't conducive to good photography- although I do have a nice camera, I like to use my video camera. It has no flash, but a super-fast shutter speed. Here's a seahorse.
One of the Orchid Dottybacks. I've never seen such a day-glo animal in my life.
Carl had the munchies that only hands could satisfy.
Anna-na-na using the Victorian picture viewer. Inside? Pictures of nipplewort.
Why did the chicken bleeding heart dove cross the walkway?
To play in the pan of food. Duh.
More of that lovely old architecture.
Normally I HATE HATE HATE HATE monkeys, but this guy was so adorable.
He was so CONCERNED that something would take his nut away!
D'aww, big fat rat.
Leech jar! All the leeches were at the back.
The original Giraffe House, home to the giraffes, okapis, and zebras.
The male okapi did not want to pose for us.
The female was more interested in her food. They have such elegant heads.
This is the most impatient giraffe in the world. First, he was upset that his food was empty. Then, he went to his water jug, and THAT was empty, too!
Have you EVER seen a more disappointed-looking giraffe?
"That's RIGHT. You refill... WAIT WHERE ARE YOU TAKING IT? YOU BRING THAT BACK THAT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOUUUUUUUU!"
Thought I'd share with you some of the highlights from the London Zoo's Reptile House. They do a fantastic job with their displays. And no, before you ask, I did not get a picture of the Harry Potter snake vivarium. There's a plaque there, but there's not a boa constrictor in there. In fact, they don't have a boa constrictor. They have a reticulated python, which is what they used in the movie, but she's in another tank that is both larger and more suitable for a serpent of her nature. In the tank from the movie, they have a black mamba. Had Harry talked to that and set it free, it would have been a real problem. Black mambas are some of the most deadly snakes in the world. Anyways, lizards and such!
A lovely Parson's chameleon!
Sleepy basilisk. He had a nice big pool of water to play in.
The three Galapagos tortoises had a huge pool and a nice big yard. This is Dirk, who's about as old as the zoo itself.
And this is one of the two ladies, Dolly, I think. She looks so very annoyed.
This is Raja, one of their Komodo dragons. They have two, him and his girlfriend. He was chilling by one of his ponds. These guys have a nice large yard, too, as well as private living quarters.
See how bright the scales on his head are? That means he's relaxed and happy and, uh... enjoying the scent of the female in the other part of the enclosure. These aren't things that most zoo-based Komodo dragons are.
This is the female. For an eight-foot-long lizard, she looks pretty dainty, no? I love her face.
The king cobra was intensely interested in Anna. It followed her with its head.
So I told her to go stand on the other side so I could get a better picture of it. I love how much hiding space they give their venomous snakes. We tend to forget how shy they are, but they really don't like hanging out where they can be seen most of the time.
Their big beardie, a full-grown lady, watching everybody.
The other one, a subadult female, hanging out on top of a huge rock and watching life happen. They shared their enclosure with two skinks and it was HUGE.
Emerald tree boa near the top of its tank. I'm trying to show off the really nice lightbox in the background.
Super-pretty black tree monitor. Nearly the entire tank was vertical climbing space.
This is not a full-size crocodile. This is a Filipino crocodile, which is tiny. It's in an enclosure you could easily keep a full-size crocodile in.
Exceptional emerald tree monitor in a really nice vivarium. I think I'd like one of these for my next reptile.
England has a long history of a fascination with exotic animals, lions in particular. From the earliest Roman days, animals were brought in for sport. Bear-baiting was an actual thing until the 1830s, and one of the earliest uses of the Tower of London was as a menagerie. (You can still see ravens there- the only ravens in Britain- but more on them later.) The Victorians, in particular, had a fascination with nature. They were in awe of it, and so they would do whatever they could to master it and bend it to their will. Remnants of the Victorian ideals can be found in the London Zoo. The Zoo itself is the oldest scientific zoo in the world and is the intellectual descendant of a tradition going back hundreds of years. The zoo itself was established in 1828 as a collection for scientific study. It opened its doors to the public in 1847 and was seen as one of society's great achievements. However, by today's standards of animal care, bits of it were downright barbaric.
This is not big enough for vultures.
This, for example, is one of the bird cages. A pair of vultures, then several parrots were originally kept in this. Now, this would be a pretty great-sized home for one macaw, I think. But they had this tendency of stuffing their zoos full with as many specimens as possible. After they moved the parrots out, they put in ravens. It was then decided that it was too small to keep any animals in, so now it just sits there, empty. While I do think it might be pretty small for birds- especially flocking social birds like ravens- I think you could fit some fancy squirrels or a sloth in here just fine. What's cruel for one animal is totally fine for another. Take for instance, Three Island Pond, a Victorian pond that several species of ducks and geese call home.
The design's remained unchanged since the Victorians built the thing.
Pretty, yeah? Can you imagine penguins here? Because they kept penguins here once. They thought Penguin=Water creature=Food Pond.
The Mappin Terraces, home to the world's dumbest emus.
Here we have an example of another totally unsuitable enclosure. These are the pretty famous Mappin Terraces. These went the opposite direction as the Victorian enclosures. Opened in 1931, they were the first time people could see animals in an arctic environment. Home to big cats, mountain goats, and a polar bear, the problem was a matter of space. The cats had too much room and got incredibly violent and territorial. The space wasn't right for them. The bears, though, did quite well once they moved them in. However, there really wasn't any place for the bears to hide or have any privacy. Now wallabies and emus inhabit the space- you can see the roof of the emu hut in the picture. The goat mountains remain empty.
A lot of the old architecture remains empty at the London Zoo. It's a good reminder about how much our ideas about wild animal care have changed over the years. The Victorians thought that they should live much like domestic animals. As time progressed, enclosures got bigger and more functional for the natural activities of the animals.
The old Penguin Pool, now empty.
This penguin pool was once billed as an incredibly considerate habitat. Previously, penguins had been kept like regular waterfowl. Then this was built in the thirties in a really neat art deco style (paint it black and it could have appeared in the animated Batman, I think), and its blend of form and function won it much acclaim. Its white walls mimicked the antarctic conditions of the penguins' homes, and it had two interlocking ramps for sliding. But eventually, people figured out that penguins needed ice, and so the penguins were moved. Because of the way historic buildings are protected in England, things like the penguin pool, the old Elephant House, and the Mappin Terraces can never be torn down. Most of them sit empty, unsuitable for animal occupation and unsafe for visitors. However, some of them have been repurposed quite nicely, or have been adapted for their original use. The Giraffe House still houses giraffes, and the old Reptile House is a lovely aviary. Gone are the cages and small vivariums for what were once deemed sluggish, boring creatures*.
The old Reptile House, c. 1849. Notice how the snake cages are totally too small and exposed to unregulated sunlight. Perhaps more disturbing: Lions were once kept in this building.
Instead, natural environments are recreated in the old Victorian setting. Nature just kind of happens- the birds fly freely, eat when they want, nest where they want- in a safe, sanitized environment. In a way, it's the ideal the Victorian naturalists once wanted.
Would somebody please tell me how this kiwi got up in this tree?
Socorro dove. This is extinct in the wild.
This is sort of where you see the weirdness that is a zoo start to show. This bleeding heart dove probably doesn't know it's in captivity, or if it does, it's certainly not bothered by it. But we do, and there's a reason that we keep it. This little guy is a close relative of the largest pigeon to ever exist, the dodo bird. Dodos were doing just fine, until we managed to drive them into extinction. We did that to passenger pigeons, too, and to thylacines. With the exception of the dodo, all of those animals continued on in zoos until after they were extinct in the wild- we seemed to be keeping them out of a sense of guilt. The Socorro Dove, another animal in this building, is also extinct in the wild. There's about a hundred in captivity. They no longer exist outside of our control. Man's activity has reduced them from a viable species to an oddity- by eliminating their niche and destroying their habitat, we've basically managed to turn them into a species that's completely dependent upon us.
And that's terrifying.
We don't really have a good history, you see, of treating animals fairly. Certainly we're learning and certainly we're making progress. The London Zoo in its collection and in its architecture is hard, concrete proof of that. I want to finish up with one more example of how much we've learned. Ever hear of a Chimpanzees' Tea Party? No? I'm not surprised. We don't do anything like them any more.
This is essentially what primatology was once upon a time in the early bits of the 20th century. Zookeepers actually thought that they could learn aspects of primate behavior from these things.
"It is of psychological interest that almost any young chimpanzee learns table manners in a few days, partly by imitation of his or her fellows and partly by seeming to try to understand what the keeper wishes done. There are individual differences in quickness, as Darwin pointed out in the 'Descent of Man'..."
—The Times, 5 December, 1931
At one point, the Chimpanzees' Tea Party was such an integral part of the public's perception of what chimps were supposed to do, how zoos were supposed to treat them, and how an animal's basic dignity should be sacrificed for the wishes of humanity. As long ago as 1991, people were actually upset over the lack of these spectacles.
"Sir, Having spent a disappointing day last week at London Zoo, we are not at all surprised that attendances are falling and the zoo's closure is planned. A distinct lack of animals, so many empty enclosures and cages, left us with the dismal feeling that we were in a ghost town. ...The fun of the zoo was missing. Signposts indicated animal rides which were deserted. The chimps' tea party has been replaced by a cow-milking demonstration. Educational? Yes. Entertaining? No. We were left with the impression that the zoo is run by a group of stuffy members of the establishment who adhere rigidly to their principles whilst ignoring current trends."
– Letter to The Times, 10 April, 1991
It's kind of saddening to think that we can be so blind to the plight of captive animals that we'd so willingly force them into performing. I think it's much better when zoos take a hands-off approach. No place does this better than the San Diego Wild Animal Park, but really, any zoo worth going to will provide its animals with enrichment activities that don't depend on human interaction.
Here's how gorillas are treated today at the London Zoo.
This is only about a quarter of the gorilla's habitat. They have a huge outdoor space and a lot of private rooms to be out of the public eye.
Mama and baby, next to some of the swinging ropes. Behind the barred off area is where the zookeepers feed them.
One of the teenaged gorilla females swinging on a large rope.
Same teenager clapping whenever any of the visitors pointed at her.
Some people think that we shouldn't keep animals in zoos at all. I don't feel that way. I think that zoos are necessary to raise the public's awareness of nature in general. If they can't see these things, what incentive is there to protect them?
We do need, though, to better learn to tend them and treat them with the care and respect they deserve. We're not there yet, but we've come a long way.
*CLEARLY this is an inaccurate assumption. And not ALL of the keepers must have thought that way. Take for instance this fellow:
Pictured: One nineteenth-century beardie, acting like all beardies do in front of a camera.
I'm pretty sure this is me in a past life.
