<h3>Observe animals with ears and noses</h3>
The Network is so developed, do you still need to go to the zoo?
need. Watching encyclopedias and watching documentaries is to observe animals with other people's eyes, while in zoos, we can observe animals with our own eyes, even our own ears and noses.
For example, the Malay porcupine is very common in southern China, the biggest feature is its thorns, there are many friends affected by cartoons, think that the porcupine thorns can be fired, but it is not. Its thorns are a passive defensive weapon, predators attack them, they will be pierced, leopards, wolves have no hands, pierced can not pull out the thorns. We look at the shape of the porcupine in the zoo, and that's the first step, look.
(Etching/Figure)
After watching, we can smell it. The Malay porcupine has a fragrant, non-foul-smelling smell, a bit like the slightly fermented taste of fresh, moist bamboo mashed. What does it taste like? It is secreted by porcupine to mark the territory.
Next, we can listen. Notice this picture, which is a structure on the tail of a Malay porcupine. The spines of the porcupine are actually specialized hairs, very hard, hollow. The structure on the tail looks like a porcupine spine has been cut in half and then tied up. It's a bit like a hollow bunch of noodles tied together. What is this for? Speak up, we can listen:
The vocal tail of the Malay porcupine relies on these hollow structures to collide and rub against each other, which is similar to the tail of the rattlesnake, which is equivalent to the "rattlesnake" in the rodent class.
The Malay porcupine, which is not a great animal in the minds of many people, is overlooked in many zoos. But if we look closely, we can still find the magic that evolution has given it.
Not a great animal, go see and smell and listen, and you can find so many interesting places. Well, those rarer animals are more worthy of careful observation.
Binturongs are common in zoos in Southeast Asia. The binturong is photographed at the Yunnan Wildlife Park. It was crawling back and forth on a rope tied between two trees while taking pictures, and it had a lot of fun. When it was about two or three meters away from me, suddenly a gust of wind blew through, and then I smelled a strange smell...
It's a magical combination of the sweet scent of a tropical fruit mixed with a little stink, and some sources say it tastes a lot like cream popcorn. This taste comes from the urine of binturongs. Many animals will mark the territory with smell, and the mark of the binturong is a bit fresh.
Many ancient poems mention gibbons singing, the so-called "Padang Three Gorges Wuxia long, apes sing three tears stained", the so-called "apes on both sides of the strait can not stop crying, light boats have passed through the ten thousand heavy mountains." Let's listen to the gibbon singing:
How's it going, isn't it nice? Gibbons live as families in the wild, and every morning, families sing a song to remind neighbors of the existence of their homes. There is only one gibbon in the zoo, it does not sing much, there is only one family, it is not happy to sing, and it is necessary to sing together with several to hear the continuous singing.
<h3>Zoo hardware upgrades, not just houses</h3>
The point I have repeatedly emphasized is that the most important thing about going to a zoo is to observe the natural behavior of animals. By observing the behavior of nature, we can understand how they live, and we can also understand more deeply the gifts that evolution has given animals.
The so-called natural behavior refers to the behavior of animals in their natural state. To observe natural behavior, animals must first have natural behavior.
In some not-so-good zoos, animals exhibit some not-so-good behaviors. For example, animals are kept in empty cages and exhibit very monotonous and repetitive behaviors because the animals are idle or stressed and overwhelmed. This is called stereotyped behavior, and it is a sign that animals are not well raised.
Other zoos will let tourists feed animals, and even sell things to feed tourists. In this case, the animal will find someone to eat, which is called begging behavior. The most obvious is the bear. Xiong Te is very smart, and when he sees people giving food, he learns some movements, such as lifting his forelimbs to make a wave, and even dancing in a circle.
How do you make animals exhibit more natural behaviors? Ultimately, it comes down to improving animal welfare, which is a concept for captive animals. Animal welfare focuses on five freedoms:
Freedom from lack of nutrition, hunger and thirst.
Freedom from physical and psychological discomfort.
Freedom from disease and injury.
Freedom from fear and urgency.
Freedom to express behavior naturally.
The first three points are easier to understand: the first is not to be hungry and thirsty for animals; the second is not to throw tropical animals into the ice store, not to put cold animals in the oven; the third is to ensure that animals will receive treatment if they are sick, and it is best to have preventive conditions and simply not to get sick.
The latter two points may not be so easy to understand.
What is the most likely thing in a zoo environment to cause fear to animals? It's actually people. Some individual animals, especially those sent to zoos from the wild, are particularly afraid of people – both tourists and keepers.
The fifth freedom to express behavior requires conditions that enable animals to behave, such as space, or sufficient community.
The most important ways to make animals as free from fear as possible and to behave as much as possible are two: cage design and behavior management, one hardware, and one software.
The hardware of the zoo is not just about the house, but also about the environment. At present, the designers of many zoos in China design buildings well, but they do not understand animals, so they cannot design a targeted environment for the characteristics of animals. This is very bad.
At present, the zoo with the best hardware facilities in the mainland is undoubtedly the Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo. The zoo has been very popular these two years, and everyone knows that they have done a lot to improve the welfare of animals. One of the most prominent is the hardware upgrade.
The older zoos in China treat the beasts of prey, the most common is a very old and "classic" pit display - the so-called bear mountain, wolf mountain, lion and tiger mountain, said to be a mountain, in fact, is a big pit, pit animals, people look at it. It has three main problems:
The environment is monotonous and the animals are boring;
The field of vision is too wide, and the animal pressure is high;
Looking down makes people arrogant and can't stop feeding.
This is the old bear pit of Wuhan Zoo, which has been demolished.
This is the old bear pit of Wuhan Zoo, which has been demolished. (Etching/Figure)
So, how does the new exhibition area of Hongshan solve these problems?
First of all, let's take a look at this environment, this new exhibition area has built a very complex climbing frame, and the black bear climbs up and down to play, so that everyone has a new understanding of the dexterity of these black fat people.
In addition to climbing frames, the exhibition area also borrows the original mountain terrain and land. The mountain is a treasure of the zoo and can enhance the complexity of the exhibition area environment. And the land is even more precious. As long as the exhibition area sees the soil, the environment is easy to make it very rich, because plants can grow in the soil, and there are many possibilities for plants.
What are the possibilities? Let's say: trees. Everyone squatting in this exhibition area can see black bears climbing on the shelf. If you're lucky, you can see black bears climbing trees. Many zoos do not allow bears to climb trees, on the one hand, they are afraid that trees will be played to death, and on the other hand, they are afraid that bears will borrow trees to run out of the exhibition area. In fact, as long as the exhibition area is well designed and managed, this is not a problem at all. As long as the bear goes up to the tree, the tourists will be very happy to see it. Isn't it ten thousand times more interesting for a bear to climb a tree than begging for food?
The most interesting thing is that some tourists once looked at the bears climbing high up the trees and sighed: "The bear climbs the tree so fast, it seems that the bear in the wild can't climb the tree to escape!" ”
Let's look at the bear pit", the field of view is too wide, the animal pressure is high. What does this mean? Can you imagine if you were put in a house surrounded by glass windows and someone was watching you all the time, wouldn't you be stressed? The same goes for animals. Bears who don't know much about shy animals are a little better, but if they are leopards or other animals, it is troublesome.
The Black Bear exhibit area in Red Mountain is so large, but there are only five exhibition windows. The five exhibition windows face five separate scenes, and each exhibition window cannot see through the entire exhibition area. In this way, wherever the bear is, it can find a place that will not be looked around by tourists. However, when the designer sets the exhibition window, he also takes into account the needs of tourists to see animals, so points such as climbing frames and pools that will produce more wonderful behavior are placed in front of the exhibition window. In this way, although tourists have to look for animals, they can find them as long as they want to find them, and the probability of seeing natural behavior is very large.
The black bear exhibition area of Hongshan has five exhibition windows, facing five individual scenes, each exhibition window, can not see through the entire exhibition area. (Etching/Figure)
At the same time, this also solves the problem of overlooking. In front of these exhibition windows, visitors face the animals are level or look up, so that the status of the animals is invisibly elevated. In addition to these window locations, the distance between tourists and animals is relatively far, and the display windows are completely closed, which also blocks the feeding. In this way, all three problems are solved.
<h3>Just by feeding, there are ways to do better</h3>
After talking about hardware, let's talk about software.
When people go to the zoo to see animals, they often have a feeling that animals are always lying there sleeping. In this case, sometimes animals do not want to move, such as the noon on a hot day, people want to be able to choose and want to spread. But more often than not, it is caused by the breeder's operation not being good enough. In some zoos, animals are fed once a day, and the food of the day is thrown into the cage in the morning, and the animals will naturally have nothing to do after eating.
In fact, just by feeding, there are ways to do better.
This picture is of me shooting a keeper, Chen Laoshi, at the hongshan native animal conservation area in Nanjing, feeding the little claw otters, and the little claw otters get a little food from the keeper's hands. This diagram shows two things:
First, animals are not afraid of people and are willing to take food directly from human hands. This shows the old and new breeding methods. Old-school keepers tend to make animals afraid of themselves, so that when they enter the cage to operate, the animals do not dare to approach, easy to operate and no danger. But this operation will cause animals to be afraid of people, even breeders, let alone tourists. Breeders who now master new technologies tend to make animals trust people, and with a foundation of trust, there are many more advanced operations. Especially in the breeding of small animals, the willingness of animals to take food from the keeper is a signal and sign of trust.
Second, we can also see that the keepers feed very little. The small plate didn't hold much, and feeding was also about cutting the fish into small pieces. Since you feed less at once, you have to feed many times a day. Breeders in the native area of Hongshan also have at least four or five feedings a day, and as many as six or seven times.
Moreover, there are still a few people who feed them directly into their mouths, such as feeding small clawed otters, who raise animals such as red foxes and deliberately hide food for animals to find. Doing so may seem like a bit of a toss-up keeper, but it allows the animal to find something to do for a long time and remain more active for a long time. This is good for the health of the animals, as well as for the visitor's feelings.
This is behavior management. In behavior management, there is also a training method called positive reinforcement behavior training. This training gradually teaches animals to cooperate with keepers by doing it right and rewardingly. With this collaboration, advanced operations such as anesthesia-free ultrasound examination and anesthesia blood collection can be performed. This video shows Liu Ping, a black chamois keeper at the Beijing Zoo, and her colleagues doing B-ultrasound training for black chamois:
<h3>Conservation or making quick money? The crossroads of the zoo industry</h3>
With better hardware and software, a zoo is not a good zoo, it also needs a soul.
Worldwide, there is an organization that represents the highest level of the zoo industry, called the World Federation of Zoos and Aquariums, or WAZA for short. Based on WWF's World Conservation Strategy – Caring for the Planet and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, WAZA has established 11 World Zoo and Aquarium Conservation Strategies:
Committed to conservation in the wild is the primary goal and focus.
Strengthen conservation research within and outside the region by utilizing unique resources.
Develop outstanding educational programs that lead to proactive environmental care at the regional and global levels.
Innovative displays of development touched and inspired visitors, while also continuously reviewing and promoting the welfare of captive animals.
Use the collective power of global or regional associations to recommend or influence environment-related policies.
Operating the zoo with the highest ethical standards allows funds for conservation operations to be successfully accumulated.
We always promote the role of the zoo to the public, face up to various issues, and unswervingly achieve the mission of conservation.
Increase inter-agency cooperation to promote the efficient use of resources and global action.
Adopt and use new technological advantages to enhance communication, research and education.
Improve organizational structure to draw on strengths at all levels and adopt a teamwork model.
Respect, recruit, retrain and retain employees at all levels.
Six of the strategies are related to wildlife conservation. And this should be the soul of a modern zoo.
Therefore, we can see that there is a very good wildlife rescue center in Hongshan, Nanjing, and we can see that the Shanghai Zoo has built a local animal area dedicated to raising local animals in the city, which is to promote conservation work, which is conservation education.
After the Shanghai Zoo's native animal area, a native animal conservation area was also built in Hongshan, Nanjing. (Etching/Figure)
In the last decade, I think it has been a crossroads in the transformation of China's zoo industry. On one side of the intersection is a modern zoo road with the purpose of promoting conservation, with advanced exhibition area design and behavior management as the means, and animal welfare as the lower limit. On the other side, there is an evil road full of feeding and disguised circus to make quick money.
The first modern zoo path is obviously good, and when it is known to the public, it is easy to get support. In 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic caused heavy losses to Nanjing Hongshan Zoo, and several reports let everyone know that Hongshan was so miserable in order to maintain the welfare of animals, which resonated a lot for a while.
Under the added bonus of this resonance, Hongshan's passenger traffic in March-June 2021 increased by 240% compared with the same period in 2020 and 12% higher than the same period in 2019 before the epidemic. This has also become the base of the Red Mountain. This also shows that raising animals well can make money for zoos.
At present, there are some zoos that are on the road to modern zoos, and although the process may be a bit bumpy and not as good as expected, we can see the direction.
(On 11-15 October 2021, COP15 (Phase I) of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Kunming.) Biodiversity conservation requires media dissemination and participation. On October 16-17, the Southern Weekend Green Media Promotion Program - Biodiversity Communication Seminar, hosted by the China Environmental Protection Foundation and Southern Weekend and specially supported by L'Oréal China, was held in Kunming, and 12 senior people imparted professional knowledge to more than 40 communication practitioners from the media, social organizations and government departments. Southern Weekend excerpted some of these statements for the benefit of readers. ）
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