It's a Zoo Out There

We have a new band conductor this semester. During this week's rehearsal, he took some time to get to know some of us. He was talking to a few of us flute players and asked what we did.
One works at a law firm. Another is a civil engineer. Then I come up and say that I work at the zoo. I couldn't help laughing, because it's such a reversal from the other jobs that were listed.
I may laugh, but I still think I have the coolest job ever XD


Yellow-backed duiker

The Big, Evil Mansion

I'm trying to form a clearer picture of the "big, evil mansion" in Evva's story.
Except my knowledge of architecture is pretty... bare. I keep jumping between images and styles. I think my first vision of it was something like a modern style with elements of an old-fashioned palace or castle. And then during the first rewrite I kept thinking of it as Victorian in Style, or like the Winchester Mystery House, and then shifting to a Frank Lloyd Wright kind of thing.

Yeah. I really need to get some kind of image nailed down. Otherwise me trying to write about it will be as confusing as the layout of the Winchester Mystery House.



(Here's the ever-photogenic sumatran tiger pair~ )

Environmental Plot: Odds and Ends

This will be my final environmental plots post. It's been a work in progress for six years. Wow. Talk about slow going.
This one is going to tie up all the final topics that I haven't fully addressed in other posts. They may be all combined into one post, but they are still very important.

Anthropocentrism: Humans think they control the world
Humans have developed the idea that we can twist the world however we like. Except this thought process justifies the massive damage we've done to the planet. And it can have huge rippling effects. We wipe out predators (for example wolves in North America). Then prey animals multiply out of control and eat all the plants, which changes the entire landscape. Plus there are no predators to take out the sick or weak animals, so all the prey populations are taken over by the sick and weak.
Or we suppress natural forest fires, which means that forest debris builds up. Then when a forest fire actually does get started, it takes off and is far more destructive that it would have been if there were frequent fires.
Because of the human superiority complex, treatment of non-humans can me truly horrendous. People abuse animals, or do horrible tests on them. Scientific testing on animals can lead to breakthroughs in medicine and such, but sometimes the levels of cruelty can be shocking. For example, rabbits were used to see how different substances would affect eyes. They'd pin the rabbits' eyes open and pour chemicals right onto their eyes. They couldn't blink them away for hours. Some behavioral experiments can cause animals to go crazy.
People also do cruel things like forcing animals to fight each other. Dog fighting, cock fighting, and bear fighting are only some examples.
While there are many good zoos, other "menageries" can be extremely cruel. People just want to wring all of them money they can out of other species. For example, tiger temples seem cool. You can go in and play with baby tigers and bottle feed them. You can walk adult tigers on leashes. And they're run by monks. How can that be bad? Well, these monks are no longer practicing what their gurus did. They will basically turn mother tigers into factory breeders, and steal their cubs from them. They also kill and sell the tigers once they grow up and are no longer cute. Moving on, in Japan I was unfortunate enough to run across a very bad zoo (Most of Japan was amazing, but this was shocking to me). The animals were in concrete and wire boxes, and they were in terrible shape (physically and mentally). And finally there are things like roadside zoos. They're not much different than the zoo I saw in Japan. But they're small and mobile, because they're illegal in the US. So if the authorities come, they want to pack up and move quickly. This sometimes means tying up and leaving animals behind to die, either of starvation of from the elements. Make sure you know what kind of place you're supporting before you give them any money.
The more humans are separated from nature, the worse this will become. How can people care about something if they've never experienced it? How many kids have seen where their food comes from? Food does not come from a grocery store. It comes from the earth.
If people learn about the planet and get outdoors to experience everything, they will have that desire to protect it. The more deeply we learn about it, the more we realize that we are a part of the planet, not ruling over it.


Overpopulation
There are far too many humans on the planet. The only reason so many humans can exist right now is because a huge number of people live in extreme poverty. If everyone lived to the standards of an average American, it would take several Earths to provide all of the needed resources.
It's less developed countries that tend to have the highest population growth. When children are likely to die young, people have more children. Plus in more developed countries, it takes a lot of resources to raise a kid (think of sending them through school/college and everything).
Educating and empowering women can have a huge impact on population growth. It gives them power over their own bodies so they're not used only to make babies. And of course improving the state of poor countries helps too.

Native People
We've been wiping out native cultures for a very long time. Those that haven't been wiped out have largely been forced to adhere to modern conventional societies.
But older cultures have a wealth of knowledge about the worlds they live in, and how to exist in those worlds. At least they did before we wiped them out. So much of their knowledge is lost forever.
The cultures that have overrun them are far less cooperative with the workings of the planet.
We've lost many old traditional cultures, and others are fading away. Luckily there are people trying desperately to keep them alive.


Environmental Justice
Environmental justice means that people in minority groups are stuck in the worst environmental situations.
Not just poor people, but specifically people of certain cultures.
Dirty, polluting factories are often planted in the backyards of minority neighborhoods. The loud, sometimes toxic facilities may be right next door from houses.
There are a few reasons for this. For example, there might be a language barrier which makes it difficult for them to understand the weird language of legal permits. Or maybe the "city planning meetings" are held far from their communities, and it's difficult for them to get across the city during the middle of a work day. And I think society finds it easier to pick on minority groups.

Invasive Species
Invasive species are animals or plants that humans have transferred to a new location, and then those species thrive and start to negatively impact that new location. There are infinite examples of invasive species, and they can have any number of impacts. They may kill or out-compete native wildlife, or they may hurt humans or our pets/gardens.
Sometimes people bring a new species in on purpose. Like when someone had the idea to bring to America all of the birds Shakespear wrote about. That lead to starlings taking over. Sometimes people introduce species that they hope to eat, only to find that no one wants to eat them.
Sometimes it's unintentional, like the strange shellfish that travel on boats and take over lakes.
When people try to get invasive species under control, sometimes it makes things worse. For example, people brought cane toads to Australia so they'd eat a certain bug. But that didn't happen. Instead cane toads have spread across much of the country. And cane toads are poisonous to native animals and human pets alike.
Humans could be considered the most extreme invasive species. Look how we've spread and disturbed so much of the planet already.

Waste
We waste so much. We have huge amounts of packaging for toys, appliances, and food. Much of our food is wasted. Old stuff is thrown away instead of repaired.
We also waste a lot of by-products. For example, natural gas is often found with other fossil fuels (like oil). Natural gas is very useful. But when they mine for oil, that natural gas is just burned away because it isn't worth as much.
Bycatch is another example. When people fish, a lot of the stuff they catch is not worth as much (or they're not allowed to sell it). Most of those animals end up dying on the decks of the ship, and are then thrown back overboard.


How can you use these themes?
Natural systems are very easy to mess up. It's easy to write about people tampering with things like weather and forests and water. We think we know how the planet works, yet every time we interfere, it has unforeseen consequences. Sometimes huge ones that could take centuries to fix. Since all things in nature are connected, wiping out one species can destroy an entire ecosystem.
Humans have tried to recreate their own enclosed habitats, and failed miserably. We really have no idea what we're doing.
Those in power seem to abuse groups that they consider to be beneath them. That may be minority groups, native people, or even animals. There are plenty of stories that can be about the abusers or the abused, or both.
For overpopulation, what do you think will happen when too many people are crammed onto our poor planet?
How could a minority community fight against companies that contaminate their homes?
What kinds of invasive species would be the worst? How would you fight against that?
What happens when we've run out of the planet's resources?
There are countless possibilities considering how many subjects this post covers.



Other stories that use these themes
Ishmael (Quinn) gets to the very root of the human superiority complex.
In Daja's book (Pierce), humans think they can control the cycles of nature - specifically forest fires. But when we interfere with natural cycles, it throws everything out of whack.
Oryx and Crake has a future with severe overpopulation. Their solution is to kill most of the humans. Yikes.
Inferno (Brown) has a different solution to overpopulation. They have a chemical that will render most humans sterile.
In Wall-E, when humans destroy the planet too much, they abandon it to live in outer space. The state of humans suffers from this move. But not as much as the planet has suffered.
Jurassic Park is an example of what happens when humans get overzealous about their supposed power over nature.

The anime series Future Boy Conan takes place in a future with a lot of junk left from the proceeding society. The people there go through old dumps and gather all the plastic wasted by the people of the past. It's very important for them. The people there also attempted to make their own enclosed ecosystem, but it didn't work.
Watership Down (Adams) shows you how rabbits feel when humans destroy their homes.

The 1967 Dr. Dolittle movie is about respecting animals.

Books like Hoot (Hiaasen) make you think of how cool things like a new pancake house can affect the little feathery animals living around us.

Once Upon a Forest is a cartoon about how a dangerous chemical leak affects the animals.
Pocahontas has a beautiful song about living in harmony with nature.
Tom Brown Jr's books are beautiful ways to learn about the skills and beliefs of American Indians.

Look at the Camera!

Most of the people that come to the public giraffe feedings are thrilled.
Some of the tiny kids are scared since the giraffe heads are about as big as they are. But plenty of the kids are super excited. Of course they are!
During the public giraffe feeds, we always let a photographer step onto the deck to take a video/photos. This can often become complicated for a variety of reasons. But there's one thing that's happened a couple times that leaves me indignant for the sake of kids. They're up there, hand-feeding a giraffe. Getting face-to-face with the tallest animal in the world. Probably their only chance to do so. And meanwhile their family is across the deck shouting, "look at the camera! Why aren't you looking at the camera?"
Because they're feeding a giraffe! Why the heck would a kid want to look at the camera when they have just a few moments to be face-to-face with a giraffe?

The Ghibli museum in Japan doesn't allow photos specifically for this reason. They want kids to have fun playing and exploring without parents bugging them to pose over and over for photos.

(You can take photos outside, and I took this photo from the roof of the Ghibli Museum).

I want people to get good photos of their time with the giraffes. But not at the expense of enjoying the moment!
I appreciate Miyazaki's reasoning on the "no photos" in the museum. It would make things a lot simpler for everyone. Even though I took photos outside the museum...



Peacock posing next to the komodo dragon statue.

Wrath of the Land and Sea

I haven't been to Hawaii in about 15 years. But there was a beautiful little house on the Big Island that my family rented a couple times.
I say "was" because that whole part of the island is gone now. Covered over by lava.
It's hard to imagine. That beautiful little bay, the mangroves and coconut trees, the house with the turtle pond, the lovely little town, the street where I rescued the kitten.
Is any of it left? Where did all of the people go that lived there? What about the animals?

I've been near lava before. In movies and games and stuff, they show characters walking right next to the lava. That could never happen. If you're near a little hole with lava in the bottom, you can't get within 10+ feet of that thing because the heat is so overwhelming.
It is not something you want coming after you, or your house.

As if the volcano wasn't enough, now a hurricane is headed over there?
Stay safe, everyone.




Kudu

You Don't Have to Live Near a Story

Every now and then someone says something that confuses the heck out of me.
During Fanime, I found only one thing in the entire convention from Coco. A cute key chain of Hector and Imelda dancing. I bought it, and the next day they were sold out. I commented on this to the artist.
She's from Australia, and she said, "I guess Coco is popular here because you're closer to Mexico."
Inwardly I went, "whaaat?"
Because we were literally at a convention dedicated to Japanese cartoons. Half-way across the world from Japan. And she's saying that you have to live close to something in order to be a fan of it?
@_@
A lot of my favorite stories take place in other parts of the world, whether it's Mexico, Japan, China, Africa, Australia, or France.

Anyway, as usual I'll tack on a zoo photo.

Sifaka - a type of lemur (pronounced "shiffawk").

Fantasy

A video about the fantasy genre~


And a lion!

Babies!

I got to see the baby snow leopards for the first time yesterday!
They are the cutest things in the whole world. It was their first time coming outside and the two of them were going ,"what is this huge place??!"
I can't wait until they're confident enough to play outside for everyone to see~

I'll post pictures once I get them on my computer.
But for now, here's the one from the zoo website. I think it must be taken by our awesome zoo photographer~


And while I'm at it, here's the dad.

Circuses, Zoos, and Pets

I finally saw The Greatest Showman. It was a good movie, and the songs are very catchy. I can't get them out of my head, and I've listened to the soundtrack several times.


One complaint, which doesn't detract from the movie, but echoes something I've been thinking about lately.
A lot of the scenes with horses were very obviously fake. They were digitally animated horses. Same with the elephants and lions, though that's pretty common nowadays. But fake horses?
I understand why things like lions and elephants would be digital instead of real. They Are big and powerful, and an accident could be very bad. But horses? Sure, accidents happen sometimes on horses. But so many more people know how to work with horses! And horses can be so well trained. Plus there are always weird accidents involved in filming.
It's not like they horses were doing anything unreal (like flying, or jumping off cliffs). So why were they fake?

It worries me because it's already getting hard for horse people to find work. Technology is driving a lot of animal skills to extinction.

I'll start off by saying that this is a very touchy topic, because of the history behind it.
Animals used in film and entertainment have been very cruelly treated in the past. They can be injured (even killed) while making a movie. And of course large animals can be dangerous to humans.
But when people start to replace real animals with fake ones, it has other effects. Like I mentioned, it drives people (those that work with animals) out of jobs. And while there may have been some cruel methods of animal "training" (more like breaking) in the past, it is not always that way. There are very humane methods of animal training. And we are losing opportunities to display that.
But I think a bigger, though less visible problem, is that it's a further gulf between people and nature. We're replacing real animals with fake, computer generated ones. It takes away the value of real living breathing creatures.
There is no substitute for seeing a real animal with your own eyes.
Every week at the zoo when the tiger walks inside and people see him up close, everyone gasps in awe. He walks in of his own free will, because he knows that if he comes inside, he'll get treats. Though sometimes if he's fast asleep, he might not hear the call. The lions don't really care enough about treats to come inside, but they will occasionally.

And in the evening when the first giraffe walks into the barn, there are murmurs of joy at seeing such a beautiful, amazing creature less than ten feet away.

One thing good zoos are starting to do, which makes sense is called "protected contact." It means that for potentially dangerous animals, there is always a barrier between the animal and the humans working with them. It makes sense. Even the best trained tiger is so big and strong that it could hurt someone by accident. At trainers that lose focus for even a moment could trigger a tiger's instincts. Plenty of keepers admit that all their accidents were their own fault. But no matter how careful you are, human error will always happen at some point.
But it's still got that underlining thing about separating humans from animals and nature. It's just my opinion, but since I've taken some strange risks, I think it's worth that risk to work hands-on with animals. It seems like it must make the bond all that stronger, and I don't want that kind of bond to disappear (Disclaimer - this is not the zoos opinion, and I have never worked hands on with any big dangerous animals, other than horses XD so take this with a grain of salt).

Every time I see events with real animals disappear, it hurts. Like when they took away the rainforest exhibit from our county fair. You could see animals there that you'd probably never see anywhere else. Like a binturong.
I think it does more damage to take away animals, because people will not care about them nearly as much if they can't meet them face to face. Plus it also gives animal keepers the opportunity to teach people about animals, and how to protect them.
As long as we're using methods that are kind to the animals. Any place that is cruel to animals must go away.

Circuses. I'm not really familiar with how they train their animals.

In the past circuses have treated animals horribly. Bad food, small cages, cruel training methods.
But surely there are kind ways to keep and train circus animals? Is it too expensive to give circus animals all the space and care they need? I don't know. I'm not as sure about this one. Some animals definitely don't belong in circus-like settings. But could kind circuses work?
Especially if they also teach people about the animals.
That's what good zoos do. They keep healthy animal populations in human care, which is insurance if anything happens to those animals in the wild. And in far to many cases, wild animals are in terrible danger. Some populations of animals have only been saved because there were some of of them in human care.
Plus zoos give people the opportunity to see animals, fall in love with them, and learn about them and the dangers they face.
Good zoos are here to help the animals, not to treat animals like mindless display pieces for people to gawk at.

Pets.
There are more tigers owned privately than there are wild tigers (there are only about 3,000 wild tigers left, and that's including all 6 species of tiger).
It's still legal to own animals like this in some states. Lions, tigers, chimpanzees (you can't actually obtain chimps as pets anymore, but you can keep any chimps you already own @_@ )
Most of the people that own a pet tiger have absolutely no business caring for an animal like that. They just want to look tough or rich or something. There are sanctuaries that take in hundreds of bears and wolves and big cats that have been neglected and abused.

But in other places there are people that are legitimately trying to help endangered animals. They have the space and resources to care for them, but are tied in knots trying to make it work legally.

I think the main thing is that people should not be allowed to have an animal unless they are prepared to care for that animal through its entire life. So for tortoises that can live over 100 years, you probably have no business owning one since that animal will outlive you.
Or people think it would be fun to buy a little lion cub. But that cub will not stay little for long. It will grow up and become a huge and powerful predator. The chimpanzees at our zoo were all in this boat. They were all kept as pets when they were babies. They were dressed in human clothes and treated like human babies. But they are not humans. They don't act like humans. And they do not grow up to be humans. So when they grow up, the people don't want to keep them anymore.
If you have a huge amount of space and all of the resources to care for and train an animal through its entire life, including good diet, full medical care, and social interactions (some animals need others of their species), maybe you can think about owning one.
This also goes for domestic animals. Even cats and dogs. If you can't afford their basic care, or vet care when it's needed, don't get an animal. It is not okay to buy a bunny for your kid on Easter unless that kid is prepared to care for the bunny all 10+ years of its life.

Other animals like ball pythons can live 30+ years. Your life can change a lot in that time. You may go through school and marriage and parenthood, and still have your python.
I have a ball python. I've had him 10 years. And I intend to keep him for as long as he lives. I love him. And I'd recommend ball pythons as pets, but only if you can commit to them for 30 years. And that is a significant chunk of your life.

There is a book I read that had a fitting quote. If you tame something, you owe your life to it. Because by taming it, you have taken away its ability to care for itself.

So, there's my rant. Animals are wonderful companions. They can change your life. But they are a lot of work, and not everyone is capable of caring for animals.
So, go hug your animals and let them know that you'll take care of them forever.

I realized that I completely neglected my fanfiction ever since I started at the zoo.
Oops.
I spent much of the evening writing the next chapter. It's strange thinking of how a Pokémon Go gym might work in the real world (real Pokémon world, that is).