LSP Environmental Studies Community Event Reports

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This past Wednesday I took a trip to the Bronx zoo, Wednesdays at the zoo are called “Donation Days” which are days when a suggested donation takes the place of the cost of admission. This is essentially a day for everyone to have a chance to experience the zoo free of charge. As I walked around the zoo I saw a handful of school groups but for the most part there nowhere near as many people as I had grown used to seeing over years of zoo visits. There where several factors that could have been resulting in the low attendance; it was a Wednesday afternoon, so the majority of adults and children are either working or at school, also it was the second week of October, directly in the middle of the transitional phase between fall and winter, which would be the beginning of what I would guess to be a very slow period for the zoo. While trying to think of different causes that could attribute to the low number of patrons, I wondered how much, if any the troublesome economy was effecting zoo attendance.
I did some research and came across an article on proposed budget cuts that would diminish programs at the Bronx zoo and completely close both the Prospect Park and Queens zoos. This proposal will provide the zoos with 50 percent less funding than they currently receive. The deal would ultimate cost 211 people there jobs, and would leave thousands of animals displaced. The animal displacement is a much bigger deal than it may seem because the “easy” answer would be to move these animals into the Bronx facility which as the largest of the zoos is already home to over 4,000 animals but with all around budget cuts there is no money to expand facilities and no space for more than possibly a few hundred of the animals.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is in charge of the 4 city zoos (Queens, Bronx, Central Park, and Prospect Park) and the New York City Aquarium, the WCS has already started a campaign that encourages people to write to their local and state representatives, as well as sign petitions and most importantly going out to the zoos to show support. With the WCS knowing that it’s budget cuts are a result of a greater economic crises they have already started looking into different streams of revenue in hopes to continue to be provide these facilities for the public.
The Bronx zoo has already taken steps to create more revenue streams for itself, while there I noticed that the zoo charges extra to see certain high profile exhibits, such as the Congo Gorilla Forest, the Children’s Zoo, Butterfly Garden and the Wild Asia Monorail. They also charge for all transportation around the zoo, which consists of the Skyfari, and two lines of Shuttle Buses, as well as seven generously priced eateries and a bug themed Carousel.
It would cost a family of 4 one hundred and four dollars just in admission costs (assuming they would pay for the 4 exhibits that cost extra to see). With the economy the way it is today families have less and less expendable wealth, also with the rising gas prices people are taking the distant of their trips into account more than ever. These two reasons alone could significantly bring down yearly attendance numbers at the zoo, families and schools that used to commute from New Jersey or upstate New York to visit the Bronx zoo may not make the trip anymore because the cost of travel is just too high for a practical field trip or family outing.
The Bronx Zoo has been around for over one hundred years and barring a complete economic meltdown it will not be closing anytime soon. In the worst case scenario if the zoo was forced to downsize by even twenty percent that would leave almost a thousand animals that would be displaced and would have to be shipped all over the country (assuming they could find zoos in a stable enough state to take them in). One of the major problems with zoos is that they have raised many of the animals that reside there in captivity their entire lives so although it would be an easy solution to release some of these animals in the wild (and most experts say animals revert back to their natural instincts when faced with starvation or danger) it may be harmful and cruel to these animals to release them into the wild.
It’s difficult to see how an animal raised under these conditions would be able to survive in the wild, not only are all of the animals delivered food on a schedule but they are confined to a glass box with a few trees for props and a painted landscaped as a background. The animals have grown accustomed to human interaction (which could also be harmful in the wild) and have essentially become domesticated. It is still a very strange and cruel concept to me that we have been allowed to take animals out of their natural environments and confined them to glass cages that are more often than not too small for them to even run around, for example the giraffe exhibit had a statistic stating that giraffes can run at a top speed of 40 miles per hour with a ten foot stride, but the giraffes where confined to an area that wasn’t large enough for the animal to even take four full strides. Another disturbing thought is the fact that they are removing these animals from the climate of their natural habitats for example the Polar Bear exhibit was outdoors and when we arrived at the location the sun was beaming down on us in an area with no shade and just a small amount of cold running water also the zoo is open all year round, and I cant imagine that the animals of the African plains have adjusted well to living through the New York winter (whether that means living at some sort of indoor facility or braving the cold) and brings into question the handling and care of these animals.

Going to the zoo as an adult was a very fun experience, that I could appreciate a lot more than when I was younger and also raised the questions on issues above as well as many others. I would highly recommend making the trip up (especially on a “Donation Day”)

Works Cited:
www.zoosandaquarium.com
New Yorkers Asked to "Save Our Zoos and Aquarium" From Closings, Crippling Funding Cuts
http://nyzoosandaquarium.com/cpz_news/190222
By: Benjamin Ruiz