Book Review

I just finished the book Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch. As a zoo director, a history buff, and a lover of all things English – you would think I would be drawn into a story about exotic animals that is set in 1850’s England. Actually I was prepared to be disappointed, since I am a bit of a cynic. I have written my own animal novel and I have discovered that the nuances of animal care and the ability to make accurate observations of animal behavior do not come easily. While, I must admit, it took me a while to be fully hooked on Jamrach’s Menagerie I did get well and truly hooked. This is, I believe a remarkable piece of writing.

I was enthralled with the spot-on descriptions of the impressive and diverse collection of animals in Mr. Jamrach the animal dealer’s shop, where young Jaffy Brown “grew light of mind from the gorgeous stench”. Who but an animal person would recognize that stench could be gorgeous?

 Later, at sea, as Jaffy watched a recently harpooned whale die, he declared, “It was then I truly realized a whale is no more a fish than I am.”   “So much strength dies slowly. We watched in awe, wordless. Ten minutes, fifteen, more. As she thrashed, she swam around in an ever dwindling gyre, and I begged her to die”.

 And finally, I couldn't help but be impressed with Jaffy's observations of a recently captured Komodo dragon:

“His piggy little eyes watched me suspiciously, and not a movement more I got for the rest of the day.”

“Those eyes were no more stupid than a rock is stupid. In the worst throes if its madness, those ancient eyes had remained fixed as stars, brightly aware, receiving what befell with the clarity of a sage. All life and death the same, the same pain and feeding and fighting and dying.  All of that was in the depths of the creature’s eyes. All that and all the wildness of his life. No, he was not stupid.” How do you write that unless you have spent time looking into the soul of a Komodo dragon?

 At times lyrical and poetic and at times disturbing and evening repulsive, this is one of the few books on the list of those I wish to read again someday.

Enjoying some good reviews on my Book - The Menagerie: A Zoo Story

 http://www.amazon.com/The-Menagerie-A-Zoo-Story/dp/1470106299/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334850600&sr=1-1

 

This was not what I expected from the title. I like to learn when I read and I expected a lot of zoological information. But there was more to this than just a zoo story. There were background stories and character development weaving through periods of time as well through periods of racial and gender struggles that remind us of the way things were in the not so distant (or pleasant) past. This was a good read for learning about the efforts to build and maintain a zoo and for being immersed in the sorted past of a community effort. (Don on amazon.com, April 11, 2012)

Wonderful read! If you are a fan of zoo's you will enjoy this book. (Beverly on goodreads.com May 26, 2012)

I love a story that starts with the discovery of a dead body. It just pulls you right in, but this book is more than just a mystery. The Menagerie is a “who done it” set amidst the background of a zoo, where the people are not the only ones with personalities. We get to know a little of the behind the scenes in the interesting world of a long established zoological park. Porter makes good use of his zoo experience to bring this story to life. I really enjoyed it. (Karen on goodreads.com, June 9, 2012)

Book ReviewS

By Beverly Shaff, Docent, Seneca Park Zoo

The Menagerie: A Zoo Story

J.D.Porter

Paperback & Kindle Editions

ISBN 9781470106294

Have a love for zoos, ever think about how a zoo becomes a zoo? This is a wonderfully

written story of The Dotson Park Zoo, a fictitious place but a story of one of the great American zoos. Flash back in time to a wrestling bear that kills a man in a bar-fight, a cobra in a baby carriage and chimpanzees and elephants living together in the same exhibit. Two dead bodies discovered, both murdered at the zoo. Fascinating history that gives you a new appreciation for zoos and some of the things that happen to make a zoo succeed!   (Symbiosis, Journal of the Association of Zoo and Aquarium Docents, Vol. XXIV No. 3, Jul 2012)

Schindler's Extinction List

Leslie Kaufman’s May 27, 2012 NY Times article entitled “Zoos’ Bitter Choice: To Save Some Species, Letting Others Die” raises some interesting questions for zoo professionals.

How do we “conserve animals effectively” as we “winnow species” in our care in order to devote more resources to the chosen few – a process Kaufman astutely says is “less like Noah building an ark and more like Schindler making a list”?

Many people suggest that the millions of dollars we spend on zoos should, instead, be sent directly to the wild. According to Dr. Steven L. Monfort, the director of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, “We as a society have to decide if it is going to be ethically and morally appropriate to simply display animals for entertainment purposes.” Dr. Monfort wants zoos to raise more money for the conservation of animals in the wild and to make that effort as important as erecting fancier accommodations for their captive collections. Zoos, he said, should build facilities — not necessarily open to the public — that are large enough to handle whole herds of animals so that more natural reproductive behavior can occur. And less emphasis should be placed on animals that are popular attractions but are doing fine in the wild, like African elephants and California sea lions, Dr. Monfort said, adding that they should be replaced with animals in desperate need of rescuing.

But that is going to be a challenge. If it were not for zoos and those “fancier accommodations”, millions of dollars in conservation funding would never be raised in the first place. The fact that zoos can generate the public support, both in attendance and dollars, is an indicator of what a powerful message zoos can generate.

Many zoo directors say that a radical reordering is not called for and that each zoo does valuable work even if conserving just a few species. But Dr. Monfort is not satisfied. He wants all zoos within the Association of Zoos & Aquariums to aim higher on conservation efforts. “I am comfortable with raising the standards for zoos so that eventually it will be harder and harder to be accredited unless you are doing that,” he said in an interview. “If you can’t keep up, then you probably need to be dropped off the bottom.”

The best way to teach respect for and even awe of nature is to allow people to experience it – first hand. For most of us, who will never visit Africa to see giraffes in the wild, that experience occurs in the local zoo. It is one thing to see a giraffe on television, but it is quite another to have a giraffe wrap its long, wet tongue around a branch as you feed it at your local zoo.

But perhaps we do need to draw some distinctions and stop treating every non-human animal in the same manner. A frog, a zebra, and a chimpanzee are very different creatures with very different needs. Maybe we need to urge northern zoos to stop trying to keep elephants and urge southern zoos to stop trying to keep polar bears. And maybe we need to stop all zoos from keeping great apes and whales. If we are going to keep, breed, and preserve some species, maybe it should be done, as Dr. Monfort suggests, in special preserves or villages like, for example, the AZA elephant preserve in Florida. Maybe the biggest question of all is how do we keep pride, politics, and bureaucracy out of the decision-making process and do what is right for the animals?

Could elephants and chimps live together in the same zoo exhibit?

I pose this question because it is an element of my novel The Menagerie: A Zoo Story (https://www.createspace.com/3803108 ). In my imaginary zoo, I created an imaginary exhibit that houses chimpanzees and elephants together – in the same space. It was very satisfying to conceptualize this because, in some ways, I actually began to believe my own fiction.

As a long-time zoo director, I think I know the answer and doubt that I would have the courage to actually try it. But I am already getting questions from my readers about the feasibility.

Here is an excerpt:

The screams were deafening in the confines of the indoor arena that had been used for introductions. Jack the young chimp was clearly terrified, despite the two weeks of gradual introductions, and the elephant Bebe was not responding well. She fanned her ears and lunged at him as he cowered along the wall. He attempted to grab and bite the end of her trunk, which made her even angrier.

“If anyone was going to get into it, it would be these two,” said Chelsea.

“I hope we don’t have to use the fire extinguishers on them,” said Janice. She was referring to the two, large Carbon Dioxide extinguishers that would spew a cloud of white powder in a loud woosh. Animals generally found them terrifying. Janice Fredricks was the training manager who had been working on the animals introductions over the past few weeks. The other animals had adapted fairly well and had gradually settled into a peaceful coexistence, choosing, for the most part, to remain separate.

Jack began to run along the wall as he looked back screaming. This seemed to prompt Bebe to give chase, trumpeting as she ran. She caught him with the end of her trunk and punched him forward. As he lay sprawled in the dirt, temporarily stunned and silent, she loomed over him. Chelsea and Janice held their breath. Bebe sniffed him with her trunk, lingering over his genitals, and then calmly walked away.

And later …

… her thoughts were interrupted by one of the chimps emerging from the forest below her. It was Jack and he was on a collision course with Bebe the elephant. They were both moving toward feeding stations in opposite directions, but their paths were about to cross. Chelsea held her breath, bracing for the encounter that was about to happen. Jack looked up startled and rose up for a better look. Bebe also stopped, and then walked toward the chimp in her path. Jack stood his ground and as the elephant drew near, she sniffed his genitals.

Billy Scales was nearby but outside the barrier and powerless to act.

Chelsea sat up in her chair in astonishment and Don turned to see what had captured her attention. Suddenly, as if choreographed, Bebe grabbed jack around his middle with her trunk and threw him up on her back. He sat for a moment in surprise before settling down to enjoy the ride. Bebe ambled down the path with the chimp on her back.

So my question is this. How conceivable is it to have chimps and elephants living together and interacting with each other on their own accord? Is it preposterous or too dangerous? Has it ever been tried anywhere? Might it be tried in some future zoo?

Another rabbit tale

Another rabbit story and this one does not have a happy ending.

From: SPIEGEL ONLINE International – 3/19/2012

The German zoo that owned Til, the rare baby rabbit born without ears who was tragically stepped on by a cameraman last Wednesday, has been offered a number of replacement earless rabbits.

But the director of the zoo in the small eastern town of Limbach-Oberfrohna, Uwe Dempewolf, told SPIEGEL ONLINE on Monday that he will decline all offers because it would be insensitive to accept them.

"We've had four or five offers from private breeders who heard about this regrettable event but we won't accept any, we're just going to carry on," said Dempewolf. "We'd be criticized if we simply said let's just take another one."

The death of Til was widely reported in the German and international media. It has come as no consolation to anyone that his posthumous fame is almost certainly greater than if he hadn't been stepped on.

Til, a cute, happy, ginger and black domestic rabbit who is survived by five siblings with ears, was being filmed by a camera team ahead of his presentation at a news conference on Thursday that the small zoo had hoped would make him a celebrity like Knut, Berlin's polar bear star, or Heidi, Leipzig Zoo's cross-eyed opossum, both dead.

The cameraman who killed him has only been named as Sascha D. Newspapers have refrained from giving his full name. Dempewolf said the zoo would not be seeking any compensation from the distraught man. "He's unhappy enough as it is," he said.

Sascha D. explained how the accident happened. "I was crouching down, took a step back and noticed I was standing on something," he told the Chemnitzer Morgenpost newspaper. "I'm so sorry."

Til's body is in a freezer and will be stuffed and exhibited at the zoo, which still has some 200 animals.

Dempewolf expressed surprise at the offers of earless rabbits he had received since Til's death. "They don't seem to be that rare, some mothers are over-attentive at birth and accidentally nibble their babies' ears off. Or it can be a genetic defect like with ours. There was no wound on Til's head."

The tabloid newspaper Bild featured a photo of a grey bunny with no ears and very large paws that a breeder from the village of Niederdorf in Saxony had offered the zoo.

The tragedy occurred a few days ahead of the first anniversary of the death of polar bear Knut, one year ago on March 19, 2011. The Berlin Zoo is being criticized by Knut fans for failing to hold a ceremony to mark the event.

Zoo director Bernhard Blaszkiewitz dismissed their sorrow with words that some might describe as harsh. Bild on Monday quoted him as saying: "You mourn people, not animals!" It is a sentiment very many people will disagree with.

So, How about it? Do we mourn animals? Anyone who has lost a beloved pet sure does.

And what was that camera man doing in an animal cage without someone watching the rabbits for him?

Gorillas and Bunnies

I was struck by a news report this week out of Erie, PA:

An elderly gorilla that lives at a Pennsylvania zoo has a new companion: a bunny named Panda. The Erie Zoo’s gorilla, Samantha, has been without a full-time friend since the death of Rudy, a male gorilla, in 2005. But officials say the 47-year-old western lowland gorilla is too old to be paired with another gorilla. So they opted last month to introduce her to Panda, a Dutch rabbit, last month. The Erie Times-News reports Samantha and Panda get along well. Samantha will gently scratch under the bunny’s chin and share her food. Officials at the zoo say Samantha has always had a gentle personality. She was hand-raised and was more comfortable around humans even when Rudy was alive.

If you have been reading my book, The Menagerie: A Zoo Story, you will recognize a familiar premise – different species living together in harmony. In my imaginary zoo, I have elephants and chimpanzees living together. This seems far-fetched until you read about Samantha the Gorilla and her “pet” bunny. I’ll be interested to hear what some of my zoo colleagues think about the idea of elephants and chimps getting along. I think it is possible and I think it would be rewarding for the animals, but I doubt if anyone (myself included) would have the courage to try it in real life. Zoos are under intense public scrutiny and if anything went wrong, the criticism and headlines would be intense.

What do you think? 

African Safari

I'm spending a rainy day in Albany thinking about a May safari to Tanzania.  Twelve days in the Serengeti, sure wish Karen could go with me.  Not only will we see wildlife in the Ngorongoro Crater, but we will also go to Olduvai Gorge to visit the cradle of mankind.  Arrangements will be provided by World Discovery Safaris.  This will be my 4th trip to Africa, but the first time to Tanzania and the first time with a group from Chehaw.

My first novel is finally in print - sort of. I am self-publishing (in the old days we called this "vanity press") through an online service and it will be available through createspace.com and Amazon. It is still in the Proof stage, but I wanted to establish a website (www.jdporterbooks.com) that is still being created and this blog. Stay tuned for further updates.