all things great and small

I've been trying to reconcile my crushing, pre-cognitize love for critters of every kind with my need to put theory behind my ideas. I'm not there yet. I don't think it's impossible. But it could take a while. Years, even.

(To the right: Ned, an elephant confiscated from his owner and placed with The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. As you can see from the picture, Ned was very emaciated upon his arrival at the Sanctuary. They are slowly nursing him back to health. For more about elephant welfare, and and to learn why they should never be in captivity, visit the Sanctuary online at Elephants.com)


A few quotes from Thalia Field's Incarnate that have me some of my re-thinking my (liberal, middle-class, privileged) emotions:

While Hediger [sic] famously watched zoo-keepers
psyche-out the inmates with excessive petting
killing with a kindness as unbearable as direct flame
the keepers's self-love of love
a revolting and deadly obsession with touching
the worst possible torture
within a general overarching torture

(p.104)


I'm thinking about the 41 dead stingrays at the Calgary Zoo, and how the officials still don't know what killed them. And why, in this year of our lord [sic] 2008, must we humans still insist on touching the animals?

only tameness, if achieved, is calming, finally
the suffering wild animal resigns
to the stink of the enemy's hands
on everything

(p. 107)


Our sense of entitlement, as humans. Our sense of ownership over the natural world. How it's killing us and we don't even know it. Dr. Georgia Mason talking to Bob MacDonald on Quirks and Quarks about her study about "whether zoos are a good thing or not for elephants." The fact that captive elephants live only half as long as their wild counterparts. How Dr. Mason argues persuasively, I thought, against the keeping of elephants in captivity, and moving them around from zoo to zoo, until the very end of the interview, where she merely suggests that perhaps we need to improve how we move them. I respectfully disagree. Layperson and poet though I am, I think these animals are more intelligent and emotional than we can apprehend with our knowledge and our science, and I maintain that it is as damaging to an elephant to be moved every seven years as it would be to a human to move him or her every seven years, away from friends and family, into a strange situation and with no say on the matter. Think about it. How would you cope?

as zoos get upgraded with scented toys
and other props, artificial snowbanks and "real" carcasses
eliciting new repertoire and better performances
for the captive audience
and still the keepers wonder why hiding remains most
critical to the survival of animals

(p. 121)

The baby elephant that died at the Calgary Zoo

The baby giraffe that died at the Vancouver zoo

Hazina the hippo who died after transfer to the Calgary Zoo

The baby gorilla that died at the Calgary Zoo (is anyone else seeing a theme here?)

Baby lemurs abandoned at the Winnipeg Zoo

Why do we think they own them?