My recent visit to a Zoo turned horrible. I am not a zoo person and I knew I wouldn’t
feel right in there, but I wasn’t ready to see what I saw there.
He spins from the bars, but
there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.
Ted Hughes “Jaguar”
This poem echoed in my
head when I was standing in front of a hyena. But it was the exact opposite of
what the poet felt when he was in a similar situation.
What the hyena is going
through looks like pure torture to me. I don’t see the Stride as wilderness of
freedom. Craziness of imprisonment is what I see. Pessimist or Realist but I like
to bring the negative or the blunt truth out in the open. A cage is “no cage to
him?” But it is!
Notice Boards and Placards everywhere
Don’t Tease the Animals Don’t shout at the animals
There was an ape which resembled Gollum of
Lord of the Rings .
Its deformity, odd appearance made the crowd go wild. They cheered when it looked at them. It didn’t want their attention. It didn’t want them there. The animal looked deeply disturbed. At one point the ape threw a stone at the crowd and instead of getting the message the crowd was Wowed by it. Knowing nothing it did would make the ‘evolved’ species understand, the animal walked away. My spirit was broken seeing all this. And the crowd which looked really happy and satisfied moved to the next cage craving for more.
Not all animals were kept
in cages. But that doesn’t give any relief, as a small piece of land with deep
pits around it and high fences can’t be seen as a better option. A bear looked
highly perturbed, slightly schizophrenic scratching the wall with bobbling
head. One consolation was that it had another bear in the enclosure.
Most apes were kept alone.
The boards with their name and other details portray a happy family.
It was heart wrenching to see them just
sitting there with a blank look and an empty heart. There was no symptom of
pain or suffering or eagerness to leave, what I saw was plain numbness.
The Aviary looked
beautiful with all the big, tall trees. But all the birds could do was merely
look at the trees from inside the wire fence around them.
A fancy separate section
for the Snakes repelled the fragile souls.
It does need courage to see the poor animals kept that way. Nine feet cobras in what looked like a
cupboard.
And the funniest thing, the stupidest –
what I saw in an Anaconda’s cage. Man thinks he’s making the cage ‘home’ for
the animal and paints the walls with Green plants!
