Icebergs are melting, water levers are getting lower, and snow is scarce. Polar bears penguins and sea otters might lose their homes. What can be done to solve this? That is where zoos come in, by bringing the animals into the zoo; they now can have a mock environment they need to survive.
Tracey Harden discusses such environments in her New York Times article called “Improving the Environment for Creatures of Two and Four Legs.” She tells us about the “”Absolutely Apes'' exhibit at the San Diego Zoo [where guests] find themselves in a mock Asian rain forest, complete with fallen tree trunks. And how “zoos are focusing on behavioral enrichment – giving animals choices in their environments, and striking a balance between offering them stimulation and refuge.” So these zoos are trying to make the animals feel like they are at home at most they can. |
At a zoo called Woodland Park, they have a new habitat for the jaguars with big trees, “Mr. Bierlein said [they] purposely created high points for the jaguars to get away from humans.'' So these jaguars can escape the feeling of a zoo. They climb trees in the wild, now they can climb trees here at the zoo. |
If the animals do have to be locked up its better to have them in an environment that represents their own, so its not even like they are in captivity at all. It is very helpful that zoos can accommodate the animal’s needs. Penguins can now live in peace at the zoos in California with the ice and pools that they are given. The mock environments were a great idea to make the animals comfortable.