The Animal Kingdom
Native Americans believe the animal world teaches man how to
live close to the earth, respectful of and in harmony with the natural world.
In the hierarchy of reincarnation, in both Hinduism and
Buddhism, humans have the highest status. Being born an animal is the result of
bad Karma in a previous life.
All three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and
Islam believe man is the highest creation, which makes them responsible for the
wellbeing of the earth and its creatures, and all prohibit cruelty to animals. Ecclesiastes
3:19 of the Old Testament says “man has no superiority over beast”. The Quran explains
in Surah 6:38 that “all the creatures that crawl on the earth and those that
fly with their wings are communities like yourselves.” All three believe
animals have souls, and are to be valued as God’s creation.
Whether they believe themselves to be superior to animals or
not, humans have been fascinated by the animal kingdom.
Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894), Edgar Rice
Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes, (1912) inspired an endless array of children’s
stories. By the time Disney cartoons
made their appearance, the stories have only animal characters rather than the
relationship of humans and animals.
The idea of animals standing in for humans is not a new one
and can be traced back to the ancient Indian Panchatantra and Aesop’s fables (
6th C BC ). Using animals as
metaphors allow the moral stories and messages to be less confrontational.
Post Darwinian curiosity about the nature and behavior of
animals grew with the founding of the National Geographic Society in 1888, now
spread across the world through the Nat Geo Channel.
Hugh John Lofting wrote letters to his children from the
British Army trenches of World War I, creating the much beloved Dr. Dolittle, a
vet who can talk to animals. Along with the three films versions made, it
seeded the idea that animals are not just a herd or a species, but have
individual personalities.
Despite our love for animals, we destroy more and more of
their habitat. The extinction of species such as the dinosaurs has been the
result of natural phenomenon, but humans have speeded up the process through
overhunting and encroaching their natural habitats.
Modern zoos believe their role is to raise public awareness
and develop breeding programmes, like a “Noah’s Ark”. However, the very worst
place to see animals is in a zoo. No matter how big an enclosure, it cannot
compare with the several thousand square miles an animal has in the wild.
Zoos have a dark history. Although private bestiaries were
popular from Egyptian times, public zoos are a colonial legacy. Established to
reflect European authority over distant lands, they were places of spectacle. Behind
the collections, is the capture of animals taken from their community by
wildlife traders - not unlike the capture of humans for slavery.
The 19th century pioneer of modern zoos, Carl Hagenbeck,
captured animals in nearly every continent of the world to be exhibited in
European cities, including humans “savages” - Nubians and Inuits. He trained
animals for circuses in Europe and USA. To his credit he eventually realized zoo
animals need natural surroundings not tiled cages.
Karachi Zoo was also established by colonialists in 1878. Dr
Sohail Ansari had written an excellent history for Dawn. Dr A A Quraishy who
was zoo curator from 1953 to 1983, established the Safari Park in 1970
intending to transfer the Zoo to this location - an unfulfilled dream. In the
meantime, animals are humiliated daily in miserable enclosures, managed by
indifferent staff, and visitors come away with little knowledge of the animals
they have seen.
Margi Prideaux, in her article “Zoos are the problem, not
the solution to animal conservation” writes zoos “are unable to accommodate
more than the smallest fraction of the world’s 22,784 species that are
threatened with extinction.” Do we need zoos when there are excellent animal documentaries?
Is conservation not better served by nature preserves and rolling back the destruction
of animal habitats?
Durriya Kazi
Karachi.
October 10, 2021
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