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This Hard Land
August 11, 2008 | permalink

I took the bus to Bear Mountain this weekend, hiking around for the day. Nothing strenuous; more of a walking than a hiking. The places I was (the path around Lake Hessian, and the trail through the zoo up to the ruins of Fort Montgomery) are wilder than, say, Central Park, but really not by much. Which is not to say it wasn't fun, or that I was disappointed. It was exactly what I wanted. A day outdoors, out of the city, that wasn't going to kick my ass.

I hadn't been there in something like ten years, and I forgotten about a lot of things that are there, most notably the zoo. Which is probably the saddest zoo I have ever seen in my entire life. I say this as someone ambivalent about zoos in general. On the one hand, I very much think that animals ought to be free and wild. On the other, I think it is important for people, especially children, to see them in person; their majesty does not come through in video, and the vast majority people do not have the means to see large and exotic animals in their natural habitat. So a zoo can be a place of great wonder and inspiration, if it is done right.

The zoo at Bear Mountain is not. It is full of cramped cages and depressed animals.

To be fair, all the animals have either been rescued from injury or were born in captivity, and are incapable of living in a wild environment; without their caretakers, these animals would perish in short order. But still, it is pretty miserable. The worst, to me, were the birds with damaged or missing wings, hobbling around in their cages looking just so broken. Followed very closely (I know you will be shocked by this, Gentle Readers) by the bears, who, while not damaged, were so obviously miserable that it was heartbreaking. And yet, most of the other people there seemed not to notice how sad they were. They didn't seem to notice how much the bears would have liked to get out and chase them around a little, either; but I could tell.

Or maybe I was just projecting...

Posted in Bears & Out of Town
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