Category: zoos...

the first zoos may have been attempts at animal domestication; pigeons were kept in captivity in Iraq c 4500 BC
there were many royal zookeepers, including biblical King Solomon, Assyria's Ashurbanipal, and King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylonia
collections of captive animals existed in Greece by the 7th c BC and Alexander the Great sent back to Greece many animals caught on his military expeditions
for nocturnal animals, the lighting is reversed - dim lights or red light during the day and at night fully illuminated so the animals go to sleep
in a good modern zoo, for every 20 animals on display, only about 5 have been bred in captivity and the others have been collected in the wild
going on a zoo tour of the world
thinking of being in a crowd as being part of a zoo
The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal's gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond. (John Berger)
An uncommon zoo specimen that survives on a diet of hamburgers, French fries and Coke went on display this weekend at Miami's MetroZoo. (Kerry Gruson)
Extinct is forever. (K. Benirschke)