The other day, for his fifth birthday, I took my son Cole to the Miami Metrozoo.
We make this trip at least once a year together. The first time we were
there, he was barely walking, but he toddled right up to the big black
pot-bellied pig at the petting zoo and looked straight in its hairy
face, in love. Another time, he was wooed by a cockatoo on a trainer’s
arm. This year, he had a mystic experience with a one-eyed turkey.

Cole
knelt to pet the tom’s feathers ever so gently. The turkey would puff
up, shake its tail, make a little purr-like noise (yes, I suppose it
was a gobble), push close to my son, and look at him intently with his
one good eye. With wrinkly red skin covering their face and dripping
from their beaks like molten plastic, turkeys are at least as
weird-looking as pot-bellied pigs. But Cole, my wild manic birthday
boy, seemed to have connected to this one’s soul. He was ever so docile
and at one with this odd creature, as if it were the most beautiful
thing in the world.

Zoos are places of beauty and brutality. We visit them to see the animals we love
up close -- to pay homage even. Yet, watching a polar bear pace or a
lion stare apathetically at a noisy crowd, it’s impossible not to also
realize we are bearing witness to cruelty, to vestigial colonialism --
to nature trapped, shipped far from its homeland, and held captive.
That’s part of why the public was so enthralled by the story
of that tiger mauling a man in San Francisco in December: Even before
we knew the drunk had taunted the beast, we guessed exactly where the
killer was coming from.

In a PETA world, zoos are coming to grips with their own antiquated morality. A growing number have vowed not to raise any more elephants.
(These very sensitive creatures need miles to roam; their psychic
imbalance is a barometer of Earth’s peril.) In most zoos, old iron
cages have long been replaced by lush landscapes; sometimes, it can be
hard for visitors to find the damn animals!

With the advent of the Discovery Channel, or National Geographic’s 24-hour African watering hole camera,
we don’t need zoos to show us far reaches of the world, like we once
did. Still, as someone who wants to raise her child to be something
more than a screen baby, I take him every year. After all, there are
some things you can only learn from life unmediated and unedited. To
really get a sense of how black and large a giraffe’s tongue is, you
have to feed it green leaves. Education, rescue, and conservation are
the core mission and the future of zoos. The disabled turkey was
probably lucky to be sheltered here rather than on a farm. The Miami
Seaquarium has a tank full of manatees too maimed by boat propellers to
survive on their own.

“Look how long those birds’ legs are!”
Cole marveled at the flock of pink flamingos that greet visitors to the
Miami zoo. “And look how short that one’s are!” he said, pointing to a
duck.

“Yes; isn’t it amazing how animals come in so many
different shapes and sizes?” I said pedantically; I know a teachable
moment when I see one.

“Oh yeah! And look how much beak that
bird has!” Cole exclaimed, gesturing at one of the wild ibises that
choose to make the zoo, rather than the nearby Everglades, their home.

I
wonder how my son will feel next Thanksgiving. Will he remember his
friend at the zoo, and feel differently about our turkey meal? That,
too, could be a zoo’s mission in the 21st century. Even PETA would
approve.