Several days ago my family visited one of Lima, Peru’s zoos. On the day before our visit, I wrote about some of my general thoughts and feelings about zoos, in an article titled “Why Zoos Stimulate Our Minds.”
Writing out my thoughts was a sort of preparative exercise, mostly to try to articulate the main dilemma I have with zoos: do the potential education benefits of zoos outweigh the cruelty of caging animals in small spaces that I personally believe typically don’t provide them with fulfilling lives? I still am not sure of the answer, but my trip to the Huachipa Zoo did answer another intriguing question for me. When zoos are bad, would I personally prefer that a bad zoo exist rather than have no zoo at all?
Before I reveal the answer to the aforementioned question, I should explain that my wife and I came up with some criteria for rating zoos. For the purpose of reviewing more zoos in the future, I wanted to have some reasonable means to compare them.
A Methodology for Rating and Reviewing Zoos
We think that there are five important categories of factors for rating the quality of a zoo:
1. Animal Facilities, Habitats, and General Zoo Appearance
How representative of an animal’s natural environment is the space where an animal is caged? Is the animal in a cement pit, or is it having some plausibly decent existence in a simulated quasi-environment? How are the animals behaving? Do they seem content, or are they sleeping incessantly or pacing back and forth in a small area? Are animals crowded together? Do their cages seem clean? How does the zoo look as you walk through it? Like a natural place or more like a prison?
2. Educational Resources
What kinds of educational resources the zoo has available in the way of signs, exhibits, brochures, as well as any programs led by zoo staff play an important role in fulfilling what I view to be as the saving grace of zoos: the ability they might have to help people learn and care about animals. This criteria for rating a zoo is only second in its importance to that of the facilities provided for animals.
3. Environmental Initiatives of the Zoo and Other Services
How well does the zoo reflect its supposed environmental values? For instance, are there places to recycle? Does the zoo explain how you can help animals that are endangered through your own actions? And does the zoo make efforts to provide staff and information to help people behave in a positive way in the zoo? Are people taught the reasons why they should not attempt to feed or touch animals? Or are zoo visitors free to do as they please?
4. Visitor Comfort
Feeling comfortable at any tourist destination and educational facility is important. If you really need to pee and there’s no place to do so, you probably aren’t paying much attention to learning about zoo animals. Also, are food and drinks readily available? Are there places to sit, get in the shade, and cool off? How is the traffic flow and personal space in the zoo? Are you always being crowded into a small space with lots of screaming, squirmy kids?
5. Degree of Zoo Commercialization
Are the commercial aspects of the zoo as a business interfering with the zoo’s mission to help visitors learn about animals? Does it seem like the zoo exists more to sell tickets, food, and toys than to provide a decent environment for the animals?
6. Unique and Distinguishing Zoo Features and Reasons to Recommend It
Are there any parts of the zoo that are particularly creative or memorable that distinguish the zoo from others? Are there any highlights?
Grading Lima’s Huachipa Zoo
Before providing an assessment of the Parque Zoologico Huachipa, here’s a little bit of general information about it. This zoo is located in an eastern neighborhood of Lima, and is not as well known as Lima’s other zoo, which is known as the Parque de las Leyendas (The Park of Legends). Of the five guidebooks we own about Peru, I don’t think any of them in their Lima chapters mention either zoo.
1. Animal Facilities, Habitats, and General Zoo Appearance
When you first enter the Huachipa Zoo, the first thing you see is a dreary and large faded painting on a zoo building. Although this feature could stand to be improved, the rest of the zoo has a colorful and welcoming appearance. It does not take long though before you see that the animals are in very bad facilities.
For instance, a giraffe located near the zoo entrance is in a relatively small pin, with only a few trees. A zebra pit is also fairly representative of the small and uninteresting nature of the animals’ living spaces. Something about the zoo’s several monkey islands is psychologically disturbing. Large moats detain the monkeys from leaving small, crowded islands that are graced with a few ropes and wooden structures that can be used for climbing and swinging.
Perhaps most depressing is the zoo’s display of large cats. One after the other, you see them in incredibly small, dull rooms that are unfit for their spacial needs. Some of the cats were in deep sleeps during our visit, while several others were pacing back and forth with a look on their faces like they would kill somebody if they ever got out.
Several of the last animals we saw during our visit were river otters. My 12 year old nephew said after seeing the otters that “they don’t have enough water to swim in the way that they like.” The otters in fact were coasting on their bellies in a pool of water about 1 foot deep.
While the outward appearance of the cages and rooms where animals are kept in the Huachipa Zoo is not always bad, and there are plenty of trees and plants throughout the zoo, the overwhelming crappy feeling the animal facilities inspire is unpleasant. Grade: C-
2. Educational Resources
When you enter the zoo, you receive a small brochure that provides a map of the zoo and talks generally about the zoo’s conservation mission and its animals and plants. Only a few of the animal exhibits have small signs that tell you what kind of animal you are looking at. And few of these signs give you any additional information about where the animal species live, what they eat, their conservation status, and so on. For instance the penguin exhibit, which generated a significant amount of interest from zoo visitors, had absolutely no signs whatsoever labeling the species. The species was in fact the Humboldt Penguin: a charismatic endangered species that lives in Peru that also has many fascinating characteristics.
There was no schedule posted that would lead you to think that programs were offered by park staff either, even though the zoo’s nice website led us to believe there would be some kind of educational offerings. We saw no programs being offered while we visited the zoo. Given that this zoo not only had bad animal facilities but also essentially no educational offerings on the day we visited, it basically provided me with a tool for deciding whether or not I thought a zoo like this one should exist at all given the circumstances (answer to follow in the conclusion of this review) Grade: F
3. Environmental Initiatives of the Zoo and Other Services
Seeing as that there were no educational materials or programs offered by the zoo, helping model positive behavior for zoo visitors was going to be tough. One easy opportunity was lost: the zoo did not offer anywhere to recycle plastic bottles or anything else. On several occasions I saw zoo visitors feeding animals junk food, and the bird pictured at the top of this article I witnessed having it’s tail pulled by a visitor. No one was around to ask visitors not to do this things, or explain why doings these things is bad. Grade: F
4. Visitor Comfort
This is probably the major area where the Huachipa Zoo shines. Large, spacious pathways are available throughout the zoo, and there is almost always somewhere to move to if you feel crowded for space by other people. Food and beverages are available throughout the zoo in numerous locations, as are restrooms and benches. I’ve been to a lot of zoos, and most of them feel tight for space. Grade: A
5. Degree of Zoo Commercialization
The Huachipa Zoo unfortunately does seem in some ways like it is out to make money. In addition to a relatively high entrance fee by Peruvian standards, a trip through the zoo’s special exhibit space comes with an additional charge (the current exhibit features animatronic dinosaurs and little else in the way of educational materials except some signs at the beginning). A gargantuan play area for children has several rides that cost extra, and several other cleverly designed enticements for children throughout the zoo cost extra money.
Perhaps the most interesting commercial thing I saw in the zoo was blatant advertising by a milk company. The company boasts with pleasure that it helps to pay for some food for zoo animals. Given that the sign is next to the zebra exhibit and shows a zebra, I’m not sure the company should feel so proud of itself. Maybe it could provide some money for a better environment for the zebras. And if the zoo needs a sponsor to help pay for food, what business does it have attempting to do what it is doing?
I only took a quick look at the gift shop, but it seemed to have little more than stuffed animals (no books it seems). Grade: C
6. Unique, Distinguishing Zoo Features and Reasons to Recommend It
No, there are not any features to this zoo that make it unique. Perhaps the best area of the zoo though is its “Bosque de las aves” (Forest of the birds). While it is not a feature that is unique to this zoo, this enclosed area is quite beautiful, and provides access for seeing a number of beautiful macaws and other birds with ease. Numerous trees provide the forest with a lush canopy that can be observed from a centrally located tower. A waterfall you get to walk behind is a nice touch, and the combining sounds of birds make this one of the few places in the zoo that has a strong sense of place. The Forest of the Birds is the one highlight of the Huachipa Zoo that I would recommend. Grade: C
The Huachipa Zoo’s Overall Grade is a D
It’s hard to give a positive review of the Huachipa Zoo with its lack of educational materials, environmental initiative, commercialization, and with its very bad animal facilities. One of the most interesting things about the experience for me though was that I still really had a good time going. So how can I reconcile this feeling with the fact that I would grade the zoo with a D overall?
I started by asking myself whether or not I thought a zoo like this one should close its doors. The animals live in sad, crowded facilities, and there are almost no educational services available for zoo visitors.
Nonetheless, I can’t bring myself to say that I think the zoo should close. In fact, I’d probably like to go back again. Why do I feel this way I wonder. Perhaps it’s because I like seeing animals, just like the other zoo visitors who seemed to enjoy their visit to the Huachipa Zoo. But when a zoo solely serves us as entertainment, is it immoral? In my soul am I more of a savage beast than some of the animals in the zoo? I don’t know the answer.
Hopefully some of the next zoos I visit with my family will help me to clarify my thoughts on the matter.
