Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos

by Derrick Jensen

Combining stunning photos with a deeply moving essay, this book presents a passionate and unflinching exploration of zoos and what they teach us about animals, ourselves, and our relationship to the wild. This compelling work paints an unforgettable portrait not only of “life on the inside”, but of our views of the natural world and our place in it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Philosophy, Nature, Sustainability, Politics, Environment

152 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2007

About the author

Derrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. He has published several books questioning and critiquing contemporary society and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S. in Mineral Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. He has also taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.

Reviews

[Martin Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all: full disclosure. I could have published THOUGHT at Lantern Books. Jensen's agent sent me the manuscript, and I said that I would publish the text but that the costs associated with publishing a glossy photography book, with all the quality of reproduction that photographers (rightly) expect, would make it too expensive for us. Happily enough, the book found a home with a non-profit publishing concern and the book is handsomely produced. The photographs are attractive, although I didn't find them all that compelling—except in as much as the animals themselves are wondrous to behold, confined and diminished though they are by and in their enclosures.

Jensen's text has lost none of the power I remembered when I read it in manuscript. He could have used some editing, but his honesty and focused, withering rage left me steaming at the egregious, outrageous, shockingly bald cruelty and exploitation required for zoos to exist. His argument, righteous and convincing, is that zoos are a function of our boredom, our commercialism, our exploitation of those weaker than ourselves, and our estrangement from (and contempt for) the natural world. The photographs amplify (and yet also, I believe, subtly contradict) his belief that wild animals isolated from their natural environment are not animals at all, because they do not express the aliveness and being-in-the-world that is the animal itself. The photos show us that, for all that we may remove the being from the world in which it has its being, a captive lion's face still captivates us. Something residual (although impoverished) remains to draw us in—if we would just look.

Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book as a wake-up call and call to arms for the natural world.

[Catullus2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent writing. Eye opening - never going to a zoo again.

[Get X Serious · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zoos = prisons. Zoos = mindfuck. Zoos = enslavement.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning. Possibly the best book I've read in a couple of years. This is a manifesto of sorts, against animals in captivity. I was on the fence about zoos before I read this book, but the argument, the evidence it presents, and, interestingly, the warmth of Jensen's (at times vitriolic) prose have made me a believer in the souls of the animals we keep and the cruelty we inflict by keeping them. jensen's essay is juxtaposed with a collection of beautiful portraits of animals -- not of animals suffering, but of animals with souls.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening, tragic story of white supremacist culture -- specism, racism, sexism, Christianity, pollution, destruction, and other forms of oppression and exploitation found in Western white male culture -- told through the lens of zoos in America. I would say this book is a must-read for everyone but I fear the author's tone of overwhelming frustration and disgust (and his excessive use of "[sic]" to indicate anything with which he disagrees) will turn away readers who are not already opposed to zoos and who genuinely need convincing.

[Janet · Rating 1 out of 5]

So incredibly angry and sad I couldn't even read, so I just looked at the pictures and quickly returned it to the library. What can I do?

[Lilac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and beautifully written

[Keith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently if you take pictures of zoo animals and desaturate them, you get sad zoo animals.


This book is just feel-good (feel-bad?) self-affirming fodder designed to get the anti-zoo people to spend money. Sure there are crappy zoos around the world, but it is unfair to lump them with the good zoos doing conservation and educational work. Saying that zoos are inherently bad for holding animals captive is assigning particular human values to the non-human. Maybe animals really like free food, medical care, and the lack of predation? And the education of the public that zoos do is invaluable. What has been shown in psychology, history, and anthropology is that people do not care about things they are distant from. That is why one death in the U.S. is worth 50 dead abroad in terms of news coverage If there were no zoos, the roughly 5000 tigers in zoos today would be free from captivity, but they would also be pelts and medicine as they are hunted without restraint. The thousands of wild tigers would be in deep trouble as well because people don't care about what they don't connect with.


Enough about the anti-zoo philosophy. What really got to be about this book is this: for all of the talk about how terrible it is to exploit of captive animals for entertainment, this book is exploiting captive animals for entertainment. Sometimes a giraffe in front of a brick wall is just a a giraffe in front of a brick wall.

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

My real rating would be somewhere between 2.5 and 3 stars, I think. Jensen is a marvelous writer, but I remain overall unconvinced. I think much his message is drowned out in his own self-righteous, angry, screed-like tone. It's when he calms down that he begins to actually relay a message that's clear and moving to an extent, though not entirely (for me anyway). I understand (and even empathize and agree) with his take to a point, but I was alienated by much of the tone of the book and felt that a lot of his arguments/examples actually ended up just off to the left or right of what he was actually trying to evoke or argue.

It's a thought-provoking book and marvelously written, however, as a persuasive text, I was unconvinced. I think he often fell into the trap of writing so passionately about his belief that the message ended up muddled and estranged. There seemed to be too many things he was arguing against, and as a result he did not present a lucid and compelling argument to any one thing. In short, he left me somewhat alienated, though not unempathetic, as I more or less agree with many of his points. I think that's what troubles me most about the book - fundamentally I agree with a lot (not all) of what he says, yet, I wasn't grabbed and convinced by this book or his arguments - and I feel like I should have been.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

After I expressed my fragmented feelings over visiting a small zoo on my vacation this fall, a co-worker recommended this book. Apparently I am not alone in this feeling: concerned about the happiness of the animals, yet still imbibing in the entertainment because I would never otherwise get so close to such animals.

Interspersed with photos by Karen Tweedy-Holmes of animals in captivity, the author outlines why zoos are inhumane, even those we think are enlightened. Often we are told that zoos help us preserve endangered animals. Jensen follows the animal trade, and gives us the alternate information that often many animals in the wild are killed just to bring the zoo an animal for captivity. Also, animals need replacing, because they don't thrive in captivity.

Over and over, he fulfills the gadfly role, pricking the reader with further abuses by "civilized humans." At first I rolled my eyes at his consistent use of "[sic]" in his quotes from zoo supporters, then I realized he meant me to squirm. He meant me to notice that we humans always treat animals as things, as a "what" rather than a "who," and his pedantically grammatical "[sic]" was there to keep reminding me.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvelous book, although fairly short in content. Jensen, although I admire the man, tends to dance all around his points with vague metaphor, and he does that here as well. Still, enough cannot be said for even beginning to tackle an unpopular view (or one we are not hearing often enough) as he does here with trying to change the perception that "zoos are for the GOOD of the world's species". Naturally, it is a book with which I already concurred, yet it was nice to hear someone actually SPEAK of our arrogance in "deciding" how to save some species, while ignoring all others.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really powerful, revealing a lot of the horrible abuse that animals suffer in zoos. It was sad b/c I read it the day before I spent Easter with a two year old and I had to hear all about it and they were not the type to agree with me. But I have always hated zoos, and will now even more.

[jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

as powerful as jensen's writing often is, the photographs by karen tweedy-holmes are as astonishingly potent. a thousand words, indeed. the rilke poem (the panther) at the beginning sums it all up quite simply.

[Rift Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zoos are sad prisons... even the best of them, and most are not the "best". Somehow Jensen describes my feelings for zoos in words, precisely. Highly Recommended.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrifying and sad, but helpful to keep me from turning a blind eye to the strange things that go on in the world. No more zoos for me.