Zoo: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Animals and the People Who Care for Them

by Don Gold

A behind-the-scenes look at zoos and zookeepers profiles the men and women who nurture and care for exotic, rare, and sometimes dangerous animals and provides a rare look at the creatures on view

Genres: Animals, Nonfiction, Nature

405 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 1988

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written book featuring the important players who keep a zoo running, with chapters including the author's impressions having shadowed a particular zookeeper or curator, followed by that person's own words about the job they do. Gold covers the breadth of people, from the head of the zoo itself, charged with keeping it running; to the staff veterinarian, who has to know how to medically treat species across the animal kingdom and deal with said species when they aren't feeling their best and are prone to act out; to the volunteers who take animals outside the zoo to do presentations to schoolchildren who otherwise would have no opportunity to see such creatures up close and personal.
I very much enjoyed the book, though it is 30+ years old now and I imagine many of the people featured are no longer with the zoo, or at least no longer holding the positions at the time they were interviewed. Caring for animals probably has not changed too much, perhaps more technology to make that vet's job easier, and certainly the internet and communication lines improved to coordinate breeding programs of certain rare or difficult to breed species among zoos and nature preserves, perhaps worldwide.

[SaraKat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book from the library bookstore as a retired library book. I have long been interested in zoos and even thought about working in one at one point in my life. Reading this book gave a great account of what zoos are for and their changing roles as nature is changing for the worse all around the world. Even though the book is from the eighties, it presents a very modern idea of the zoological garden. This work focuses on one zoo, the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, and the people who worked there at the time, but since most zoos face similar issues and attract similar people to work there, I felt like it gave a good general account of life in a zoo.

Each chapter focuses on one specific person, from keepers to administrators, and gives an account from the author who follows the person around and notes the things they do. The second half of the chapter is a first person account narrated by the subject and gives background information and anecdotes not covered by the author in the first part.

The stories are a wide range of humorous to tragic and presented in a matter-of-fact way that doesn't allow time for readers to get too emotionally drained or outraged. The author shows no bias for or against zoos and presents a well-rounded view of the personnel working there from the animal-obsessed to the almost indifferent.

It can be a joyful place, a sad place, a dangerous place. Always it is a challenging place.

The zoo's role in educating the public about conservation issues and participating in research and breeding programs are presented as the only hope for some species. For people who want animals to be in the wild where they should be, one interviewee replies "where they should be isn't there anymore."

Ultimately, the zoo is a place where difficult decisions are made and the future has to be considered with every dollar spent. The director of the zoo, Les Fisher, summed up the zoo's role:

The long-term hope for animals to survive on earth is through education, there's no question about it. We have to get to the urban masses who are not able to personally experience the wild. We have to tell them the story, and that is one of the major justifications of the zoo.

[Fran Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book very much. It's about the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. It begins with a brief history of zoos as institutions. We learn about the animals and their habitat by hearing from the various people who work there as they talk about their job and the animals they care for. We meet the curator of mammals, the curator of reptiles, the vet and others. We meet the assistant vet who has had to take babies home when their mothers neglected or couldn't care for them. They sleep all night at her house in their incubators and she gets up in the middle of the night to feed them. We learn what happens when a bear gets out. One of the curators worked at the zoo when he was in college. One day a gorilla bit him. It wasn't a serious bite but it was a puncture wound so he went to the college health center to get a tetanus shot. When the nurse asked what bit him, he told her a gorilla had bitten him. Of course she thought he was just being another smart-mouthed-student.