Zoo Story is an independent documentary film that tells viewers about the past, present and future of American zoos. We trace the fascinating and little-known story of how zoos have evolved from places largely devoted to recreation with a secondary focus on science to centers for wildlife and habitat conservation as well as environmental education.
More than just a film for national broadcast, Zoo Story’s extensive educational outreach effort will involve zoos as well as environmental groups, public agencies and academic institutions.
Our goal is to highlight the key role zoos play in wildlife conservation and as gateways for environmental awareness for millions of people. Yet zoos are not perfect. We look at some of the failures and follies from the past as well as evaluate what works and what doesn’t as the definition of what a zoo should be continues to evolve. We also focus on how zoos serve as civic institutions and leading attractions in most major metropolitan areas.
Past
We explore how several major urban zoos were born over a century ago out of celebrations of our history – the centennial of Independence (Philadelphia, 1876), the Lewis and Clark Expedition (St. Louis, 1904), the Panama Canal (San Diego, 1916) and Theodore Roosevelt’s efforts to save the American bison (New York’s Bronx, 1896).
Archival footage shows how zoos at first mostly housed animals in steel and concrete cages arranged taxonomically and how they entertained visitors during the Great Depression and World War II with shows starring trained chimps and other wild animals. We tell how zoos began as consumers of wildlife, often acquiring orphaned creatures.
Clips from early television nature shows like Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and the Wonderful World of Disney illustrate how people’s attitudes about wild animals and the natural world began to change. Steel and concrete gave way to naturalistic enclosures. Breeding programs began to preserve species that were vanishing from the wild.
Present
We meet the zoo architects, keepers and curators who were in the forefront of the 1980s landscape immersion revolution in zoo design, when the grouping of animals went from taxonomic to ecosystemic. Most major American zoos are now based on that model.
Visiting pace-setting zoos in various locales around North America, we guide the viewer through an alphabet soup of key acronyms: AZA, CITES, SSP, SAFE. We explain that CITES bans the importation of animals from the wild.
Through fascinating mammal, bird and reptile “zoo dating” case studies, we illustrate how SSPs adapt to the ban to maximize captive genetic diversity. We tell how SAFE is the new model for how zoos envision a “seamless integration from fence to field” in the fight to save species from extinction.
Future
In a world faced with unrelenting human pressures on wild habitats, we demonstrate how zoos are more vital than ever. They maintain assurance colonies of animals faced with extinction in the wild. They engage the public in an appreciation of the wild world and how our behaviors affect it.
We meet leading naturalists and zoo scientists and move people emotionally by showing how Congo Forest in the Bronx Zoo supports gorilla and okapi conservation in the Congo and how summer workshops at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park equip middle and high school science teachers from throughout the country with innovative tools for teaching students about wildlife conservation.
