Parks and zoos

In the late 1800s to early 1900s as more and more people began to move to large cities there was named for nature in these people's lives, Parks and Zoos began to appear as a way for people to spend the day with their family. Parks were designed in a way that people could escape from their everyday lives and just relax in nature so that they could forget all their troubles and just be alone with nature. Zoos were designed so that people could learn more about the animals that they don’t usually see which are not found where they are from. Zoos were also made to attract more tourist to cities.

In the late 1800s when zoos were first beginning to be introduced, cages for the animals had bars and were mainly if not only made of concrete. Which in my opinion not only hurt the animals physical health but also hurt its mental health. They were also very small and were often indoors because people thought that if the animals experienced the cold they would die. The cages did not allow much space for movement and often stressed out the animals, cages stayed like this until 1970 when the idea of making a habitat look like its habitat in the wild came to be. Zoos were originally in the middle of big cities so that tourist would go visit them but as people realized that the pollution and noise from the city affected the animals negatively most zoos were moved to smaller cities close to the big city where the animals could have more space. Mainly the larger animals were affected by the lack of space and sunlight like the Elephants. At one point there was even a Giraffe in a zoo which became a huge tourist attraction selling a lot of merchandise but when it died just 6 months after it arrived no one even noticed or cared.

During the war, many animals suffered and even died because of lack of food mainly the carnivores because it was so difficult to find meat for them to eat. Polar bears were mainly surviving off of fish heads because that was all they had to feed them with, and a man came and killed a polar bear because he said it wasn't fair that they were getting meat and he wasn't even though the polar bears were living off of fish heads.The way that the zoos of this time would get their animals was they would go out to the wild and corner a herd of what ever animal they wanted. They would then remove usually the babies or the “pretty ones” from their family and fly them back to their zoo where they would live the rest of their life in a small cage surrounded by bars that looked more like a prison than an animal habitat. The animal which was removed from its family would often become depressed because of the drastic change in its life style, from being in its natural habitat with unlimited space to run, to being in a small barred cage about the size of a classroom without any space to run or hunt.

Another type of zoo that was seen in this time was the “Human Zoo.” Which was literally a zoo whose only inhabitants was humans where people would pay to watch mainly Senegalese, Nubia's, Danomears, Egyptians, Laplanders, Amerindians, and Koreans were mainly the people who lived in the zoos. Major cities with human zoos were Hamburg, London, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, and Barcelona. As bad as it sounds men would often enjoy going to these Human zoos just so that they could see the African-American tribes women walking around naked. The most well known cause of a Human being kept in a zoo is the story of Ota Benga who was bought in Louisiana and kept in the Bronx Zoo. When the zoo was closed Ota could do whatever he wanted but when the zoo was open he was forced to do one of the most insulting things I have ever heard, he was forced to live in the Monkey habitat and was often forced to carry the monkeys to show visitors. Otas dream when he finally got out of the Bronx Zoo was to be able to one day got back to Africa but when he found out that wouldn't be possible he committed suicide.

Another new idea popping up was parks. The most famous park which was designed to give people a break from the chaotic city life is Central Park which lies right in the middle of New York City's Central Park. Which now a days I cant imagine going to New York City without having Central Park to get away from the crazy city life. Frederick Law Olmstead was hired to design Central park because he and his colleague won a competition to design the park. Frederick Law Olmstead believed that humans need a place to go to be with nature, that's why he designed a park right in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. Frederick and his colleague designed Central Park in the way that parks of time were designed and are still designed today, they designed it so that it would block out the background sites and sounds from the city so that people can have an escape from the city where they could be one with nature.

Another practice that became common was the combination of park and zoos. It was fairly common to find a very large park with a zoo inside combining education about animals with connecting with nature. The most famous example of this is the Central park zoo which lies right in the middle of Central Park.