The Menagerie

A menagerie is not a zoo. When i was young I remember seeing depictions of old zoos with lions and other animals pacing back and forth in iron cages located in what looked like a normal public parks. I've been told the Dallas zoo was much like that at one point in time, as well as many zoos on the east cost. I suppose I thought that sort of thing had largely passed away towards the latter half of the twentieth century. So a few days ago when I visited the menagerie located in the lovely Jardin des Plantes, it felt like I had stepped back in time.

The menagerie was founded only a few decades after my country, in 1793, and while it has been updated with a few more modern structures for the primates and big cats, the feel is still very old world; a zoo would never be constructed like it today. The layout and design of the menagerie is very anthropocentric and the approach is clearly rooted in the French tradition of garden design. The effect is very pleasing to the visitor. There seemed to be a dark side to it all though, like the bad aftertaste of slightly spoiled meat.

I have never been a bleeding heart activist, but I believe that if you're going to keep a wild animal in captivity, one ought to make an effort to make its life as comfortable and stress free as possible.  Obviously this is a sliding scale in terms of the complexity of the animal in question. At least at some level however, the ideal ought to be to recreate, as best as possible, the animal's natural habitat. Arranging and displaying wild beasts like flowerbeds and fountains in a formal garden is a little distasteful to me. It was nice to be able to see so many animals in such a small span of time, but I couldn't really enjoy it as much as I ought to have, because I couldn't help but feel a little guilty taking pleasure in the experience when the animals seemed so listless and resigned in their small spartan enclosures.