[Soft*Silver]

I interned at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo for part of my horticulture degree. One of my tasks was to learn about landscape immersion, which is simulating the native environment of a species using comparative hardy plant life. First though, you have to know how exhibits work. Many people are under the assumption that barriers/walls/fences are put up to keep the animals in. Not so. They are to keep humans out. If you go to a zoo, you will see at least two levels of barriers..one to keep the animal from getting to the human barrier and a human barrier to keep the animal safe from them. So you might see a glass wall or chain link fence where the humans might stand, some grass and simulative plant materials, a dip in grade, and either a water moat or wide ditch or a wall closer to the animal. Keeps everybody safe...

and its a good thing. You read about how monkeys throw feces at humans? Well, they learn it from the humans themselves. It is awful the things humans do at a zoo. And it is menacing to watch parents who are oblivious to the behaviors of their kids. Kids who grab limbs of trees and try to crack off a good portion of it so they can taunt the gorillas with it. Kids who throw food at the animals, and pop cans and baggies and toys. Or kids who hang over the fencing or sneak thru a fencing area, to bang on the glass enclosures. Meanwhile parents are talking, walking, hollering, grabbing elbows, or worse, videotaping little johny or susie while they make faces at a primate who is obviously getting agitated.