"Oh, okay, this could be a fun week-end outing," I thought, when our school photography club, which I helped supervise once a week, decided to make a photo-hunting trip to our local zoo. Not a big fan of animals in the wild and animals in cages, I thought a trip to a zoo has never been on my top visit list. However, personal reason had made me interested me to join the occasion.
I still recall, when I was a child, my father often took me to this zoo, and I remember how that time I always hoped that my father would choose to take me there rather than my brother. He would take one of us, and we would ride his motorcycle with his 'champion bird to be' caged and placed in the front space on our ride. I would just be there around him for some categorized bird competitions. Then my father and I would sit on the grass, enjoy the atmosphere of bird-fan enthusiasts talking about chances of winning, and comparing theirs with potential winning birds. I didn't mind my father never won awards for his, though sometimes I saw and understand his disappointment. Being with him was the most important, and I was especially happy when one of my father's friends noticed my presence and would care enough to greet and talk to me while waiting for the judging and it was funny that they all thought I was a boy. I had short hair cut, thus I believe I must have looked more like a boy.
So, last week, I was there again, after some decades of absence, no bird competition watching and no zoo-walking visits. I probably had expected too much, thinking that the years must have brought significant changes.Then, to my disappointment, I found no bed of grass nice enough for visitors to sit and relax, but the cages were still there, many of which inhabited by the apes and avian species.I hardly could tolerate the smelly and so unpleasant air, the slippery, wet and at many parts, muddy walking path for visitors. I wished to see cute babies of elephants, but the poor creatures there looked far from nice, neither cute nor inviting for a touch or a ride, showing that they have been given little serious care.
Ending our hunting there, I wished there would be someone who would see the zoo as an asset, as something to care about, considering the spacious estate it has been locating so far and the shady big old trees that could make anyone feel cool and relaxed while walking there. I hope that in the future children would be as happy as I was in the past when taken there, unlike my students now, who seemed to regret giving up their Saturday morning for the zoo visit.
