Yesterday was zoo day at Solomonia, as the wife and I took the (almost) three-year-old (referred to hereafter as "Booger") to the local zoo. Gotta catch the koala exhibit before they move on!

I have a lot of memories of that place as a kid. They used to have a lot more animals there in those days. Elephants, giraffes, sea lions, ostrich (which you could feed peanuts to - try that these days! [Edit: Come to think of it, you used to be able to feed the elephants, too - memories fade. I was very young.]), a polar bear, a big orangutan...

The trouble is that in those days, say 25 to 30 years ago, all a zoo felt it needed to keep an animal was a cage big enough to hold it and not much else.

So there's this big male orangutan in a bare cement cell with a glass front and a few metal bars sticking out of the wall, ostensibly for excercise I suppose, and to make him feel more at "home." Only I don't think the trees in Borneo look or feel anything like that, and I think he knew it, because in all my trips to the zoo, I never saw that poor big fellow move a foot. He'd just sit in the corner of his pen, back against the wall, staring out from between big cheek flaps through little black eyes, getting fatter and looking sad. In all the trips to the zoo as a kid, I don't think I ever saw him move once.

The polar bear moved. He was located on a big cement platform with a large pool of green water for swimming surrounded by a large pit between him and the visitors. And that was it. Just a plain cement platform with a pool of green water. And on that platform the bear, his white fur going a light shade of yellow, would pace back and forth...and back and forth. All day. Every time I saw him.

And of course there was the black panther, in a bare cage similar to the orangutan...even as a little kid it seemed to me that something was wrong with this arrangement.

It was even becoming clear that they couldn't even care for the animals they had in the cages they had - maintainance was going downhill fast. In the old aviary - a large building where tropical birds flew free - the tropical plants that covered the ground were covered white with bird feces that simply never got cleaned off.

When the zoo started having perennial funding problems some years back, and even needed to be shut down for a time, I thought, "Good, rest in peace..." and I was NOT rooting for the success of various funding drives.

I can now report that times have changed at the old zoo. No longer does this little, local zoo have more in the way of animals than they have space to keep them properly. The bare cement platform of our old friend the polar bear (who died some years ago) has been covered over with dirt, the old green-water pool filled in. Now the visitors staring across the gap look at a light mesh-cage holding a group of monkeys lounging around on real wood "trees" surrounded by real, growing green and a capibara (world's largest rodent!) thrown in for good measure.

The old aviary is gone. The sea-lions are no more, their pool now also filled in with a cultural exhibit of nomad's huts built where they once swam. The old orangutan is gone as well (he also passed on some years back), as is the black panther, the bare cages where they once sat cooped up now also covered over with more natural material like dirt, grass, shrubs and sticks, and made a home for colorful birds and a more innovative display where the plastic wall is busted out and a larger area enclosed where the birds can fly free with the visitors. There's something poignant about seeing that bit of plastic taken away and thinking about what our old orange friend might have made of such an opening had he had the chance when he was alive. But alas, the cage is only open now that the life that spent all its days within has left it.

The panther is gone, but there's a jaguar there in an outdoor enclosure, soaking up the sun and lounging on the rocks where he can climb, run and jump more than a couple of meters before having to stop and turn.

Of course, for kids like Booger, looking isn't always enough, so they've got a mini-carousel and train-ride for them to entertain themselves. Gone is the little gift shack where the most prominently displayed souvenir were key-chains - dozens of them - made from actual rabbit's feet dyed a rainbow of different colors (red, blue, green...). Imagine that! Talk about an anomalous item for a zoo gift-shop! But that about sums up the mind-set of the zoo's in those days. The animals just objects - live or dead, happy or sad - so long as they bring in some cash.

It's certainly nice to be able to bring the kids to a place where they can have a good time and the grown-ups can enjoy it as well without having to walk around thinking what a shame it is but pretending everything's OK. It's too late for many of the old friends I remember, but the future looks alright at the zoo these days.

Special bonus: There used to be a web-camera for the gorilla exhibit at the Franklin Park Zoo, but I see that's not there anymore. Here is an improved, controllable, way cool camera for the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium, though.

Update: Oh, and since this post comes on Arrival Day, I'll put a Jewish spin on it and point you to this site: ZooTorah.com.