I was five years old and a lover of black and white films. It was a long while ago, 40 years, but those vintage films were somehow
intriguing to me and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it started from a Sunday afternoon
and there was nothing else on T.V, no Netflix then or down loadable films.
There weren’t even video cassettes in my house yet. With fewer choices then,on a rainy day, on a Sunday afternoon, I began
to watch old films in black and white. My Grandmother Doreen used to sing me a hand
clapping song, “Ms Mary Mac all dressed in black” and I loved that one.
Ms Mary Mac
All Dressed in black
With silver buttons
All down her back
She asked her Mother
For 50 cents
To Watch the Elephants
Jump the fence
They jumped so high
They touched the sky
And didn’t come back
Till the 4th of July.
She loved nature. My Nana was a nature lover.
She taught me to look up at trees in wonder. She was always saying…
“I love the trees, the big old trees, the ghost
gums.”
At first it was boring to stop and stop and
look and put my hand where hers was on the trunk of histories but then one day
when I looked up and back at my Nana I understood and I wanted to slow down and
appreciate the world.
I loved music and Miss Mary Mac is the only
song I remember her singing and once she sighed;
“Ah but let’s hope they never did come back at
all, those elephants. Freedom…”
She had a horse though, a pet, a most beloved
pet. She taught me to plait hair like she did that treasured equine friend.
Nana’s whole face came to life remembering the horses of a childhood long ago
and in those moments she seemed young again and we were one.
I suppose she was grappling with the wild and
the tame, captivity and freedom and our place in the human race verses the
whole animal kingdom and where it all should connect up.
It seemed
to me there were many Miss Mary Mac’s in Black and white on a Sunday afternoon.
Perhaps watching them reminded me of her, of my Nana, my tiny but beautiful
grandmother. Perhaps that’s another
reason.
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I
remembered her too when we visited Taronga Zoo because of the elephants and the
giraffes behind fences. It’s just it costs so much more than 50 cents to free a
captive, especially if you’re five years old.
It’s a good
change that came about in zoos and sanctuaries in some ways and not in others
from there on. As the years flickered by, sometimes in black and white,
sometimes in bright colours, sometimes a little blurred and sometimes as sharp
as a brand new day in high definition, enclosures became bigger, breeding
programs saved species and the power shifted from humans running the show to
animals being respected appreciated and not so heavily exploited. But we still
exploited them. The new elephant enclosure at the Melbourne zoo had Elephants
painting pictures for their viewing audience. It was a bigger space; it was
still relatively small. Gorillas sat behind glass with their backs to the world
in bigger enclosures with a clear message
“Don’t you “f*******ng
look at me thanks very much.”
But they
were saving life too and the idea of Science and Research, preservation
programs and a sanctuary away from the ills of a wildly overblown commercial
profiteers racquet seeded from one to the other and all over the world.
Still you
can still go to SeaWorld and swim with dolphins thus lowering their lifespan by
half. Touching dolphins skin is extremely harmful to their wellbeing and can
lead to disease, apart from the fact that they are a creature’s that live in
pods in wide open seas, swimming vast distances. They need their freedom. In
most cases we need to maintain a hands off approach to wildlife unless we are employed
as the researcher or scientist or unless we are being guided as part of a professionally
lead volunteer program or by a teacher from a school, that is consulting us
with the support of ecologists and well regarded and trained environmental leaders
and organisations.
The issue
of wild life Sanctuaries in more economically depressed countries can be
problematic. Often such sanctuaries become reliant on visitors who are
encouraged to pet “recovering” animals. It’s not the fault of those running
such sanctuaries because they might not be given enough money at a Government
level to keep the sanctuary going. It might also encourage misuse of the word “sanctuary”
if tourists are swarming in to pet animals at a cost. It would be tempting for
parks to keep hold of injured or mistreated animals under such a scenario. They
may be poor enough for that to be an only option. It’s completely outrageous to
use recovering animals to sell goods and services on social media at a
commercial level via Instagram based cross promotions to these parks because such
behaviour legitimises the very reason for the precarious environmental status we
are facing at at the present moment. I’ve seen this sort of cross advertising
done a lot and it’s in poor taste. There’s good examples of Sanctuaries in these
countries though but if they are using tourists and celebrities to promote
hands on interactions it might not be such a good sign.
It can also
cause the transmission of diseases for example TB in Elephants to humans or bacteria
from humans to Elephants. Loving the animals and touching the animals to begin
with in a recovery situation, by a staff member or scientist or researcher is appropriate.
With tourists it’s not so appropriate.
Release
back to the wild is the optimum outcome. It’s extremely hard to release an
animal back if many tourists are in the space of an already confused animal. It’s
of course up to every country and every philanthropist to keep pitching in to
ensure the authenticity of the environment recovery sector. A philanthropist
who is still very involved in industries or people that cause a heavy
environmental impact in the negative, need to rethink, rethink and rethink that
contrary behaviour to the absolute max because we don’t have a 1,000 years. We
need swift action. We must not legitimise something that looks like a positive
message but has a darker underbelly. There’s been much to celebrate nevertheless
and there’s more to do.
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