Seneca Park Zoo will host “Seeing Animals through Different Eyes,” an event designed for patrons to get a fresh look at the Zoo through creative engagement. Chesler Photography, Sigma, and the Irondequoit Art Club have partnered to bring in artists to help provide patrons with the means to re-evaluate the familiar Zoo, and to highlight its diversity. These artists will be stationed throughout the Zoo all day. The Zoo’s volunteer educators will also be around the grounds, giving information about the animals.
Sigma and Chesler Photography will provide a photo workstation where attendees can test different lenses and settings with a professional photographer on hand. Visitors are also encouraged to submit their own photos and artistic renderings from their day at the Zoo to be displayed on the grounds as further inspiration. Submissions can be sent to socialmedia@senecazoo.org, tag the Zoo or use #SPZDifferentEyes.
“Seeing Animals through Different Eyes” will take place Sunday, June 14, at Seneca Park Zoo (2222 St. Paul Street) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is free with standard admission. senecaparkzoo.org.
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2015.
“Seeing Animals through Different Eyes,” is a great idea. It is time to realize that enslaving these beautiful animals is cruelty. All these animals have done no crime, yet are sentenced to a life of incarceration. Lets look from the perspective of the animals eyes. The prison bars. It is time for humankind to be kind. Freedom is not just a right for humans, but a right for all.
Speaking of different eyes, what we need to do is see them through their own eyes! Imagine if you were locked up behind bars for no reason other than public infatuation and amusement. Wouldn’t feel too good would it?
Kevin is right – there is no reason to keep these animals behind bars (unless they were rescued from malice conditions, but even then, putting them on for public display isn’t exactly the best way to rehabilitate). Most of these animals I’m sure have been purchased for the purpose of being property. Humans need to step up and realize that they are living beings just like we are with feelings and thoughts of their own. We are all Earthlings and there’s no reason to treat them like property for our own amusement/consumption/what have you.
How about seeing animals through their eyes? To be caged or behind bars or in a tank for your whole life . . . that’s what we call a jail. It is no different for them. If education is the excuse, or saving animals, then only house those that need saving: the sick, injured, disabled. One can not learn about animals in a zoo any better than one could learn about humans by staring at one in a cage.
I don’t know what “eyes” you need to be looking through to think a polar bear belongs in a swimming pool. I don’t want those eyes. “Highlighting its diversity” is another way of saying you have taken animals from different habitats all over the world to be put on display for people to gawk at. It’s wrong in every sense and no artist is going to make it look right. Not at any camera or with all the lenses in the world. Because there is nothing more beautiful than freedom and nothing more ugly than freedom denied.
I grew up an animal lover and spent much time at the Seneca Park Zoo. As a child I went as much as I could. While other children were watching the power rangers and playing with hot wheels I was collecting figures of animals, both alive and extinct (dinosaurs). Growing up most of us eat meat, wear animal products and have seen animals as vehicles for entertainment. Somewhere a long the line we threw away what were pure truths in our hearts and took a rigid view instead. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad the part of my cultural view changed that helped me speak my mind and take actions into my other hands. But why did we allow the part of our cultural view on animals and people change? Children love animals and people of all backgrounds. Don’t teach your child that hunting squirrels, supermarket lobsters, wearing uggs and elephants in a space that could easily fit into one of your suburban neighbors backyards is normal. We need to love animals and love everyone equally. Our compassion towards the world starts with how we treat the smallest animals to the largest and everything in between. Please remember everything about the documentary Blackfish that made you upset. If you haven’t watched it, do so. The practices that occurred weren’t created exclusively by sea world. How did the first elephant get into a zoo? Was it separated from it’s mother? What sort of psychological conditions exist in zoo animals? A study shows that, “Elephants in zoos generally live much shorter lives than those in the wild and less restrictive settings, possibly because they are more prone to stress and obesity, a research team found.
The average lifespan of African female elephants in zoos is 17 years, while the lifespan for African female elephants in the wild is 56 years, according to a study published today in the journal Science. The lifespan for Asian female zoo elephants was 19 years, while those working in Burma in the timber industry had a lifespan of 42 years, the study concluded.” Any other study that contradicted those findings failed to report elephants deaths before the age of one, when many calves die from separation. These animals and others need to retire to sanctuaries where they can live the rest of their lives with true freedom. Perhaps the zoo can start from scratch and be bulldozed and start over new as a farm animal sanctuary? Their view and ours needs to become one.