From Ken Kawata

clip_image002, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. Where Do You Stand? Here are excerpts from White Tops (The Circus Fans Association of America, or CFA, journal), May/Jun 08, p-19, by Gary C. Payne, concerning anti-captivity activists whom he calls animal extremists: "We must not allow these businesses to rob us of our rights to enjoy a circus with performing animals; a zoo; an aquarium; a wild animal park; a steak; a fur coat; the right to hunt or fish if you so choose. …CFA members support animal welfare and make a distinction between that and animal rights. …Our CFA supports zoos, circuses, aquariums, and animal parks that responsibly keep, breed, and train these animals. We support the science that this is becoming. We support goals that are mutually beneficial to exotic animals and humans." Compare that view with what American zoos have collectively done in the last couple of decades, to cater to the prevailing wind and play a "good boy (pardon me, I should be gender-sensitive!)" role while turning a hostile eye on circuses. Once zoos opened the door to the animal extremists in the last decades, it was all over. Those with historical perspective and insight (in a rapidly dwindling and aging minority fraternity) knew all along what was going to happen next. Extremists now tell us how to run zoos. Zoo after zoo announce that they will phase out elephants, stating, in many cases, the cost as a reason. Truth of the matter is, I believe, they are afraid. A recent account on Denver Zoo's plan for a new elephant facility (28 June 08, Rocky Mountain News) is encouraging, but Denver's voice is being drowned in the storm by the extremists. It has been said that UK is the most difficult place to run a zoo, followed by Australia. USA is rapidly catching up, and it is the zoos' own fault. Once, US zoos were blessed with strong and capable leaders who, among other things, built the foundation of today's AZA (Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums) in the early 1970s, as eloquently chronicled, not by zoo professionals but by young college professors (The Politics of Zoos, Jesse Donahue and Erik Trump, Northern Illinois University Press, 2006). Also, some of us may recall that National Zoo’s Bill Mann was a circus fan and more recently, Denver Zoo’s Clayton Freiheit was a circus supporter. Life does not allow us a chance to play out alternative history, but it is reasonable to assume how those zoo leaders of yore would deal with those animal extremists. They are missed sorely, at least by this writer who grew up in the zoo field, who has chosen to wash his hands from US zoos. Ken Kawata