Hi everyone, being an animal trainer and knowing that animal shows for educational purposes are not always seen with good eyes, I'd like to know the opinion of people here on the forum? Not trying to "pick a fight" but I'd like to hear the opinion of the "pros" and "cons"...
I have seen several excellent bird shows here in Australia and for the general public with little knowledge of birds they play an excellent educational role.
Thanks Trevor, I have some friends doing birds shows at Taronga Zoo and Australia Zoo, I'll have to visit them someday. I'd love to travel to Australia. Unfortunately in Europe some people still think of animal shows as a bad thing... Let's see what others have to say. Thanks for your post
I agree... The zoo community is now more open about shows or educational presentations, but sometimes when I visit a zoo and I say I'm an animal trainer, some keepers, curators, even directors don't agree with training when in fact training (not only for shows) can be very helpful and enriching for the animals and for their keepers. I'm more familiar with zoo's in Europe, and I still get "that look" at some places.
Cautiously in favor I say 'cautiously' because, while I'm supportive of good presentations which balance education and entertainment, I've seen some truly horrendous shows that have no educational content whatsoever, and could best be described as recycled circus acts. Some of the worst examples of these circus-like shows can be found at any Sea World park in the United States (I know practically nothing about the Australian park of the same name, and am not prepared to judge until I have seen). The worst offenders along these lines are, by far, the whale shows. I had the misfortune to be subjected to one back in 2002, when Sea World Orlando played host for the annual IMATA conference. More specifically, the show at the time was "Shamu Rocks America." It consisted of little more than a series of allegedly "classic" snippets of rock music from various eras, coupled with a few leaps and breaches from the whales, and lots of colored MIDI-sequenced lighting and trainers running around in luridly-colored wetsuits. Educational content? Forget it. Unless you considered the rock tracks to be a refresher course in mediocre music. This show bears the unique distinction of being the ONLY animal show I've attended in my entire life that left me feeling physically sick afterwards. Yes, it really was that bad. You could have done the entire thing without the whales, on a Las Vegas stage, and I don't think it would have made the slightest difference. There are also shows that try to appear educational, but fail miserably, often due to problems on the part of the presenter. One such can be found in the form of the "Radical Raptors" birds-of-prey show at the Greater Vancouver Zoo. The main presenter of that show, one Gary Worley, is so patronizing and obnoxious to the audience that I think it's a miracle he doesn't drive more people away. At the opposite end of the spectrum are shows which go too far towards the 'education' side, and become very dry and downright sleep-inducing as a result. They bear more resemblance to a dull college lecture than any sort of animal demonstration. The best shows balance right in the middle. They have at least enough educational content to answer some obvious questions about the animals involved, yet they deliver what they have in an entertaining manner that keeps the audience's interest up. The best ones create intense curiosity in the audience, thus encouraging them to find out more on their own. A good example of such can be found at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, more specifically in their birds-of-prey demonstrations. The free-flight work they've done is nothing short of amazing (such as releasing one of their falcons from a remote-controlled cage, suspended about 1000 feet in the air by a large balloon, and having them stoop on a lure at stage level). They also have some unique raptors that you don't see very often, such as condors and vultures. Best of all, by the time the show ends, you'll know lots of raptor facts without even realizing how you picked them up. And that's why I say 'cautiously' in favor. It all depends on the show itself, and who's presenting it. Happy travels.
I'm training to be an animal trainer and keeper, and one of the focuses of our training is the practice of doing shows with the animals. Not "see the sea lion bounce a ball" shows, but more showing natural behaviors of the animals (done on cue) as a way of educating the public about these animals. If they learn how special these creatures are, they may be more empassioned and willing to participate in their conservation.
Great post kc7gr!! I liked it a lot! And I agree with what you said. I'm currently in the US working on a bird show with the trainer who initially set up the San Diego Wild Animal Park show, and as you said the only way to educate the audience is to find the balance between information with "entertainment". In the end people are learning without even knowing...
It's a difficult issue! For many zoo's animal shows are also a important way of income. Sometimes shows are the reason to go to a zoo, specialy when you have kids. For me, animal shows are not realy necessary. Normaly I never go to one if I'm in a zoo. I'd rather like eduction programs by certain animals. It strokes more with the values of a zoo.
If you get the chance, try and check out some of the keeper talks they have scattered around the W.A.P. at different times during the day. They bring out some of the animals and talk to people about the animals, training methods, why they do the training and show some of the behaviors. It really very neat.
I think training is extremely important. Not just for shows, but for the welfare of the animals as well. I think it's important for purposes of health care. If you have an animal trained to come over and open it's mouth, or show you its foot, or something like that, then you won't have to cause unecissary stress by using tranquilizers or trapping them some other way for medical examinations.
Hit the bullet on the right spot I guess. The reason zoos are doing shows is for entertainment and earning money. Training is something else (and necessary, I agree) and can be done back stage. I really never saw a show that had an educational aspect... only entertainment such as a circus. I hate them and avoid them, just like you.
Like the previous posters i have my doubts with animals shows. I ve seen some very very bad ones. One example was the one in Paphos zoo on Cyprus, with parrots riding on bikes, letting the audience pet a eurasian eagle owl and more like that. These kind of shows are bad for the animals and dont have any educational value. On the other side i went to the show in ZSL and the one in Blijdorp and must admit those were in my eyes pretty good. Both shows showed animals doing their normal behaviour with a background story for the audience. Especially as most signs arent read by the main public i think these kind of shows could be a medium for bringing the information anyway. But in general most shows are more about entertainement then about education.
I think by nature I dislike animal shows, but when i get over my prejudice, I have been VERY impressed by some: seeing an African fishing eagle soar across a field to "catch" a plastic fish in a little pond got everyone to appreciate this bird! Watching the cat show at Cincinnati Zoo amazed everyone with the natural adaptations and skills of assorted cat species. But I do not need to ever see an elephant stand on its rear legs again.
In many shows the animals they seems clowns, and the public ends up thinking that they are "pets" who can be had in house.
When I posted the first post, I was trying to refer to "shows" as the educational presentations. No animals on bikes, skates and things like that... From my experience I believe that the common visitors of a zoo learn more from an animal presentation then simply by looking at the animal on exhibit and read the graphics. Not to mention the enrichment opportunity for the animals. My work is only based on training natural behaviors of the animals I work with, and I see a lot more people interested in the animals after a "show" then any other time during their visit to a zoo. Also, shows can provide a good way to raise money for conservation projects. Last year the project I'm working now in the US collected around 38.000USD for conservation in 24 days or so... I think there's a lot of possibilities, and good things a show can bring, as long as it's well managed.
I see wat your saying and look having been a marine mammal trainer for 17 years i've certaintly seen some disgusting shows across the world. I have done work with birds as well. I think there is a little bit of a difference between the majority of shows opening since 1997, e.g. taronga's free flight bird show and the one i've worked on myself, the new seal show at GSO, and the shows of old or that maintain the same characteristics, e.g. sea world america shows and other older marine parks. See viewing animals in a lot of cases will provide enough for a guest, however raptors are very rarly viewed flying in non-show exhibits, marine mammals can very rarely been seen swimming at extremly high speeds and showing their breeching behaviours. I think in these cases shows are needed for a guest to learn something about these animals. Recent studies at the zoo i work at, Taronga, showed that less than 10% of people view signs. This would therefor mean that the only education most zoo visitors recieve comes from keeper talks and shows. And not many people go to keeper talks in comparison to shows. Training i think is integral to all zoo animals lifes, it enrichs and enables health checks and day to day routine to be carried out with a minimum of fuss, but also training for "shows" is also extremly important.
