Observation week3

At the zoo I noticed how all the enclosures for the primates were more or less the same size, regardless of the size of the monkey species. Obviously because of this, the smaller monkeys, overall, seemed more content, and the larger more confined to preferred spots throughout the enclosure. I would have felt more at ease if there were windows, but only one enclosure in the whole primate house had a window, which was at the top of the space, so the monkeys were not even visible to the public since they only sat by the window. I find this to be extremely stressful for both the monkeys and people. This leaves the display window as their only experience of the outside world. When one thinks about the monotony of their lives, the murals become almost insulting. They are clearly there to make humans feel like the animals are actually “immersed” in their natural habitat, when really, the monkeys cannot tell what the images on the walls are. The larger ones, overall, seemed more lethargic. Not necessarily anxious, just bored.