Through Linnaeus’s taxonomic method
of classifying organisms, the British zoos then began to collect all different
types of animals located from different parts of the world and then had them
shipped to the zoo so that the public can experience and learn about animals
from different parts of the world all in one location. The notion of “stamp
collecting” was perceived by the public as the government wasting taxpayer
dollars on these zoos that took care of these animals according to the Ark in
the Park, but later was evident that the public was wrong because some of these
animals were endangered which meant that they were worth a lot of money, and
since they were many people came to see these animals which brought the
community a lot of revenue. As well as by sustaining these endangered species
and for the zoo to breed more of these animals that were endangered their zoos
became more profitable. And their assets of their zoo doubled and tripled. For
example, the zoos would have two endangered species that were worth $1,500, and
then they would breed the two animals that were endangered, then they would
give four offspring’s, which made their park an additional $6,000. And there
were times when zoo’s would sell some of these animals after taking care of
them within the zoo and would charge them more than what they were really
worth. The reason why stamp collecting in context of zoos is that there were
problematic because there were cases where some of these animals were
uninhabitable within their environment, so the zoos (such as the early British
Zoos) had to create an artificial environment such as an indoor environment
with heating which was expensive and costly.
The wealthy during this time was
trying to collect as many animals as they could for their zoos, because during
this time you were perceived wealthier based on the amount of animals that you
collected throughout the world; especially the animals that were not “fit
geographically” within that environment. Which once they shipped these animals
for collection they had to build artificial indoor environments for these
exotic animals that were from other parts of the world. They believed that by
collecting some of these exotic endangered animals they were helping some of
these animals by collecting them, but in actuality they were domesticating them
and having them “trained” to rely on humans when these endangered wild animals
should have never been taken away from their natural environment in the first
place. For example when animal collectors would capture a jaguar from Africa,
they would then place that jaguar within their zoo, but after a decade or two,
the jaguar would then rely on the humans to feed the animal with food, rather
than the jaguar hunting a live animal for its survival. Then once the zoo decides
to free the jaguar back into the wild it will die, if not the offspring’s that
were born within the zoo from the jaguar will die once they are released back
into the wild. The reason is jaguars are meant to be in the wild, hunting for
food, but once they are taken away from their natural habitat regardless of
whether they are endangered from poachers or pollution form industrialization,
they will ultimately lose their natural instinct and will become reliant on
humanity. Ultimately the result is that “stamp collecting” and these greedy
wealthy people did not think about the bigger picture on how catastrophic their
actions would soon cause within nature. They thought that by installing these
zoological gardens they were collecting and saving endangered animals but in
reality they were the ones who were actually contributing towards the
extinction of the endangered animals by extracting the exotic animals from
their natural environment, and placing them in a “zoological garden within
their zoo and domesticating them by feeding them, and training them to become
reliant upon humans to providing them with food. When really the animals
themselves were already are self-sustainable, until these greedy wealthy people
wanted to collect these innocent animals and destroy the very fabric of our
world. The wealthy wanted to be known as wealthy by collecting the most amounts
of animals, exotic animals, endangered animals, and animals from different
parts of the world not thinking about how it would affect every individual in
this world in the long run. Because once these animals are later released back
into the wild such as the jaguars into Africa they will not know how to hunt
for food and later would become extinct and based on their extinction then the
animals that relied on consuming the jaguars will become extinct as well. And
the animals that the jaguars relied upon hunting will then become overpopulated
and then there would be a chaotic trickle affect within the food chain of the
natural world, which then will later on somehow affect us the human society
eventually in negative or positive way.
According to John Berger we looked
at animals because in the past they have served as a necessity such as horses
were used has a way of travel since cars were not invented, cattle were raised
to provide us with food, dogs were used for hunting animals in the wild because
of their strong natural ability for scent, as well as many other animals served
as a necessity in the past. But now in the present many of these things animals
are useless now because we have technology that replaces them, and with our
industrialization, such as cities, manufacturing plants, urbanization,
recreational parks (such as golf courses, bars, clubs, fitness centers,
stadiums, museums, universities, national parks, homes, condos, office
buildings…etc.) We had to cut down a lot of trees, pave through nature and
flush out these “pests” animals that serves us no use out of the way, because
many of the things we built after destroying the natural forests were necessary
and essential things that we needed as a society. We as a society needed more
space so we had to get rid of the other space that the animals were using.
Based on John Berger’s definition of “anthropomorphism” we as a human culture
are more superior. As a society have history, knowledge, power, judgments,
culture, intelligence (such as being able to travel into space… etc.), have an
understanding of our world (such as recycling, reducing pollution, conserving
natural resources (food, energy, products [“such as trees for example which
produces paper, buildings, furniture, office supplies…”] preserving endangered
species, evangelisms to third-world countries and providing them with food,
shelter, education, medicine or medical treatments “for those people living in
those countries that don’t have the resources in the third-world countries”, and
helping them become self-sufficient, giving freedom to communistic countries
with dictators…etc. ), many other things as well. This is what John Berger was
meant in the reading when describing the word “Anthromorphism”.
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