Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
presentation relied on esoteric research only for factual authority, and the actual
process of creating public exhibitions bore no necessary resemblance to the process
of generating the knowledge that they portray (Allison 1995). Such popularisation
was essentially a communication process, linked to the histories and technological
networks of communicative production as much as to those of science (Cooter and
Pumfrey 1994). The importance of the visual in the zoo has thus never been wholly
associated only with the construction of ocular knowledge, but has also entailed an
important way of attracting or enrolling visitors into the zoo.
Animals in zoos, however, are attempting to live their own lives that do not
necessarily coincide with being properly visible. The partial invisibility of animals
within the zoo, alongside the application of new visual technologies such as
photography, film and museum dioramas to reveal and to present animal behaviour,
ends up challenging the classical zoo's ability to rely on increasing visitor receipts.
This can be explored by examining one of the first so-called 'modern' zoos: Carl
Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg (Reichenbach 1996). Hagenbeck's acclaimed
animal displays are credited with ushering in a new visual regime at the zoo, one
that has been heralded as the birthplace of modern animal displays which are less
oppressive to animals, and more ecologically accurate. In these zoos animals were
introduced to parkland enclosures, with mixed animal displays and invisible forms of
enclosure separating the animals and visitors. Marvin (1994:197) suggests that 'the
mechanism of captivity such as moats…does not form a central feature of the
enclosure, [and] expresses a very different set of attitudes to the natural world.'
The origins of Hagenbeck's zoo suggest a more complex motivation than animal
welfare or education for the shift to bar-less moated enclosures. The absence of
visual control of animals cannot be used simply to read off a more sympathetic, less
dominating or exploitative relationship to the animal world. Hagenbeck was an
entrepreneur who started his career as an animal dealer and zookeeper in Hamburg
in the 1850s with a wholesale seafood business and pet store. By 1907 he had
established a hugely successful animal trading empire and 'built a private zoological
garden so spectacular and attractive that it made the old Hamburg Zoo look
obsolete and uninteresting' (Reichenbach 1996:61). Hagenbeck drew inspiration
from contemporary revolutions in visual technologies to respond to a public with
increased opportunity for travel and a growing familiarity with photography,
patenting his panorama in 1896. This was a series of enclosures embellished by
artificial rock and hedges and laid out as stages. Each enclosure was slightly higher
than the previous and they were separated from each other and from the public by
concealed moats. This form of display, which owed much to the film or theatre set,
formed the main type of animal enclosure. Other zoos responded quickly to such
developments with innovations of their own. Some built new enclosures, such as the
Mappin terraces at London Zoo in 1913 (Montgomery 1995:580), while others
introduced events such as feeding times and chimps' tea parties, and worked closely
with local media to showcase their new exhibits and to stress the zoo's function as
spectacle (Anderson 1995:287). As scientific support and funding for zoos declined,
