Travel Biography - Week 99

Visiting San Diego Zoological Gardens.

When I visited San Diego in 1995, I was impressed with Balboa Park. It was much more than the city's open green space. It was home to the city's museums. I visited two of them, the Science Museum and the Museum of Man. There was also the zoo which I didn't see on my first trip. But this time, in 1997, I had the zoological gardens on the cards. From the hostel, it was an easy walk across town to get there.

When I arrived and paid the entrance fee, I saw that the zoo was rich in natural beauty, with tropical vegetation flourishing in abundance. There was even a cacti garden, reminding me of the Papago Gardens in Pheonix, which I visited two years earlier in 1995. There was also a band playing, reminding me of Port Douglas in North Queensland, where a live band entertained the town.

A ravine or small canyon cuts through the zoo, and an outdoor restaurant overhung the canyon, offering splendid views from the table. Feeling hungry, I decided to have lunch at the restaurant for once, and the best seat on the verandah became vacant as its former occupants, a middle-aged couple, rose from their table at the end of their meal and moved on. From the table, I saw the aviary on the other side of the chasm, half buried in abundant vegetation.

Where I had lunch at the San Diego Zoo.

View of the Aviary from the Restaurant Terrace.

Abundant Vegetation, San Diego Zoo.

A variety of Traveller's Palms.

The zoo boasted a cable car, and I boarded one for a ride, taking in views from the air. Maybe not as dramatic as the Singapore cable car connecting Mt Faber with Sentosa Island, but not less thrilling. On the whole, San Diego Zoo provides the animals the closest to a natural environment possible. But no matter how pleasant the environment may be, with a warm, balmy climate to match, there will always be that difference between captivity and freedom in the wild. Matt Monro's 1966 song Born Free, was from a movie with the same title. It was about a lion or a pride of lions, roaming free in the wild as opposed to being locked in captivity for the benefit of human beings gazing at them.

The lion, along with other caged carnivores, is a good example of repressed instincts. Their natural instinct is to hunt, driven by their appetite. Instead, the lion in captivity is fed raw meat at times appointed by the zoo management. When a lion cub is born in a confined space, it will never develop its natural hunting instinct, neither can its parents teach it. Hence, I have read about how stressed a lion can be in a cage. It paces around the floor, its forehead crossed with furrows, and a large pair of adrenal glands continually discharging its adrenaline into the bloodstream, shortening its life. I guess that it was from this imprisoned, stressed state that the movie, Born Free, was made. However, at the time I looked into its cageless enclosure in San Diego, the two lions within looked relaxed and serene, like those in the wild when not hunting.

The elephants roamed in its wide fenceless enclosure and neither of them looked distressed. The same applied to the rhinoceros. In a nearby tank, two hippos were frolicking happily underwater as a few small fish swam around, undisturbed by the two giants. There were also pens housing goats and deer. In the reptile house, the sleepy crocodile lay totally motionless, and unlike the lion, its adrenal glands were most likely small and hardly active. However, the one set of species I can't remember seeing were the primates, whether gorillas, chimpanzees, or apes. I believe this variety of mammals needs to be caged like they were in the Zoological Society of London Gardens, but perhaps the zookeepers here thought that caging primates was unfair, if not cruel.

That was one observation I made while I was visiting the San Diego Zoo. Most of the animals, especially mammals, weren't caged. Instead, their homes were large pens enclosed by a low wall which kept both man and beast separated and safe without the need for iron bars. This made me wonder whether the 1966 film Born Free revolutionised the zoo environment throughout the thirty-plus years up to 1997.

Cacti at San Diego Zoo.

Cable car ride at the Zoo.

A View from the Cable Car.

A Band Entertains the Public.

However, the aviary was one facility I didn't get around to visiting. Here in the UK, as with most parts of the world, birds are abundant. Therefore, a flock of birds seen at home in the wild doesn't get me to gasp in the same way as an exotic bird might (although here in the UK there is a notable diminishing of the bird population in recent years due to human activity). Furthermore, with their natural freedom to fly great distances, I wondered whether the large cage wherein they were all housed had frustrated their ability for long-distance flight. One particular species was the Arctic Tern. I once watched a nature documentary about these terns on TV with a friend. One bird was tagged, so it could be monitored. This particular bird was able to migrate from Pole to Pole each year, following the seasons.

In all, San Diego Zoo is set in its natural beauty. Tropical and Subtropical trees and vegetation were abundant, the ravine enhanced the views, and even the band of musicians enriched the family atmosphere. Normally, I don't have a great love for zoos, due to the confinement of animal species and inhibiting their natural instincts, especially the carnivores with their hunting and migratory habits. But this southern Californian zoological garden was different. They made as much effort possible to thrive in captivity without the stress placed on them by cage confinement. Furthermore, the whole landscape itself was worth a day's visit.

Why Visit a Zoo?

Exotic landscapes, plants and animals. The English language sometimes uses the word exotic to mean glamorous. But its proper meaning is from far away. The UK, and England in particular, is very modest in the natural world. For example, the highest mountain in England is Scafell Pike, at 978 metres. It's the lowest of the three highest mountains in the United Kingdom, with Snowdonia the highest in Wales, and Ben Nevis the highest in Scotland, hence the whole of the UK, at 1,345 metres. Yet, Ben Nevis is dwarfed by Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps, at 4,805 metres, nearly four times higher than Ben Nevis.

As for exotic plants, indeed, I could go to Kew Gardens in West London. At Kew, there is much exotic vegetation flourishing under glass and prepared locations, so far, totalling nine houses where temperature, humidity, lighting, and airflow are carefully controlled for the plants within to flourish. A Traveller's Palm, for example, can flourish under a special, artificial environment in Kew Gardens. But this doesn't compare to the Travellers Palm flourishing in its own natural environment, such as Singapore and Australia. The same with mangroves. The only country in the world where I saw mangroves flourish in its natural environment was Queensland's coastal regions.

As for fauna, or exotic animals, the zoological gardens are an ideal environment as long as each is housed closest to its natural surroundings. That's where San Diego got it right, and the animals seemed to be happy and well looked after. Indeed, I could go to London Zoo and see the exotic fauna there. (I took my wife and our daughter to ZSL London Zoo on her second birthday in 2003.) But the nearest zoological gardens to where we live didn't hold a candle to San Diego, simply due to our cool temperate climate and the need for greater protection for warm weather fauna during our cool, wet summers.

Therefore, for where we live, if we want to see some exotic fauna and flora, ZSL London Zoo and Kew Gardens are ideal places. At least, in a zoo, there is no risk of a lion, tiger, or even an elephant charging towards us, or snapped by a crocodile while visiting their natural environment. Similarity with exotic vegetation. Trying to grow many of these species naturally in our back garden, I doubt that would be much of a success!

Lions, San Diego Zoo.

At the Elephant Pen.

Rhinoceros.

Two Frolicking Hippos.

As for landscapes, well, trying to house a mountain the size of Mont Blanc in a giant glass case in the centre of London might be just a little awkward! I guess we have to make do with a vastly scaled-down model of the mountain in one of the museums. As one friend once said to me during the early nineties, if the Grand Canyon was in Britain, running east to west, then it would divide the country into two parts with the sea flowing between its rims. The point I'm trying to make here is that although zoos and botanical gardens provide convenient access to the natural world, seeing these things in their natural environment involves long-haul travel for a much greater reward.

But not all travel destinations are ideal for the likes of me. For example, visiting a Safari had never grabbed my interest. The Safari isn't a place for anyone to hike, whether alone or in a group. Instead, every visitor to the Safari, as far as I'm aware, must be in a group escorted in a jeep for their own safety. True enough, there were locations I could only reach as one in a group. All three locations on the Great Barrier Reef have escorted day trips. But even then, once in the water, we were all left to ourselves to explore the corals making up the reef. We didn't need anyone to lead us. Instead, he took care of the on-board lunch. To me, the Great Barrier Reef was the greatest experience I ever had on this Round-the-World trip.

Deer.

Goat Pen

And that was why I felt that a second visit to the SeaWorld was also on the cards in 1997. Personally, I always had a greater interest in marine life, more than land animals. Visiting the Great Barrier Reef has intensified my interest in marine life, and just watching diverse species of fish swimming casually in well-maintained tanks has brought me back to the Reef experience. Only this time, I made sure that I stayed dry (unlike in 1995 when I was soaked by a performing Orca.)

But left stranded in the middle of nowhere after dark? I'll leave that for next week.

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Next Week: Some 1995 reminiscences in 1997. Left in the middle of nowhere at night.