Wilhelma

Stuttgart has one of the most amazing Zoos I've ever seen. It was built in 1846, originally as a palace and after the second world war it was converted into a Zoo, it first opened in 1953. The grounds are absolutely stunning, I spent seven hours there yesterday and I'm positive I didn't see it all. Wilhelma also has one of the largest Botanical collections I've ever seen, plants and flowers from all over the world, (no Fir trees unfortunately). Later on in the day, I was walking by the fountain to meet Immogen and the kids, turned the corner and saw a peacock with it's tail fanned and slowly turning in a circle displaying it's beautiful feathers.

I'm torn between the idea of a Zoo being a good thing or not. On one hand, I love animals and I'm happy they are preserved and being taken care of. I think it's educational and humbling for us. Hopefully introduction helps us to acknowledge how important and amazing animals are in the world, how beautiful and majestic they are, how much we need them in our ecosystems. Whether or not this exposure actually makes people change their lifestyles and decisions environmentally I don't know, perhaps a very small amount if any. It certainly makes me appreciate wildlife and respect it's order. I sat and watched the monkeys for about twenty minutes, watched the babies play, the adults protect their young and grooming each other.

On the other hand I get sad that these animals will never get a chance to live in their natural habitat and that they have become dependent on the zoo staff. What if could they have space to move and live, actually be wild and fight, hunt, defend themselves. I don't know if it was just too hot, (it really was) but some of the animals just looked so lethargic and kind of melancholic, I can't say if they know any better, they've all grown up in that Zoo so they couldn't possibly know about their relatives frolicking and avoiding predators but perhaps they have a sense that their life isn't a normal beast's existence.