Consider Homo urbanus. Born in a city hospital, raised on city streets, educated in city schools, he is better trained for finding a parking space, or a cheap sublet, than for interacting with other members of the animal kingdom. The closest he comes to hunting and gathering is reading supermarket ads, then picking the prime peppers on display. The highlight of his mating ritual is the unfolding of a wallet to pay for dinner.
It is similar for Homo suburbanus, though with a mortgage. His forays into the wild occur mainly during furniture store liquidation sales.
Down deep in our psyches, however–somewhere far beneath the centuries of societal sediment–there must simmer something that urges the human species to go and be among our brethren once again.
Either that, or we just like putting animals in cages and looking at them.
One way or the other, whatever is behind the zoo-going compulsion, Chicagoans have a lion`s share of it. Within the urban jungle flourish not one but two of what, according to interviews with zoo game professionals, continue to rank among the nation`s pre-eminent zoos.
On the Near North Side, tucked tightly into 35 acres between high-rises and the lake, is Lincoln Park Zoo. In west suburban Brookfield, on a sprawling 200 acres, is Brookfield Zoo.
Both zoos make aggressive efforts in species conservation and in renovating and adding facilities.
But the zoos must approach things differently, largely because of their differing geographies. Lincoln Park is more the tightly decorated apartment, while Brookfield is like a two-story split-level with lawn and garage.
”Lincoln Park is much more sort of introspective and intense,” said John Nightingale, a principal in Bios, a Seattle firm that designs the educational aspects of zoo and aquarium exhibits. ”Obviously, it is severely space constrained and it would be unreal to expect it to do a four-acre African savannah.”
Brookfield, he said, ”has the space to do a Tropic World, has the space to do a Seven Seas,” two major exhibits there.
”Both of them are recognized throughout the world as leading zoological institutions,” said Robert Wagner, executive director of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums.
”Zoo people don`t like to compare zoos,” said Michael LaRue, assistant director of the World Famous Topeka Zoo. ”But I think most people feel that Lincoln Park and Brookfield Zoos are in the group of top zoos in the country.”
”Both zoos are in the forefront of modern zoo design as well as management. Both of them have very high-quality collections, and both of them are known for their reproductive successes with certain species.”
Staff members at the two zoos, LaRue said, ”are leaders in their field.”
Rather than a dog-eat-dog rivalry, the zoo directors said, their relationship is symbiotic. In addition to steady inter-staff communication among the curators and keepers, said Brookfield Director George Rabb, he talks frequently with his Lincoln Park colleague Dr. Lester Fisher.
In fact, the two are traveling together to Poland this week for a meeting of the International Union of Directors of Zoological Gardens.
”We have a notice at the gate saying `Visit the other fine animal collections at Lincoln Park and Shedd (Aquarium),` ” Rabb said. ”Rather than try to get a bigger piece of the pie, it`s better to make the pie bigger.”
Lincoln Park`s slice is stuffed with 4 million visitors a year–a figure higher than that of any other zoo in the country, but one that Fisher admits is a ”guesstimate” because the zoo does not charge admission or have gate turnstiles.
At Brookfield, meanwhile, the call of the wild comes collect. For most of the `80s, the zoo has drawn around 2 million people a year, charging non-member adults $2.25 and adding fees for certain exhibits, such as Tropic World and Seven Seas Panorama. But Rabb points out that, between not charging school groups or Tuesday visitors, about half of those 2 million people end up coming in the main gate free.
Anyway, the two directors emphasize, zoos aren`t just for people any more. While many exhibits at both parks are being updated, for the animals and the visitors, their overriding concern, they say, is preserving species that are threatened in the wild.
”It`s one thing to serve the visitors today,” said Rabb, ”but if we`re to be of use 50 years down the road, we have to make a direct investment in the future.”
As part of the long-term view of things, said Fisher. ”We no longer try to exhibit animals just because there`s one available. We had 11 different kinds of bears here 20 years ago. Now we only have two.”
The pride of Lincoln Park is its great apes, a tradition that goes back to Bushman, a male who reigned back when Marlin Perkins was the director.
”We think we have the best great ape collection anywhere in the world,” said Fisher, who heads the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums` species survival plan for gorillas.
He also points with pride to the more than $10 million in renovations that are being done on aging zoo buildings. Scheduled to go under the knife are the Lion, Primate and Bird Houses and the Children`s Zoo.
”The idea,” Fisher said, ”is to preserve the fine old buildings and create new animal spaces,” more in keeping with modern theory of displaying animals in as natural a setting as possible.
Not only are many of the targeted buildings old, said Lincoln Park keeper Pat Sammarco, a past president of the American Association of Zoo Keepers, ”but they reflect the philosophy of zoos many years ago, which was, `Just shove me in front of the public.` ”
The renovated buildings, she said, will be esthetically pleasing to the public and will ”meet the needs of the animals first.” In as small a space as Lincoln Park has, that is sometimes difficult.
To get the animals and the zoo a little elbow room, Fisher said he is interested in obtaining ”within the next couple of years a space out in the country for a breeding farm.”
Brookfield has all the space it needs. Only 135 of its 200 acres are open to the public. In 1984, it completed Tropic World, a simulated animal environment that is the largest indoor zoo exhibit in the world.
Similarly, it is replacing Seven Seas Panorama, home to the zoo`s dolphins, sea lions and walruses, with a much larger facility.
Rabb said Brookfield is one of the few zoos in the country that has a population geneticist on staff and cites the zoo`s efforts in conservation biology as its strong point. He heads the species survival program for the okapi, a vanishing African mammal that is closely related to the giraffe and has been succesfully breeded at Brookfield.
Brookfield`s cable address is listed in the association of zoological parks yearbook as ”THE BEST ZOO.”
Though Rabb calls that ”a little bit of whimsy” on the part of a former associate director, ”it`s something that we hold up as a goal to our people.”
”We think we`re doing a rather exceptional job for the community,” he said. ”We offer things that certainly aren`t available to other communities across the country.
”It`s hard to appreciate, in a way, that Chicago is so well off.”
