Some zoo animals like lack of visitors
The blue crowned pigeon approaches his mate and begins davening, twerking his tail toward the skylight of New Jersey’s Cape May County Zoo aviary as his beak dips. His intensity and focus during the mating ritual, coupled with the wild tuile topping his head, give him the look of an 18th-century composer banging away at what just might be a masterpiece. The recipient of this overture is completely still, her eyes projecting a glazed endurance.
When the dance is over, the female pigeon turns and begins picking at the ground. “We’d like them to breed, but they just can’t get it right,” sighed Janeen Moore, a zookeeper charged with caring for these birds.
Like so much of the rest of the country, the Cape May County Zoo closed in March to ensure the safety of the public. But the closure keeps its animal inhabitants safe, too: In April, New York City’s Bronx Zoo found that eight of its big cats had contracted the coronavirus from an asymptomatic keeper, and it’s assumed primates can also be infected because of their biological similarity to humans. The sudden absence of civilians puts into focus who is really served by zoos. The institutions ostensibly exist for the preservation of animals. But if we’re honest with ourselves, conservation is often for and funded by human enjoyment of animal life; zoos, after all, are categorized by New Jersey law as “amusements.” During the pandemic, to protect animal life, zoos continue to run for the benefit of the amusers.
Which means no annoying people crowding around enclosures. No kids yelling or cameras flashing or cellphones accidentally dropping into their homes. There have been news stories about penguins that got to take a hike in the woods near their exhibit in Oregon and cheetahs in Providence, R.I., that were visited by a keeper in a tantalizing rabbit costume. In Hong Kong, a pair of pandas that had been failing to mate for a decade managed to consummate their union after their zoo shut in January.
If that’s true, then a human-free environment is a respite for the animals of the Cape May Zoo — a blessed break from watching us watch them.
Away from the strains and scrutiny of public life, without people making everything worse, maybe the blue crowned pigeons will get the chance to follow the lead of the pandas: It’s time to relax, make a baby and finally finish that home improvement project.