During Easter weekend, my boyfriend, Paul, and I visited my mother’s side of the family in Washington DC. We were there for the whole weekend and on the Saturday as we were sitting with my family discussing the day and our plans, my mother said “Well we are planning on hopping on the metro and going to the DC Zoo”. Me, being who I am, said “Well I’m not.” I explained how I did not want to support a place that held animals in captivity and that Paul and I would go into the heart of Washington DC, walk around the mall, check out the museums, and meet up with some of my sorority sisters and definitely NOT go to the zoo.
My family, Paul, and I all hopped on the metro and headed towards DC but we went our separate ways as my family headed towards everything I stand against. Obviously I love animals so much, and I do want to interact with them and see them and call them cute and take pictures and do all that fun stuff, but I do need to understand and accept that going to zoos would support animals in captivity which I by no means want to support.
One of the “coolest” thing or the biggest tourist attraction of the Washing DC National Zoo are the Giant Panda exhibits. Giant Pandas Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were gifts given to President Richard Nixon from the Chinese government in 1972. President Nixon gave the Giant Pandas to the Smithsonian National Zoo. They stayed there and had 5 cubs, but none of them survived past a few days. Now, after their passing, there are two more Giant Pandas there. My family, of course, went to see them in their exhibit.
When Paul and I were done being tourists in the mall, we met back up with my family and caught each other up on how our days were. My family said they loved going to the zoo and seeing the animals, except for my sister, who apparently decided to go with a “fuck the zoo” and “captivity sucks” mentality (bless her heart) half way through the excursion because of what I believe in and what I talked about before they went to the zoo. My mother also showed signs of regret as she described how depressed the pandas looked in two separate enclosures, all cement, with a piece of bamboo for each of them as they laid there with no purpose. My brother said there was a beautiful outside exhibit for the pandas so he was confused as to why they were kept inside. They asked a zoo keeper and the excuse they gave was “snow”. There was no snow outside, and even if there was, Giant Pandas hail from China where there is plenty of snow.
Basically, what I am trying to get at here, is that my research and love for orcas has changed me in more ways than one. Other than just saying “I am not going to go to SeaWorld anymore”, I also pledge to stop supporting animals in captivity through zoos. By educating my family or having open discussions with them about captivity, I am making a difference, as I saw with my sister and her major attitude change during their trip to the zoo once they saw the pandas. Never stop talking about your passion because you never know what can happen!