PITTSBURGH The great name debate: Should zoo's animals have monikers?
The zoo is soliciting comments via e-mail and will decide in March.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- For more than a decade, only animal handlers and other employees knew the individual names given to many of the animals at the Pittsburgh Zoo & amp; PPG Aquarium.
To visitors, a lion was simply a lion and an elephant simply an elephant.
The philosophy behind the policy, implemented when zoo President Barbara Baker arrived in 1990, reflected then-current thinking among some in the zoological community that animals shouldn't be anthropomorphized -- that is, given human characteristics.
Now, Baker is rethinking that philosophy and the zoo is considering sharing the animals' names with the public as a means of fostering conservation, starting with children. The zoo is soliciting comments via e-mail and will decide whether to change course in March.
"At that time, we were really looking at focusing on the animals as wild animals and exotic animals and not giving them human characteristics," Baker said Wednesday.
What studies have shown
Recent studies into how children learn is prompting Baker to reconsider the philosophy. "The zoo really strives to be a leader in conservation," she said.
"Kids need an emotional tie to something. For them to care and for them to want to save these wonderful animals and want to preserve their habitat, they've got to care, they've got to be involved and they've got to have an emotional tie," Baker said.
Jane Ballentine, a spokeswoman for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, says while she's aware of the debate, the organization doesn't track how many zoos name or don't name.
"One of the things that would say don't name them would be that you make them more like pets instead of like wild animals," Baker said, explaining the philosophy of the no-name camp.
Doing so "could distract from the magnificence, the wonderful respect and appreciation we have for wildlife as wild life, instead of pets," she said.
Promoting conservation
Alison Power, a spokeswoman with the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo, said the zoo publicly names its animals and believes the practice promotes conservation.
"It's sort of the old clich & eacute;, but it's true -- they're ambassadors for their species," Power said.
Zoos that name animals sometimes hold promotional naming contests, but Baker said marketing is not the motive behind the Pittsburgh debate.
"The zoo really, really strives to be a leader in education in regard to conservation and wildlife. So when the education studies tell us this is the direction we need to look or explore ways of doing this, then I think we really need to look at it," she said.
Lisa Wathne, a captive exotic animals specialist with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said she doesn't agree that zoos foster conservation, saying more and more animals become endangered each year. "The way these animals are going to be saved is by protecting their habitats."
Elsa Marsh, a preschool teacher from Blue Hill, Maine, who was visiting the zoo Wednesday, said she leans toward not naming animals.
She said she's run into difficulties trying to teach her students about dinosaurs because the children simply want to call them either "Long Neck" or "Sharp Tooth" -- the names of dinosaurs in the movie "The Land Before Time."