Buffalo Rising Online

The presence of a zoo as a cultural and neighborhood attraction can do a great bit to enhance the quality of life for the humans who make use of it. I agree that efforts should be continuously made to improve the living condtions of animals living in captivity.

Having said that, I don't think the Buffalo leadership has done enough free-thinking to improve the zoo's long-term health. Moving to downtown would have been good for the amount of space available, but I appreciate the passion that went in to keeping it on Parkside. I believe the purple elephant in this discussion is Delaware Park.

Delaware Park is massive and I have always envisioned some sort of "vacation spot" for animals. Imagine a fully enclosed section that animals could go to for daily exercise or could live in through weekly or monthly rotations. It would be visible to people not in the zoo - like the bison currently - and could make use of this massive space.

I once mentioned this possiblity in an educational setting to a member of the Olmsted Conservancy, and was amazed at how quickly it was dismissed as a virtual impossiblity.....citing turf conflicts and such. Then, always there is some mention of "staying true to Olmsted's vision, etc."

Olmsted won't return my phone calls for comment.

I think this is the type of Buffalo compartmentalization that continues to make me think at times I live in a city of perfect strangers, rather than good neighbors. We all know that there are massive parts of the park interior that receive little use except a "links" golf course (which means no trees, essentially). Anybody with a blueprint and a ruler could find use for golf, animals roaming......and add more trees while you are at it.

The Buffalo Zoo showed very adolescent and immature if not out right incompetence when it comes to public relations. If it was managed correctly Buffalo could have gotten a new zoo.

The Buffalo Zoo refused to address the concerns of the community.

The Buffalo Zoo should have proposed converting the Delaware Park Zoo facilities into a petting zoo for the community.....which would have alleviated all the concerns of the neighborhood and an empty facility.

Another missed opportunity relates to the Great Lakes Museum as part of Bass Pro. The Buffalo Zoo and the Buffalo Botanical Gardens should be putting together an exhibit relating to great lakes flora and fauna, extinct species and foreign invasive species. These are things that those facilities could play an enormous role.

And does it need to be said that a petting zoo at Delaware Park....and participation in the Great Lakes Museum would create an incentive for visitors to make the effort to leave downtown and visit their facilities where a visitor might not normally attempt.

As with everything in Buffalo....there is no attempt to think of the bigger picture!

he may never have intended golf courses but he certainly didnt intend his parks to be criss crossed by streets.

RonR why dont you stick to trying to destroy Front Parkand the Colombus neighborhood for your grand peace bridge plaza.....because its common knowledge that your ideas of public space are about as much of a bloody abortion as Robert Moses was!

Two comments here. 1] Sally, most of your comments are stupid, but your one here puts you at the bottom of the food chain, how pathetc are you anyway? The death of these three animals is a crying shame. if I was to meet you I would certainly Bitch slap you and it would be well desrved, but unfortunatly there are to many Mcdonalds in Buffalo to find where you work. 2] The Zoo here in Buffalo is probably one of the worst I have seen. It needs a hell of a lot more funding. But hey Buffalo, send your money to help the well off wounded hocky players and football players...to Hell with the animals.

Martin the Delaware Park Zoo was fine for 100 years ago when animals were kept in confined spaces. Today we are more enlightened to want animals in more human and natural habitats....which the Delaware Park Zoo simply does not have the space which is why I offered so many creative ideas that the local community could embrace like converting the existing zoo to a petting zoo.....while building a more modern zoo in a more central and deserving area such as an area on the eastside or perhaps near the South Park Botanical Gardens.

The Delaware Park Zoo could be converted into a first rate petting zoo. The Great Lakes Museum is in need of participation of both the zoo and botanical gardens for Great Lakes Flora and Fauna and the above exhibits would only re-inforce a first rate zoo in another location.

I agree.. Buffalo does need a better zoo. But that's the least of the worries we should have.

I'm surprised you remembered my basement comment but we do, as a community, have to decide how we are going to host exotic animals in a way that is habitable to them (pacing back and forth would seem a clear sign of distress) and the quaint notion that someone how our children have a right to watch the animals in their cages and feed them garbage bags. Of course, the animals may have intentionally ingested the garbage bags knowing this would finally set them free.

Has a single one of you actually looked at the Zoo master plan. They are aware the many of the exhibits are old and need updating, and they're currently working on fixing the situation. But since this is Buffalo, they don't have the full funding needed to overhaul the whole zoo in a year. It looks to me like they have some great ideas and some positive changes forthcoming. IMHO, the zoo will be much better in five years when they're able to complete some of their plans. Check it out for yourself here: http://www.buffalozoo.org/master_plan.html

Zoos are creepy. The medium is the message, namely that some animals (humans) feel entitled to lock up other animals and expect them to serve as spectacle. Zoos fail in their educational mission, precisely because the most the public can learn from zoos is how some species adapt, or more often fail to adapt, to captivity.

I stopped going to zoos after overhearing too much ignorant, condescending garbage out of people who passed by all the well-meaning educational labels & panels and paid zero attention. They complain about animal odors, they complain about animals who sleep or hide during open hours, then they shriek at those creatures who fail the greeting card adorability test and call them gross and disgusting.

Zoos also have the potential to serve as enablers in habitat destruction. Send those endangered species to a zoo so we can bulldoze this jungle for cattle grazing. Just start a captive breeding program so we can "develop" this prairie.

This is what cages teach us: that whatever is caged exists at our sufference, to do our will. If you want your kids to learn respect and reverence for the interconnected web of life, keep them away from zoos. Take them to Tifft Nature Preserve with a trained docent.

I will never set foot in a zoo again.

Frankster - I'd love to hear your thoughts on prisons.

That's easy, excop. Prisons are failures if the wardens or chief administrators wouldn't want their own "graduates" living next door. If your "product" isn't safe anough to be around your own family and you continue to knowingly turn out this faulty product, then you and your correctional facility are not correcting a damn thing. Putting people in cages doesn't make them better human beings, or our Communist enemies, who relied heavily on it, would have actually achieved the paradise they always promised.

P.S. I briefly worked in a corectional facility.

I'm all for providing care and shelter to domesticated animals, since thousand of years of human manipulation have rendered them unable to survive in the wild. I oppose turning wild animals into pets or keeping them in captivity, unless an injury makes them unable to survive on their own. A good example is some friends who found an orphaned baby squirrel this spring. They housed and fed him until he was mature and then they set him loose.