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44: Śramana, Vol 64, No. III, July-Sept. 2013
unique to breeding. This latter point should be particularly noted by those Jains in India. Contrary to popular belief, white tigers, which are a favorite of Indian zoos, are not members of a rare species in need of protection as zoos often tell their visitors. Rather, they are the descendants of recessive mutants who were inbred over and over with devastating consequences. Strabismus, club feet, crooked backbones, kidney problems, early arthritis and other very serious health problems abound among these animals. Additional anthropogenic mental and physical healthproblems abound as well, including the aforementioned stereotypic behaviors, self-injurious behaviors and deadly foot problems in elephants that are common in captivity but have never been documented in the wild. Far from a minor problem, the full spectrum of diseases thrust upon nonhumans in captivity is also so vast as to have entire textbooks devoted to it, such as Diseases of Zoo Animals (Diseases and their Therapy of Wild Animals in Zoos, Game Farms, Circuses and Private Collections). Due to this, from the 1930's to 1960's, many zoos in the United States and abroad attempted to attack the problem of diseases in zoos by "adopting a pose of scientific purity” that resulted in "clinically sterile cages with walls lined in glazed tiles, usually white or pale green, smooth concrete floors and cage furnishings reduced to a stainless steel pole and cantilevered slab."13 Plate glass in these exhibits denied even audio contact between visitors and inhabitants and caused the sounds from the slamming of the steel doors used to access their exhibits to reverberate painfully within them. Built with only sterility and easy-cleaning in mind, every part of the animals' environments was controlled and immobile during this period, with even cleaning regimens being unchanging and introduction of novelty foods being forbidden. Perhaps most appalling, in Philadelphia "animal diets were reduced to the convenience of prefabricated vitamized biscuits, nutritionally sound but sensually defunct."14 With such horrid monotony pervasive in zoo exhibits during this time, animal stereotypiesabounded.
While things have improved since the mid-1900s, much of this has been simply aesthetic, in the interest of pleasing zoo-goers rather than in the interest of nonhuman animals. According to zoo architect and zoo director emeritus David Hancocks:
Though zoo animals no longer live in barred cages, they often exist in conditions little better than the old menageries. Too many modern zoo spaces are much too small and while the spaces may look green, the animals have no contact with living vegetation and shuffle along dusty corridors confined by electric wires.
The main difference from a century ago is a new look, which is essentially superficial and is typically a peculiar distortion of the natural world, since zoos have developed a design vernacular that Ithink is best described as Tarzanesque. Modern zoos often resemble a Hollywood version of Africa on a B-movie set.15
This is evidenced by zoos as far around the world as the National Zoo of India and the Bronx Zoo in the United States. At the National Zoo, the elephant exhibit includes trees, water-holes and mounds, however, being bound on foot-long heavy chains 95% of the time, the three elephants
