[Feature: Rethinking Zoos] Roundtable Discussion: Re-evaluating the Role of Zoos

Today, I would like to reconsider the existence of zoos, which we often take for granted.

I study biodiversity from an economic perspective, and I believe this is an excellent opportunity to think about the mechanisms and issues of zoos as the first place where people become familiar with biodiversity. Thank you for joining us.

First, I would like to ask Mr. Murata, the director of Zoorasia in Yokohama, to explain the roles of a zoo.

Keio University might not seem to have much of a connection with animals, but before the war, there was the Keio University Junior College of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry. Furthermore, the most significant connection to zoos is Yukichi Fukuzawa.

Fukuzawa went to Europe as a member of a diplomatic mission at the end of the Edo period. He observed many different fields with a broad perspective, and it seems he also saw zoos among the museum complexes in Paris. When he introduced them in "Things Western (Seiyō Jijō)," he used the kanji for "Zoo" (Dobutsuen) to describe facilities that "keep birds, beasts, fish, and insects while they are alive."

Since that is said to be the first instance of the word "zoo" being used in Japan, one could even say that the "zoo" was born at Keio University (laughs).

Later, a man named Yoshio Tanaka traveled to Paris as an exhibition coordinator for the World Expo at the end of the Edo period. He was deeply moved by the same zoos in the museum complexes that Fukuzawa had seen, and he felt that if Japan did not bring in such social education facilities of European culture, it might lose to the Western powers. The start of zoos thus included social education.

It is said that zoos have four roles. One is related to the economy, which is "recreation." The others are "social education," "conservation and protection" of animals, and "research and investigation." Originally, zoos were based on proper academic education and research in zoology. Recreation, where citizens can relax, exists on that foundation.

When Toshimichi Okubo submitted a proposal to Emperor Meiji to establish a zoo in Japan, he also wrote that a zoo is a place where people can acquire knowledge without realizing it while enjoying themselves.

Therefore, the starting point actually grasped the basics of the zoo more firmly. I believe we should return to that once again.

In present-day Japan, which of those four is given the most emphasis?

Right now, it is recreation—the economy, which is your specialty (laughs).

You mean attracting customers.

Most zoo facilities are public and managed by local governments. When asked why local governments own zoos and how far they should go with tax money, the idea that they must pay for themselves through admission fees keeps coming up. As a result, in small local governments, many zoos appear that can only fulfill one of these four roles.

If they are not economically viable, they go under. There are private zoos as well as public ones, and several have closed down so far. I think there are places where the original role of the zoo has been lost sight of.

Also, many of the people at the top of zoos, especially public ones, come into the position knowing almost nothing about zoos.

Do bureaucrats come in?

If it is public, people from the relevant Bureau of Construction, Bureau of Health, or Bureau of Economy come in. The general public thinks the zoo director is an animal expert, but it is completely different. You might have management answering animal consultation calls while looking at a book.

I used to be a veterinarian at the Oji Zoo in Kobe. In the past, when a citizen asked, "Where did the penguins at Oji Zoo come from?" the answer was apparently, "From the back door" (laughs). There is also an anecdote where someone asked, "What do polar bears eat?" and was told, "They crunch on penguins."

There are no penguins in the Arctic (laughs).

That was the level we were at.

I see. So, with the current strong movement to focus on attracting customers, is not much effort being put into social education, research, or species conservation?

No, that is not necessarily the case. Globally, species preservation and conservation have become central, and animal welfare is becoming a very important pillar.

Of course, it goes without saying that a zoo cannot survive unless customers come, and it is recognized worldwide that a zoo must have a proper management body as a company or a visitor facility. However, that sense of balance is extremely important.

Ms. Hasegawa, you have been researching the ecology of wild animals. What is your impression of zoos?

As a researcher, I focused on wild animals, but studying wild animals requires going to Africa or Sri Lanka, which takes time and is difficult to do unless you are young. After getting older and busier, I have often supervised students doing research on zoo animals.

In that sense, although indirectly, I have been involved in ethology targeting zoo animals, but I felt that I wanted the zoo side and zoo management to have more understanding of the research aspect.

In Japan, there are no zoo curators who hold a Ph.D. themselves, right? There are almost no people employed by zoos as researchers.

There are none.

Even if they want to get involved in our research, they aren't allowed to do so unless they take paid leave. A system where people on the zoo side are properly involved in research has not been established.

That's right. I mentioned "research" as one of the four pillars earlier, but there aren't many zoos that recognize research as a main activity. Public zoos, in particular, have specific job divisions, and there is no category for research as a technical position.

When I was at Oji Zoo, the director at the time told me, "If you want to do research, go to a university."

So it is different from museums and art galleries, which serve as places for curators to conduct research.

However, in terms of their positioning within the Museum Act, zoos are facilities equivalent to museums. Despite that, the actual situation is a bit different.

Is it because, unlike works of art, caring for animals keeps everyone busy?

Fundamentally, they must be busy. They are trying to operate at the limit by cutting personnel.

Historically, the positioning of research was never there to begin with.

After all, keepers used to be considered craftsmen in zoos in the old days.

There are animals in zoos that are difficult to observe in the wild, so I think things would change significantly if zoos were designed with an eye toward how to conduct research.

Exactly. It's a waste.

Ms. Togawa, you have been involved in wildlife conservation activities. From that standpoint, how do you view zoos?

We operate under the name Tiger and Elephant Conservation Fund, but rather than looking at individual tigers or elephants, our activity is about protecting the habitats where animals can live.

In Japan, people go to the zoo when they have small children, but as they become adults, they gradually stop going. Also, children interested in animals tend to drift away from zoos around junior high school age as they develop various other interests. However, I believe the experience of touching animals when young remains even after becoming an adult.

For the past five years, in collaboration with Ueno Zoo, we have been reaching out to nearby elementary schools to gather students for activities under the name "Ueno Tiger Ambassadors." The elementary school students who convey information about tigers learn about the animals by actually seeing what their fangs and skeletons are like and how large their paws are at the zoo. Then, through a game we devised called "Let's Become a Tiger," they learn about tiger society—that even within the single category of "tiger," there are various types in the wild, such as resident individuals, wandering individuals, and females raising cubs. It is a workshop where they spend three years studying the ecosystem of tiger habitats, the friction between people living in the forest and tigers, and solutions for coexistence.

So you view the zoo as a place for education.

Yes, with the revision of the Act on Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the role of zoos is expected to become clearer. Since wild animals are becoming truly scarce, the role is to breed and raise them with the eventual premise of returning them to their original wild environment. However, since it is realistically very difficult for zoos to return mammals to the wild, I think it is important to make the zoo a place to convey and think about that difficulty and the current state of their original habitats.

As Ms. Togawa just said, I don't think people forget the impressions they receive as children. I think that is the first step for a zoo in its most correct form as social education.

There are various animals besides humans, and if you go to a zoo, you can come into contact with them. These animals actually live in India or Africa. You can feel all of that by going to the zoo.

For children who have felt that, when they later think about environmental issues or the importance of life, if they have their experience at the zoo as a foundation, I think their way of thinking will be different. In that sense, if we can get people to go to the zoo, we don't have to preach "education" from a high horse; if there is a cute animal in front of them, they will feel it is "cute." That feeling of "cute" leads to a form of nature conservation—questioning whether it is okay for that animal to go extinct—so I would like zoos to first broaden their gateway and become places where many people can visit.

Zoos today are making great efforts, moving away from the old style of having one animal in a small, dark cage toward ecological exhibits and trying to show the background. However, overall, there is no basic concept of how Japanese zoos should be, so each zoo and each keeper is trying their best within a small budget through various individual efforts on the ground.

So it depends on individual efforts.

Ideally, local administrations should understand the role of the zoo from the ground up. However, they still only think of it as a facility to attract customers.

Ueno Zoo is about the only one trying to operate with a clear policy on the role of the zoo. When other zoos say such things, it is mostly an after-the-fact explanation to avoid criticism. Everyone is groping in the dark. And when those staff members are transferred, it all disappears.

For example, elephants are animals with a very high ability to recognize people, so a one-on-one relationship with a keeper needs to be built like a marriage, yet they sometimes get transferred. So, I feel that the existence of a zoo rests on a very fragile foundation.

In Japan, I think ecological exhibits have spread quite a bit since the success of Asahiyama Zoo. What are the effects of that?

In the case of Asahiyama, they call it "behavioral display" rather than ecological display. Previously, there were many zoos where animals just slept without moving, but they created mechanisms in the exhibition facilities to let people see them moving.

Ecological display comes from a different lineage; it means mimicking the nature where animals live as a captive environment, placing the animals there, and encouraging natural behavior. Both have the same goal, but since ecological displays are very expensive, Asahiyama's method spread and gained attention.

I see. In the past, zoos were almost all the same—you looked down at their behavior from a high place, and if you went around the back, there was a sleeping quarters—but now they are truly different depending on the zoo.

Allowing animals to move has benefits for both the animals and the customers.

Disney built a large zoo called Animal Kingdom in Florida. Because Disney was building a zoo, conservation groups in the US staged a major protest. To respond to that, Disney said they would allow it to open by including a mountain of educational elements in the attractions and everything else.

For example, in the African savanna zone, they made it so you can go around in a jeep, and as an attraction, a radio call suddenly comes into the jeep and you go racing off to catch poachers. In the Asian zone, there is an attraction where the rainforest is burning, a truck transporting timber falls off a cliff, and tigers are running around in between. By including educational elements everywhere, such as "Terrible things like this are happening in the rainforest," they were finally able to open.

I imagine that pursuing the goal of attracting customers inevitably leads to trying to bring in popular or rare animals. How is the strategy for which animals to exhibit decided?

It differs for each zoo. In Yokohama City, the Bureau of Environment Creation, which oversees zoos, has an Animal Collection Committee headed by the Officer, and they create future plans there. However, in any case, we are no longer in an era where we try to attract customers with rare animals.

The direction is shifting toward emphasizing quality over the number of customers. Recently, there are many visitors whose feelings for animals are even more passionate than those of zoo staff, and they are very knowledgeable. Some people even say, "I am willing to provide all my assets for the welfare of the animals." This was unthinkable until about 40 years ago.

Actually, this kind of thing is common overseas; for example, the Zurich Zoo apparently has an estate management section. They have specialists who follow and care for wealthy individuals for about 10 years. When they eventually pass away, billions of yen come in as an inheritance. Advanced zoos in Europe and America are sustained by such donations. Therefore, they cannot survive unless they realize the wishes of those people.

So it's a form where the opinions of people with strong feelings are reflected.

That's right. "Wanting to see rare animals" was a story from decades ago; now, the desire to "see this specific individual" and "take care of this individual" has become stronger. There is very strong affection for individuals, like the polar bears Bariba-chan or Tsuyoshi-chan.

That is where animal welfare becomes extremely important.

Once people become emotionally invested, they start to wonder if such a poor environment is acceptable.

The role of the zoo changes significantly with the times. Nowadays, the main purpose is to protect animals or, in terms of conservation, to breed them and reintroduce them in the future, and the mainstream idea is that as long as we keep them, we should guarantee the happiness of the animals. That is a human responsibility, and we must recognize the dignity of animals to live.

How are the animals procured?

Nowadays, most animals are bred in zoos. Capturing them in the wild has become quite rare. Instead, they are moved within domestic or international zoo networks to be preserved in captivity while maintaining genetic diversity.

But when a panda arrives, everyone goes to see it. So, the awareness on the zoo's side and the awareness on the visitors' side still don't quite match up, do they?

However, awareness is changing significantly. It might be a problem that some top-level people in zoos still hold the same mindset that visitors had in the old days.

Currently, how much is donated to Japanese zoos?

There are donations, but in the case of public interest incorporated foundations, there are systems that prevent them from receiving huge sums of money. It is also difficult for public zoos to have a system for accepting donations; they often end up as Miscellaneous income for the entire city.

So they become part of the general revenue.

It would be fine if it trickled back down to the zoo from there. There was an instance at the Kyoto City Zoo where a woman made a large donation, and that was used to supplement the construction costs of the gorilla house.

Recently, for example, showing animals at night has started to be done.

It's done in the summer, but there's the issue of animal stress.

What is referred to as animal welfare, enrichment, or behavioral exhibits is mostly done during the hours when visitors are present. Naturally, behavioral exhibits are also conducted while visitors are watching.

However, 16 hours of an animal's day are spent in their sleeping quarters. Yet, enrichment and welfare during those hours haven't been considered much. There is a point of reflection that while we talk about animal welfare, we haven't truly been doing it for the sake of the animals.

Most mammals are nocturnal, aren't they? The ones that are diurnal are mostly primates—monkeys. Humans are primates, so we are a minority among mammals that move during the day, yet we try to show 95% of mammals during the day to suit ourselves (laughs).

One thing I think about regarding zoos is keeping social animals individually. I think that's very pitiful for them. There are many situations where animals that naturally live with companions are kept alone for various reasons, such as cost.

But it's difficult to reproduce social structures in a zoo. It requires a quite vast area.

There's also compatibility; it's difficult, isn't it?

Even if we pair them up based on human judgment, they might end up fighting.

Also, being watched by people like that must be stressful, right? So, for visitors who get angry saying "I can't see them, I can't see them," we should calm them down and say "Now, now," and I think a design where you can only catch a glimpse is better for both parties. Even in terms of humans learning about animals.

But recently, we've also been receiving complaints from visitors that there are no hiding places. Since people are starting to notice those things, zoos should respond.

I think it's about protecting the dignity of animals. Protecting the rights of living things, and guaranteeing their way of life and happiness. After that, we must introduce interaction between animals and humans. If we think in an anthropocentric way, I don't think zoos will survive in the future.

Zoos are often called a door to nature, but the question is whether they can truly fulfill that role.

It would be great if people emerged saying, "I went to the zoo, so next I want to go to the African savanna."

Zoos in the West have relatively high admission fees. Even in Japan, places like Adventure World in Shirahama are expensive, costing around 4,000 yen. By making it expensive, only true animal lovers come.

I think setting the price high and having a small number of people support it is one way to go.

But I think the role of a public zoo is to keep the threshold low and have as many people as possible see the animals.

That is being debated. However, the difficulty is that since they are facilities equivalent to museums, high admission fees cannot be requested.

Ah, I see.

Since many public zoos had that mindset introduced at the starting point, they have that history, so it's difficult to change it immediately.

In that case, is the method of attracting more people with low admission fees better?

It's quite difficult, isn't it? Whether to make it free and fulfill the role of social education, or to charge high admission fees and improve the quality.

Or take massive donations from wealthy people and make it free (laughs).

But if you make it free, the quality might drop.

Nogeyama is free. All Yokohama citizens have experience with Nogeyama. They go there in kindergarten and elementary school. It's a place that's easy to go to even as an adult, where you can just drop by.

It's good as an entry point, but there are concerns for the future, aren't there?

No, there are concerns for everything (laughs). For example, Kanazawa Zoo in Yokohama brought in many very rare herbivores, but because they brought in such rare animals, there are no successors after they die. They are too rare to bring in from overseas anymore, and they couldn't breed them. In the end, it just becomes empty.

In terms of research, isn't it important to be able to observe animals up close that you wouldn't normally encounter in nearby fields? If a zoo is to become a research facility, collecting such rare animals could also be a subject of research, right?

As long as we keep animals, research is necessary to make 100% use of them, and I think they should be social education facilities that nurture children.

There's no point in keeping rare animals if there are no researchers, no receptacle for research, and no records of that research are kept.

That's right. We should make them facilities that cultivate sensitivity when children are small, and as they grow up, they value interaction with nature and protect the natural environment. For that, support is necessary, so both sufficient research and education are needed.

What I want to ask in relation to animal welfare is about bird exhibits. There are cases where birds are outside cages but their wings have been clipped; how are bird exhibits being innovated?

Actually, it's becoming a big issue in Europe and America. In the past, they used "pinioning," which involves removing part of one wing so they can't fly, or "wing clipping," which involves cutting feathers so they can't fly.

Nowadays, for welfare reasons, pinioning is naturally prohibited. There is also debate about whether wing clipping is acceptable, as it causes a loss of balance during breeding, leading to failed mating and a drop in reproductive success. There is a possibility that keeping many birds in open spaces will disappear in the future.

There's a zoo in Singapore where birds are flying all over the place, right? Are there no cages in places like that?

They are intentionally letting them fly freely. In Malaysian zoos, they fly far away and then come back. In Southeast Asia, they are completely free-range. We can't do that in Japan because of the Invasive Alien Species Act.

When I went to Australia and entered the campus of the Australian National University in Canberra, parrots were flying everywhere. King parrots, parakeets, red and green ones were flying all over, and I wondered what on earth was going on, only to realize that this was their natural habitat (laughs).

There are lots of sparrows inside the aviaries at Zoorasia, aren't there?

Yes, there are. If you leave the food in the pheasant house alone, it mostly becomes food for wild birds.

What kind of things are being done for interaction with animals?

We have interactions using guinea pigs and mice. Also, feeding experiences.

Interactions are popular, aren't they?

They are popular, but when asked if that's really a good thing, it's a difficult point. Experiences when young are important, but they can be a source of severe stress for the animals.

There are things like trying to touch a seal's nose, right? Or shaking hands with an otter. A child pokes at a spot where the animal sticks its face out from a small tube-like thing. That's very popular, isn't it?

It is popular.

I find that scary, including the risk of infection.

When I went to a zoo in Hamburg, they had children kneel and line up in a row, and then they had a small red panda or something run across their backs. The children were overjoyed, but that would probably be impossible in Japan.

Interactions are difficult now. Seeing them up close is fine, but there's debate about whether actually touching them is okay.

Also, though it's not talked about much in Japan, the biggest issue is euthanasia. Overseas, elderly or sick animals are euthanized at the zoo to prevent suffering. In Japan, this hasn't been publicly debated yet.

Japanese people have a mentality of wanting to take care of them until they die, even if they get sick. In Japan, whether it's an insect or a bird, everything is a life. But the West is a bit different. In a sense, they can be objects, and they don't hesitate to think about killing them.

So there's that difference in the view of animals.

Since views of animals and culture form the foundation of zoos, if Japanese culture changes in the future, zoos will likely change as well.

The question of how to interact with animals will be raised. For example, while saying we should protect tigers and elephants overseas, in Japan, if a bear comes down to a village and someone gets hurt, we say let's kill it. If they come into town, they are pests; if they are on TV, they become cute animals. There are no rules for how to deal with wild animals. There's nowhere where people have the habit of thinking about it regularly.

There's no government agency in charge, either, right? We've coexisted with animals for thousands of years in the Japanese archipelago, but we don't know how many wild boars we can take or how many bears there should be. When the number of deer increases rapidly, we frantically say to increase hunters or release wolves—it's a mess. In the midst of that, zoos are currently the only organizations that think about animals. So, if you inquire and they say, "The penguin came in through the back door," that's a problem (laughs).

As Hisa-san mentioned, zoos do not just keep animals; they are very closely related to cultural backgrounds.

Therefore, I hope that Keio University, founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa, who is said to have coined the Japanese word for "zoo," will establish a department or course related to zoos. There is no bright future for zoos unless we organically connect the academic fields of Japanese economics, society, and politics that support the background of zoos. We are no longer in an era where we simply show animals and take money.

I believe that conflicts between wildlife and humans will increasingly occur in rural areas due to population decline. Zoos must also take on the role of institutions that accumulate the know-how to deal with these issues.

In that sense, zoos are extremely valuable facilities. I want to build "Zoo Studies" as an academic system within the organic connection of the economy and society surrounding animals, rather than just simple zoology, and create zoos that are supported by that system.

The tigers at Ueno Zoo are Sumatran tigers, but on Sumatra, most of the tropical rainforest is being cleared for palm oil, and the tigers' habitats are rapidly disappearing, leading to a decrease in their numbers. So, in the "Tiger Ambassador" workshops, we explain the current situation and then have the children role-play as plantation owners, workers, people whose livestock were killed by tigers, or rangers. Finally, they create a picture story show (kamishibai) using their own words.

Children who initially said "at the zoo" when asked "where are the tigers?" learn many things over three years and eventually start thinking about what they can do regarding the critical situation in the habitats. I think the power of children is significant.

Do zoos currently provide information about the status of habitats or poaching? Is there a direction being taken to provide an integrated image of society and nature?

For example, the "Congo Gorilla Forest" exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in the US and exhibits in European zoos that mimic the nature of Madagascar are large-scale displays that put the relationship with development at the forefront.

In Japan, both Ueno Zoo and Zoorasia always have such explanatory panels in front of animal exhibits. It has become common sense to convey why that animal must be kept in a zoo and what kind of situation the animal faces in the wild.

When you go to the actual sites, it really is an economic issue. Palm oil became a hit because it was marketed as environmentally friendly. But on the ground, they burn down the entire rainforest to create oil palm plantations.

However, the local people feel, "We want electricity, schools, and hospitals too. What's wrong with aiming for a prosperous life?" From a macro perspective, it's obviously bad because of environmental destruction. But in the context of his own life, wanting to be prosperous is not a bad thing at all. Such situations are everywhere.

Elephant poaching is a hot topic now, but in Africa, there are various types of poaching. There is poaching by poor people for food, called "bushmeat," where they catch gazelles and such, and then there is poaching by those who want to make a lot of money from ivory or rhino horns.

On the other hand, rangers don't protect elephants just because they are cute; they risk their lives fighting with guns for the national economy because if the elephants disappear, the tourism resources will be lost. Therefore, you cannot protect animals unless you translate everything into economic terms in various places.

No matter how hard you try to increase animal populations in zoos, if the places to return them to are destroyed, there is nowhere to send them back. The reason those places disappear is mostly due to so-called global economic activities.

People need to go to the zoo and, from there, develop an interest in the mechanisms of the world, society, and the economy.

I hope we can change the world from the zoo.

In that sense, this "Tiger Ambassador" is a great idea. I think it's wonderful for each person to be an ambassador for the animals.

We often see animals characterized in novels, manga, or anime, and there are certain preconceptions we tend to hold about animals.

Like with Bambi, people say, "Oh, how cute." Personally, I dislike things for children like "The wolf and the goat became friends" (laughs).

People who go to the savanna for the first time are first surprised by how many animals there are and ask things like, "Who feeds them?" (laughs). Everyone lives self-sufficiently, but when they see the reality of it, they are shocked. A lion catches a warthog, pins down its belly, and eats it crunchily from the morning. A fetus comes out of that belly, and you can hear the sound of the lion putting it in its mouth and crunching it down.

In a hunting scene, in a sense, you empathize with the gazelle, the herbivore. However, if the lion fails to hunt many times, you gradually start to empathize with the hunter and feel relieved when it finally catches something. So, empathy can go either way.

That is basically because people have little experience facing animals directly. In that sense, I want zoos to be a place that makes everyone think about the encounter between animals and humans.

Regarding how to interact with wildlife, tourists feed the Ezo red foxes in Shiretoko, so the foxes have started to approach whenever a car comes. While you can see them up close in a zoo, it is necessary to maintain a certain distance from wild animals; otherwise, coexistence is difficult. We call it "warm ignoring," and I hope the meaning of warmly ignoring them reaches the children.

I see. Hasegawa-san, what kind of relationship do you maintain when you are in contact with animals in the field?

Neither too close nor too far. A distance where you observe with binoculars. When I was studying chimpanzees in Africa, the professors from Kyoto University had habituated them with bananas and such, so the well-accustomed ones would come as close as 3 meters, but those were few; mostly, I had to observe them from more than 10 meters away with binoculars.

The scariest thing for me in Africa was when a leopard was following a group of chimpanzees. We were watching from the ground, and the chimpanzees quickly climbed trees and were angry, throwing branches at the leopard from above. But since we couldn't climb trees, the leopard was right behind us. I've never been so scared.

Also, at night, a lion once came to eat a wild chimpanzee. A few weeks later, one baby chimpanzee was gone, and in a large pile of lion dung, there were chimpanzee hairs and a skull. I realized, "Ah, this one was eaten."

In the two years I was there, a lion came to the forest only once. I truly felt how terrifying it is when there is no fence between us and carnivores.

In zoos, is there no stress between different species?

In the new African Savanna exhibit at Zoorasia, we have a mixed-species display of four types: giraffes, zebras, elands, and the carnivore, the cheetah.

At first, there was something like stress, but as we continued, we began to see behaviors like greeting each other or testing each other's feelings between species, which is very interesting.

That is interesting.

They might be reserved or actively approach each other. The cheetah is in the weakest position and cannot attack anything larger than itself. Occasionally it messes with the zebras, but if a zebra gets serious, the cheetah would likely be seriously injured. Now, it has an atmosphere as if they are enjoying the chase.

Keeping species individually in cages without social context, as mentioned earlier, is quite pitiful. It's about time we change our human-centric thinking. If we don't see ourselves (humans) as one species living within the environment, our future is also in danger. I want to make zoos a place where people can learn such things.

For example, Murata-san, if you wanted to create an ideal zoo, how would you go about it?

It's the philosophy from when people first tried to create zoos in Japan. Academic and scholarly foundations are at the base, and education and dissemination follow. High-quality recreation cannot exist without that support. I want to aim for a zoo that functions properly within society, economy, and politics, based on what might be called "Zoo Studies."

I would like to ask the rest of you one by one about your desires for what kind of zoo you would create if you were to build one.

A zoo that serves as a place for children's education, where they can learn about society from animals. A place where they can learn and think about the reality that human society, tiger society, monkey society, etc., each exist, and that conflicts with humans are occurring.

It might be impossible forever, but I wonder if we could create a place where animals are there by their own will and can open and close doors by their own will. Maybe a zoologist shouldn't say such things (laughs).

And we would be the ones waiting for them. That's nice. How about you, Hisa-san?

On a map of Japan, it says "these animals are distributed in Japan." There are deer, bears, and raccoon dogs. However, children living in the city have no chance to meet animals just by going on a short hike. So, I think the role of the zoo is very large.

There are various animals all over the world, and humans have lived together with them for thousands or tens of thousands of years, but if tigers or elephants stop leaving descendants, we will never see them again. The chance to realize that gravity is by meeting animals at the zoo and properly understanding the animal's position through the keepers or a visitor center.

Some people say it's fine because we can preserve them in videos, but animals in videos don't die and don't give birth to babies. But in a zoo, you can see the cycle of life. The role of the zoo includes that.

The fact that local governments run them means there is an awareness that citizens are collectively keeping those animals. When an animal dies and everyone brings bouquets, it's because the citizens have a sense that "we are living together with this animal now."

If the administration itself understands the role of the zoo better and good citizens are raised there, the administration becomes the beneficiary. If children who are kind to the environment and value life grow into adults, they won't litter, they won't bully, and good citizens will be raised. I want it to be that kind of zoo, not just for entertainment or attracting crowds.

Director Murata, there are many graduates of Keio University in the business world. Is there anything in particular you would like them to keep in mind?

The power of the economy is very strong, so how do we link the economy and the zoo? I want to think about creating such mechanisms together with companies.

For example, we could consider having each company sponsor an exhibit, or even just in terms of support; I hope to create a system where coming to the zoo allows one to see that company's direction and its role in society.

Ideally, I think if society as a whole became like a zoo, zoos would no longer be necessary (laughs). For someone like me, I would be happy if I were in the mountains and could see wild animals. I want to make the zoo a place that makes people feel a society where we live not as human-centrists, but as one species within the same ecosystem.

This is my personal impression, but when I ask students, they say they go to aquariums rather than zoos for dates. My ideal is a zoo where a couple who has just started dating can say, "Well, shall we go to the zoo?" (laughs).

But according to surveys, the success rate of inviting someone by saying "Let's go to the zoo" is higher than for restaurants or local movie theaters.

I didn't know that. Is it because they empathize by looking at the same animals?

Zoos have a certain sense of security, don't they? There's also the image of having gone there when you were little.

It would be great to have a zoo where, during a date, you feel like helping with habitat conservation while looking at the animals, and find such hints. A place where the future can be discussed brightly.

I see. Then I'll tell my students, "Apparently, a first date goes well if you go to the zoo" (laughs).

Well, in that case, it's Zoorasia (laughs).

The conversation could go on forever, but thank you very much for today.

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.