A Stitch in Haste

I recently started training to be a volunteer docent at the Bronx Zoo. Heretofore the training had been out and about, watching the trained docents do their thing, but yesterday was the first formal classroom session of the training.

Here are some of the things I learned, with some fictional animal commentary:

1. The Bronx Zoo is one of the least handicapped-accessible tourist attractions in NYC. Why? Because most of the original buildings have been declared historic landmarks by the city, with the result that no significant alterations to the exterior facades are allowed. (The Zoo tries to circumvent this bureaucratic hurdle by building "temporary" wooden ramps, which of course detract from rather than enhance the aesthetic quality of the structures. Go figure.)

"Look, I can make a handicapped ramp...why can't you?"

2. Human beings are the most violent and destructive creatures on the planet. (Which of course we all learned from edutainment like the "unbiased" Captain Planet show when we were young, right?)

"I dunno, humans have always been pretty good to me..."

3. Americans are "selfishly" trying to impose their vision of conservation on poor countries without providing for an alternative method of lifting themselves out of poverty (i.e., it's okay for natives to cut down the rain forest, just as long as no industrialized nations participate).

"You move! No, you move!"

4. And course the U.S. has 6% of the world's population but blah blah blah percent of the world's yada yada yada (sorry, my brain just shuts down when I start to hear babble like that).

"You got a problem wit dat?"

5. To criticize spending $5 million dollars to save two trapped whales is wrong, because it reflects "value judgments."

"Dumb-ass whales always getting themselves in trouble!"

6. A reminder of how vitally important the trailblazing work "Silent Spring" was to the conservation movement, of course with no mention of the fact that the work's claim that DDT wreaked havoc on bird populations has been totally discredited.

"Say WHAT?!?"

Don't get me wrong -- the Bronx Zoo is my favorite civic institution. (I grew up in the Bronx and many of my fondest childhood memories are of trips to the Zoo with my father.) Any RNC types here in NYC could do worse than spend a few hours there.

But as someone who avoids eco-wingnuts as much as possible, the totality of the nonsense they casually spew out just stunned me.

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)