AUGUST 17, 2024

Dear reader,

My first visit to the Toronto Zoo remains an epic childhood memory: we rode the monorail, marvelled at the monkeys’ acrobatics, scarfed down some soft serve and lost, then found, my sister, who was picked up by security after wandering away to get a closer look at the big cats. In 1985, my family was also among the million-plus visitors to gaze adoringly upon Qing Qing and Quan Quan, the giant pandas on loan from China—the first of their kind to set paw on Canadian soil. In almost every photo from the next two years, I can be seen wearing the cherry-red “Pandamania” T-shirt I begged my mother to buy me from the gift shop.

As an adult, my feelings about zoos and animal welfare are, of course, more nuanced than they were four decades ago. As Nicholas Hune-Brown pointed out in his 2010 feature about the fate of a herd of elephants at the zoo, the way we think about our relationship to the natural world has undergone a serious transformation in the 50 years since the Toronto Zoo opened.

Today, as the beloved and sometimes controversial institution hits a landmark anniversary, the question remains: What role, if any, should zoos play in the modern world?

For more great long-reads from Toronto Life, subscribe to our print edition here.

—Stéphanie Verge, features editor

The Toronto Zoo has lost four elephants in as many years, and the fate of the remaining herd—Iringa, Thika and Toka—is uncertain. Can a one-hectare habitat in the middle of a northern city be any kind of home for exotic animals with complex thoughts and feelings?

BY NICHOLAS HUNE-BROWN | JUNE 29, 2010

Tara’s autopsy proved inconclusive—no one would ever know the exact cause of the matriarch’s death. Still, the incident presented an unpleasant public relations problem. This was the fourth elephant fatality in four years at the zoo, and it set off a storm of criticism. In many ways, the modern zoo is an anachronistic creation, a Victorian institution that has been awkwardly remodelled to fit the contemporary age, with ideas about conservation and education grafted onto the zoo’s core business: entertaining people with exciting creatures. Balancing entertainment and conservation, commerce and education, local politics and animal rights is a difficult trick, and zoos seem to embody all the complicated, contradictory attitudes humans have toward animals.

In the latest issue: the expensive, obsessive, addictive quest for a perfect life. Plus, the bone-rattling reality of Ontario Line construction, rich-people problems in Rosedale, and more. Still not receiving Toronto Life at home? Subscribe today.

Follow us for the latest from Toronto Life

Copyright ©2024. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited. Toronto Life is a registered trademark of SJC Media

15 Benton Rd.
Toronto, M6M 3G2

You're receiving this email because you signed up for a Toronto Life newsletter.

Unsubscribe