Berlin 1.

I want to say something about the Berlin Zoo, but first I will say something about the Dublin zoo.

The last time I was in Dublin, Don was at a conference, and I had 2 full days to myself. Dublin was in the middle of a heat wave—there were sunburned Irish people everywhere—and the only places I wanted to be were the wonderful Irish National Museum, the lovely and shady St. Stephen’s Green (filled with sunbathing Irish people), and, finally desperate for something outside the gritty downtown, the zoo. Dublin’s zoo began as a typical city-zoo, that is to say, hell on earth for the animals. But it is located in a huge urban park, and they decided that since the park gave them plenty of room to expand, and since our knowledge of what makes a zoo a healthy place for animals had expanded, they would similarly expand. And expand they did—what was created was a wonderful zoo, well-designed for both animals and the humans who crave a glimpse of them. The North Carolina zoo is a terrific place for the animals, but one does not always catch sight of them. At the Dublin zoo, the animals have great spaces, lots to do, and privacy if they want it, but the enclosures are designed such that the visiting humans do not go away frustrated. I loved it. I spent much of full day there, and came away happy and in love with the animals I had seen and with the zoo and city authorities, who had designed a place to make both the animals and the visiting humans happy.

Cue my first full day in Berlin. Not being a city person at all, and with Berlin having sunny days in the 80s, I headed out on the city’s wonderful metro system, for the zoo, which is located at the tip of an enormous park, the Tiergarten,  (more on that later). Tiergarten translates as Garden of the Beasts, or Animals. It is not named the Tiergarten because it was a zoo, but because it was originally a hunting preserve for the aristocracy. It just so happens that the zoo was aded onto the top.

And here is a fact: the Berlin city zoo is appalling.  It was like I remember the Bronx zoo being when I was a child: most of the animals in enclosures way too small and boring for them. The first animal I saw was an elephant, and I nearly cried at the awful circumstances she was in. There were a few enclosures that were fairly good—the white Arctic wolves,

the gorillas, 

and the Asiatic tigers, who here have caught the scent of something and are staring hard at whatever it was, 

seemed happy, and had reasonably-sized areas to play and live in—but many of the rest of them were abysmal. Yet there is a huge park they could expand into.  Obviously Berlin has necessarily had other priorities on their collective minds since the War ended, as well as since the Cold War ended, and it makes sense that the zoo would not come first (again, more on this later). But if you are planning to visit that city any time soon, don’t go to the zoo. It will just depress you. 

Here are a brown bear and a polar bear, in their enclosures.

Note: I add to my comments on the zoo during and after the War in a later post.