Interview with zoo director Jim Hubing

http://http://vimeo.com/17557074

Sha-Lei the red panda with loud bird-creature in background

For an animal commonly associated with overwhelming cuteness drawing thousands to zoos throughout the world, pandas definitely live up to the hype.

Sha-Lei, a red panda and the newest arrival at Madison’s Henry Vilas Zoo, is no exception.

She follows the cardinal rules dictating what makes an animal cute-she “poses” for photos, scurries around a branch in her temporary cage and comes out to the bars to peer curiously at any humans who happen to be near.

Despite the cute overload, zoo director Jim Hubing said Sha-Lei, like any other non-domesticated animal, requires special care and caution when nearby, since pandas are like bears and wild animals can pose unexpected dangers for passersby.

Sha-Lei’s arrival highlights the role the Henry Vilas Zoo plays in the lives of average Madisonians and University of Wisconsin students.

As the Vilas Zoo prepares to celebrate its 100th year of bringing exotic creatures and the world’s most recognizable animals to Madison’s Near West Side, Hubing said Sha-Lei’s arrival would help bring more visitors to the zoo, which is open year-round.

In addition to a collection of hundreds of endangered animals, Hubing said the zoo draws visitors on a yearly basis. University of Wisconsin students also make the quick trip through the Vilas neighborhood to take a look at some of the animals and exhibits. They also occasionally work on a project for a class, he said.

“Many of them are working on projects,” he said. “There is a good interest from the UW.”

Some of the interest in the zoo goes beyond zoology or biology – Hubing said dozens of MBA students from UW’s School of Business have also studied at the zoo.

Sha-Lei’s arrival in Madison comes at what Hubing called a transitional period for zoos around the country. With an increased focus on conservation as a theme of zoo education, he said the way owners operate zoos has changed in the last decade.

“Zoos have a double responsibility,” Hubing said. “One is to care for the animals in your collection and help that collection remain viable. But we’ve also got a responsibility to improve the wild habitat of these animals in their native habitat. And that’s where conservation and education come in.”

However, not all animal-rights activists agree with using zoological facilities like the Vilas Zoo to promote conservation.

Rick Bogle, spokesperson for Madison-based Alliance for Animals, said zoos generally are not beneficial for conservation efforts, and many animals may end up spending their entire lives in unnatural captivity.

“You can’t keep a bison in your backyard,” Bogle said. “Very few animals from zoos ever move into the wild.”

Bogle said some zoos, such as one in Austin, Tex., which rescues lost animals and makes the public aware of their predicaments, are mostly the only types of zoos he supports because of their mission to tell visitors the story of the animals’ origin and problems in the conservation world.

He added most zoos restrict animals like giraffes and elephants to a small area, which is for the animals, equivalent to a human living in a telephone booth for an extended period of time.

“There’s a constant leftover of surplus animals,” Bogle added. “Most of them end up on … game farms.”

Hubing, however, said zoos maintain a natural environment consistent with a species’ native habitat.

For Sha-Lei, the forests of the Chinese Himalayas are distant from her temporary quarantined area and current dependency on humans inside the zoo, but Hubing says she will soon become less dependent on humans and make Wisconsin more of a home.

“She knows humans, and she likes them and she counts on them for her support,” Hubing said. “That’ll change as she gets older.”