Zoos. Can They Be Fixed?

Producer Liz Scheltens started digging in. One way that zoos maintain their social
license to operate despite our growing understanding of the harms to certain species is by marketing themselves as beacons of conservation.

Proponents argue that not only do zoos help preserve endangered wild populations, they also help make humans better conservationists. But when you look at the research, a different picture starts to emerge.

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New Diseases Come In From the Wild

COVID-19 was bound to happen. A Vox video.

Related:

“From Bats to Human Lungs, the Evolution of a Coronavirus,” Carolyn Kormann, The New Yorker

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Pandas: Unshakeable

Many animals at DC’s National Zoo were upset by the recent earthquake. Even before the quake struck, red ruffed lemurs were alarm-barking, Iris the orangutan yelled, and the flamingos huddled together in a big pink ball.

The Giant Pandas were neither stirred nor shaken. They just sat there, chewing bamboo. Those critters are tough. They’re from China. They were probably thinking: “Pah. You call that an earthquake?”