Thoughts On The American Zoo and Aquarium Industry
History, and an introduction.
Welcome to Why Zoos (and Zookeepers) Do The Thing.
This newsletter leans into the fact that the zoo industry is constantly evolving. Like any major change, it’s a messy, non-linear process with some inevitable fumbles along the way. I use this space to dig into interesting aspects of that journey. I look at the industry’s ambiguities, contradictions, and politics. I investigate shifts in language and branding to see if they’re accurate and functional. I fact-check common assumptions. I highlight work that is important and necessary, and critique aspects of concern.
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This isn’t a newsletter about the ethics of captivity: it addresses the how and the why - and the “why not?” - of tangible things. There’s no PR spin in the writing here, and no gymnastics done to align content with brand standards or industry politics. Come for the straightforward and factual information, stay for the though-provoking discourse.
While I’ve got you, some history.
Six years ago, I started a blog on Tumblr that would change my life. I wanted to teach people to think critically about animal content they encountered online; through the curiosity of my readers, I ended up with more questions than I could answer about how and why zoos and aquariums in the United States did what they did. Those un-answered, ever-expanding questions were the catalyst for my transition from writing casually about how the industry was represented online to doing intensive research on its wider structure, function, direction, and purpose.
That blog is on indefinite hiatus now. The more I learned, the more what I truly wanted to reach people about became too complex to communicate effectively through a social media platform. I built a website to publish my formal research pieces, began presenting at conferences and publishing in industry magazines, and built a large part of my career off of the work that blog inspired. But in the last couple of years, I’ve really missed having a venue for communicating directly with a more casual audience.
Enter this newsletter: the grown-up, narrower-scope, more professional evolution of the blog that started it all. It’s time for me to have a voice online again where I can share my perspective more conversationally.
Yes, I did keep the “Why [blank] Does The Thing” brand. You can make a blogger into a professional writer, but you can’t take away her love for snarky internet lingo. After all, it’s an established, recognizable brand - you’re here right now, reading this!