Animal Attraction in Adelaide

The big excitement at the Adelaide Zoo for the past few months has been the newly arrived giant pandas, Wang Wang and Funi.

Of course, as comics, many of us have taken our pot shots at the whole event: their names, which fall funny on western ears; the whole propaganda and PR campaign bringing them here; their expensive new compound; the politics of the whole thing. Me included, having written and performed a bit on them just this past Friday night at the Rhino Room. People have been streaming into the zoo to see them and ticket money has been streaming into the coffers of the zoo in return. Fair enough. They're a rare magnificence in nature, and are quite beautiful animals.

For those who haven't been to the zoo, there is now 24 hour a day Panda Cam. It's like Big Brother for pandas. Cameras have been mounted in their little living enclosure (not in the adjacent extended fake forest enclosure since apparently Wang Wang found the first camera and chewed it up) and you can see them eating, wading in their pools, waddling around, surveying their domain. Each panda has its own "apartment", as they are not yet ready to mate and need to be kept apart until the right moment like the Dating Game when the two contestants finally meet to go on their exciting date after asking and answering stupid questions: " If you were an animal, which one would you be?" Let me guess....Panda? Wang Wang and Funi apparently won an all expenses paid stay in Adelaide, South Australia. I'm pretty sure if they had a choice they would have stayed home in China where the weather is more to their liking. Australian summer is going to be a rude shock. Even though they do have the perks of air conditioning, it's hardly the same.

Panda Cam launched this week with its own hype. How much fun will it be to see them any time you want, just being themselves? Not much, apparently. Twenty four hour Panda Cam is a great sounding idea, but in fact, depending on when you check in, you may see hours of nothing. I mean, they sleep a lot. And, like most people, don't exactly do much in the privacy of their own homes that would qualify them for the daytime Emmy award or a gold Logie. And without having the fun of sex, there's not really much else to do but eat and sleep. Not exactly riveting stuff.

Still, I have to admit, since I started watching Panda Cam - to be honest, initially just to get fodder for my comedy gig - I've been a bit hooked on checking in on the big black and white beauties at least once a day. If I see them at all, they're in a corner sleeping - or in Wang Wang's case being a typical guy and scratching himself in ecstasy - or occasionally munching on a bamboo snack and really, just looking a bit bored.

And that's the part that I find sad. Zoos can talk about their desires to study these animals, any animals, for scientific advancement, for knowledge and preservation; they can talk about the educational value to the community and impacting the little minds of future world leaders with a passion for conservation; they can talk about mating and increasing the numbers of endangered species. But ultimately, we take these animals from their native environments, put them in a man made enclosure, get people to pay to see them, take their flash photos and buy the target merchandise at the Zoo shop (get your panda hats and pens, pennants and books while they last!) and fool ourselves into thinking this is good, this is normal, this is right.

I'm reminded of the very funny movie take-off on the old Dragnet television series. There's a bizarre robbery at the Los Angeles zoo. When the two main characters as played by Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks get there to investigate, Dan Aykroyd sings the praises of the zoo and Tom Hanks refutes his high praise by saying, "Do you think these animals like it here? Do you think they all lined up going 'pick me, pick me, I want to live on damp cement' ?"

There's a thin line we walk here. We've managed to wipe out so many species of animals while ruining their natural homes along with the native people and cultures that they live alongside. We've created a world in which they can no longer live and thrive. And our solution to try to reverse the situation we've deliberately created is to bring them to an enclosed world of our making where we can once again control them, but this time "for their own good."

Boy, how many times have we heard that argument? And the really sad thing is, it's all we can do.

Even though I find zoos frustrating places in some respects, where we capture animals from around the world for our viewing pleasure and can never give them enough space to live in, I confess I do like going to them. I love seeing these magnificent creatures of our world, the endless variation of feathers and scales, beautiful colours and scary teeth and claws; love listening to their incessant chatter and song. Even in an artificial environment it reminds me of the real wonder and beauty of this planet. And since I don't have the funds to travel the world to see them in the wild, I'll make do with the experience of seeing them in captivity. Sometimes, though, I really wish I didn't have to.