Lessons from the Zoo

 Animals have much to teach us if we will take the time to listen. Animals have quite literally changed J. D. (Doug) Porter's life. He looks at some of the most noteworthy in his memoir, Lessons from the Zoo: Ten Animals that Changed My Life.

From animal keeper to zoo director, Porter's career spanned over forty years. It included positions with a half dozen of America's great zoos during the most transformational era in zookeeping in more than a century-a time when zoos went from 19th century menageries to modern day arks.

A chance visit to the Atlanta Zoo in the 1970s launched a career that began at Busch Gardens and continued during the construction of a massive new zoo in Toronto. Porter oversaw the animal collection at the Louisville Zoo, directed the redevelopment of the Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, and served as deputy director of the Toledo Zoo during its centennial years.

Humans have been training animals for thousands of years. We have trained them to pull wagons, herd livestock, and guard our camps. We have also taught them to perform useless tricks for our amusement. These days, animal care professionals train animals to submit to behaviors that improve their own lives (injections, blood pressure monitoring, and other health related routines) as well as tasks that benefit human lives (therapy, search & rescue, and law enforcement). But animals can teach us, as well.

The earliest dogs appeared about fifteen thousand years ago when humans began displacing Neanderthals in Northern Europe and Asia. People might be surprised to learn of recent speculation that perhaps humans did not create dogs by domesticating wolves. Perhaps wolves domesticated themselves. They might have accomplished this by staying in proximity to human settlements, scavenging our leftovers, and adapting to our ways over generations. We have long imagined some clever human training a wolf to guard the camp and hunt for food. What if it was the other way around? What if it was clever wolves that taught those primitive humans to accept them into their society?

Porter developed his love of nature growing up in the piney woods and mangrove swamps of Florida's gulf coast and nurtured that passion for nearly fifty years as he managed parks, zoos, and museums. The number of animals he worked with during his career is beyond measure. He has been bitten, clawed, kicked, and head-butted. He has watched animals being born and seen them take their last breath. He has had an impact on the lives of countless animals, but they have had an impact on his life, as well. They have taught him some valuable lessons.

Porter learned to trust by facing off against Bwana the elephant and to walk his own path from Thelma the wayward mule. He learned how to overcome some of his fears by handling snakes and the importance of the Golden Rule from chimps and goril...