By Josie Barker
Zoos, common hotspots for diverse groups of people, but nonetheless, all are united here to quench their interest in specific species by ways of spectating. Parents with their eager-eyed kids, educated adults, and agitated animal activists alike traverse to the menagerie.
I, in similar thought of the societal idea of animal-watching, decided to venture to the Sequoia Park Zoo with a friend and my family over break. While traipsing through the redwoods, we peek at the playful bears, and cheeky monkeys, eventually making our way to the red panda’s enclosure. In the corner, the red, fluffy creature hides away in its small enclosed box. I hear the nearby kids grunt when Sequoia’s most notable furry friend won’t present himself. Noticing watchful eyes, the firefox makes his way out of the gloomy makeshift panda-apartment and darts under bushes nearby. We hush the aggravating kids as the cat-bear noticeably suffers from severe anxiety. They leave and the poor animal sinks back into its lonely lair.
Zoochosis, an un-natural condition adopted by captive animals, involves characteristics of repetitive self-destructive behaviors such as self-grooming and pacing, which have evolved from stressful, confined environments. Experienced by the red panda, and other captivated species, humans have found themselves in the ultimate hotpot of unnatural environments. Puppeteered by our monotonous routines, society strays away from our natural needs and instead encapsulates common people into urban areas and stationary lives, contributing to ecological disconnection.
Were we meant to have unnecessary tendencies prescribed as necessities? To answer, no. Excessive sunscreen use, medical interventions, and most importantly, technological reliances aren’t features native to the past. Life before an excess of dependencies wasn’t in shambles. For hundreds of thousands of years, hominid species survived without the training wheels we have glued-on to almost every aspect of modern-day life. ‘Easy’ was in no way imaginable for ancient life. However, high mortality rates, short-life spans and arduous lifestyles might in fact represent the correct way of civilization.
From stone-tools to the phone in your pocket, technology has become ubiquitous and paramount in society. Think about your homoerectus-like ancestor. Sleeping in caves, a diet primarily of ferns and ibex, focused primarily on survival not social anxiety, free to exist without the crutches of modern-day civilization. Homosapiens experience the repetitive characteristics found in zoochosis just like other animal races. As opposed to the mindless pacing a mule may have behind bars, or the tendency to drown captors such as the behavior of the distressed Tilikum, the orca, humans experience zoochosis as well (just maybe not so deadly?). Although not typically behind a glass panel, we do undergo psychological distress such as constant scrolling, self-harming behaviors, chronic anxiety, burnouts, the list goes on. All the same, our patterns resemble those of the non-humans observed in conservation too similarly to not notice the resemblance in peculiar demeanors.
Our modern society, dull and lazy, simply acts as a glass barrier restricting us from existing in our primitive state. Livelihoods nourished in offices and apartments, built on high stress, feeding off abnormally developed mental health issues reflect our own environmental stress. Humans, not designed to rely on the help of hair ties, safety goggles, and leaf blowers. Simply put, we were meant to perish from malaria, fall slain to a saber-toothed tiger, and scrape our knees escaping from the tusks of a mammoth, only to develop sepsis arthritis. We were meant to crawl and climb, not be transported by luxury via car. Wisdom teeth, once essential for chewing, now do not serve a purpose in a world of soft-cooked foods and ortho advances. We have deviated from rudimentary methods and surrounded ourselves with unusual worries, such as SAT scores rather than a genuine fear of stepping into the wrong stone cavity and ending up face-to-face with a cave hyena. In conclusion, enculturated captivity has spiraled out of control. As captive animals, we are burdened by the cage enclosing us, and undoubtedly, humanity experiences a corporeal phenomenon: zoochosis.