Zoo Mothers

I had recently read in the UK newspaper The Guardian, about a polar bear mother named Vera in the Nuernberg, Germany zoo. Apparently there are a few schools of thought floating around out there about polar bear mothers in zoos. One of them says, let the mother have time with her babies so she can bond with them and raise them. The other says, polar bear mothers in zoos tend to, more often than not, kill and eat their babies, so take the babies away ASAP and rear them by hand--that is, bottle feed them. Apparently there is a polar bear cub named Knut who lives in the Berlin zoo who was taken away from his mother and hand reared, and so survived, and he became quite the little star of the zoo and attracted all kinds of attention (that is, money) and visitors to the zoo. Certain animal rights activists, however, weren't happy about little Knut being taken from his mother and hand reared, saying it was perhaps unfair to the new mother and also unnatural. To my mind, is it zoos themselves that are unnatural here. Anyway---

---the Nuernberg zoo had decided to let Vera have time to bond with her cubs. She had twins, and unfortunately, during her allowed bonding time she killed and ate one of them. She had begun to batter and abuse the surviving cub prior to killing and eating him too, and so they took him away. The other point raised by the article was whether Vera, this mother bear, was showing good maternal instincts.

What do you think? Because you know sure as the sun does shine that I am now going to tell you what I think!

I think she was showing completely sound maternal instincts, or as sound as she can living in captivity. Captivity itself may have unhinged her slightly. It would me! Because it is the fact of the captivity that is the focal point of this. Of course these zoo animals know they are in captivity! Could the zoo environment of central Germany--unless it were in an arid desert region-- be any father from the vast white icy openness of the Arctic? Not to mention the smallness of their 'pens'--no matter how big any zoo enclosure is, it ain't the vast Arctic plain. The bears know this, and I am guessing that knowing just might stress them out a bit. And that stress tells them they are not in a fit environment to rear their young. Can they dive into the water and hunt seals? Can they curl up in a furry ball on the ice on a sub zero night and listen to the aurora whispering above them? Can they come and go as they please? Are they allowed their natural bear solitude? These animals aren't stupid and no zoo is ever gonna fool them into thinking they are at home. And God forbid we ever give up our what appears to be natural human GREED and actually do something to protect their habitat.

The other issue here is the one that says a mother has a right, has the wit, has the brain to decide whether she is able to rear her child. I came of age in the 70's, the early days after the dawn of feminism, equal rights, and the right to choose whether or not a pregnancy would be carried to term--abortion rights. Only a mother knows whether she has the resources and support to raise her children adequately. That said, she should then be able to make the informed decision of whether she will have those children, or not. I myself will come clean here and say I have had 2 abortions over the course of my adult life. The first pregnancy happened when I was in my early 20s and was using alcohol and marijuana quite heavily. I was living in a very unstable lifestyle, and was an emotional and mental wreck. I knew there was no way I could raise a baby. Besides that, I had my doubts whether that fetus was a healthy one, considering how I was abusing my body.

The second abortion came when I was married to the X (sex happens even in bad relationships, but as we are all adults here, we all already probably know that). Pretty soon after he found out I was pregnant, he became more abusive than ever, physically abusive, and pushed and shoved me to the ground several times. That was when I decided to avail myself of the services the local domestic violence office offered. I talked with a counselor there, and she advised me to decide, first thing, about the pregnancy and what I was going to do about that. I was almost 39 and the pregnancy, coupled with the constant stress of living with him, was making me feel even more exhausted and sick. I felt isolated, overwhelmed and panicked. There was no one I wanted to tell about the pregnancy because I felt so stupid and ashamed for even letting myself get into that situation (conveniently forgetting the fact it takes 2 to make a baby--but how easy, when living with someone who makes you feel like shit on a daily basis, how easy to do just the very same thing to yourself). I decided to have another abortion.

That abortion was a disaster. I had it in a clinic while hearing right-to-life protesters chant outside. Thankfully, I had had very supportive dreams that very morning. I dreamt of a buffalo mother coming to me, I heard her sound and heavy footsteps on the earth, and she communicated to me from the powers of that earth that everything was alright, that what I was doing was not wrong. I also dreamt of a young man, dark like me, who stood behind me braiding my hair as I explained to him why I did not have the energy to rear him. I apologized to him. He looked at me with dark loving eyes and communicated forgiveness. Had I not had those dreams, a very hard day might have been that much harder. I might have been sunk. Because, for me, it is a different thing entirely to have an abortion after having already had a child. I knew things only a woman who has given birth can know.

I had complications after the procedure and bled and bled for over a week and finally had to undergo the procedure a second time to fix what went wrong the first time. The experience was a deeper hardship piled upon a mountain of hardship. But it also galvanized me inside and created in me the determination to get out of that marriage. It provided my turning point. From that time on, I worked on getting my daughter and myself out. It took me 2 years. I saved up hidden cash in a box in my underwear drawer. The box contained a pewter Virgin Mary given to me as a Christmas gift by a friend's mother. Besides cash, I was building up courage inside myself. I knew things had gotten as bad as I could stand and that knowing gave me the impetus and momentum I needed to go. I had made a hard, but right, choice, for me and for my children, in my life--my life that was my own captive situation, my own zoo existence.

Vera the polar bear, in her wild wisdom, was also fulfilling that kind of choice. It is a behavior choice that repeats among animals all over the world-- among domesticated animals as well as among animals in their natural habitats, and not only by the mothers. Father lions, as an example, often kill and eat the male cubs, because the lion society of prides cannot support too many males. We humans easily forget that we too are animals-- we are quite clever animals in forgetting that--and we also quite often forget there are many, many kinds of wisdom making up the patchwork of this planet. Not all of this wisdom concerns the civilized life. Some of it is quite wild, in fact, and does not concern humans at all. Dare I say that all these wisdoms be honored equally?

Yes, I do dare say that.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

(Photo of Vera and one of her cubs from: AP Photo/Hans-Martin Issler)