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In a cruel trick of evolution, humans can stand just three feet from a ferocious animal and still be perfectly safe. This hour, Radiolab goes to the zoo.
Duration
1h 1m
Broadcast on
04 Jun 2007
Audio Format
other

In a cruel trick of evolution, humans can stand just three feet from a ferocious animal and still be perfectly safe. This hour, Radiolab goes to the zoo.


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The crew attached his hand on the wall. Today on Radio Lab, we wonder, how do we get here? I mean, throughout history, even before Rome, our relationship to animals was pretty simple. We brutalized them. That's how it worked. Then in the 19th century, someone created the zoological garden, which wasn't much better. Now we've got the zoo, and we still lord over the animals, but now we want to be their friends. We want to help them. How did that happen? And how exactly do you help an animal? This is an honest question. When it has to spend its entire life in a cage. Today on Radio Lab, zoos are our topic. I'm Jada Boomerad. Well, you know, I think I can take you to the very moment in modern zoo history when the balance kind of shifted. And who are you? Oh, I'm Robert Krollwitz, and I love the zoo. What about you? I don't know about the zoo.

Transcription truncated.

In a cruel trick of evolution, humans can stand just three feet from a ferocious animal and still be perfectly safe. This hour, Radiolab goes to the zoo.