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    Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives
    Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives
    Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives
    Audiobook8 hours

    Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives

    Written by Thomas French

    Narrated by John Allen Nelson

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants, both animal and human. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco.

    Zoo Story crackles with issues of global urgency: the shadow of extinction, humanity's role in the destruction or survival of other species. More than anything else, though, it's a dramatic and moving true story of seduction and betrayal, exile and loss, and the limits of freedom on an overcrowded planet-all framed inside one zoo reinventing itself for the twenty-first century.

    Thomas French, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, chronicles the action with vivid power: Wild elephants soaring above the Atlantic on their way to captivity. Predators circling each other in a lethal mating dance. Primates plotting the overthrow of their king. The sweeping narrative takes the listener from the African savannah to the forests of Panama and deep into the inner workings of a place some describe as a sanctuary and others condemn as a prison. All of it comes to life in the book's four-legged characters.

    Zoo Story shows us how these remarkable individuals live, how some die, and what their experiences reveal about the human desire to both exalt and control nature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 3, 2010
    ISBN9781400188833
    Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives
    Author

    Thomas French

    Thomas French has been a journalist for three decades. For most of that time, he worked as a reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. He now teaches journalism at Indiana University.

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    Reviews for Zoo Story

    4/5

    92 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Thomas French starts his book with the rescue of elephants moving from Africa to the USA via a jet airplane. Some disembark at Tampa's Zoo, while others go on to San Diego. The book focuses on the Tampa Lowry Park Zoo and all that goes on there from spectacular successes to an equally spectacular crash. I listened to the audio book version of this story and found it a great book for a couple of drives. It's a fascinating peek into the "bowels" of a fairly large zoo. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      "All of it was on display in the garden of captives."I love that line!! I really enjoyed this book! It was beautifully written and Thomas French did an amazing job of bringing each and every animal he wrote about to life, leaping right off the pages. He made it so I cared about their stories and how they turned out. He also raises the tough question about whether zoos are really where those animals belong and gives a look at the inside working of Lowry Park Zoo. I like that you get to see the zookeepers view of their work, their love for the animals, and the criticism they face. I definitely recommend this book to animal lovers!
    • 4/5
      Fantastic writing that tells a heartwarming yet troubled story from the Lowry Zoo in Tampa. The Author can take facts and weave them into novel style writing. I was clearly impressed. Any animal lover (and even non) should read this.
    • 5/5
      An amazing read. I will never look at animals in the zoo in the same way again. The personalities of the animals, the behind the scenes look, it makes for an put downable read. Lowry Park Zoo was a small community zoo in Tampa. Run to seed and struggling. Then they imported four wild elephants, in order to save them from a culling. Thomas French, while following the story of the African elephants, was let behind the scenes of this zoo. From the chimp raised by humans (who is attracted to blondes) to the captive bred tiger who is wilder than many raised wild, it is an incredible story.
    • 5/5
      Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Thomas French reported exhaustively on the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Fla., for this fascinating and beautifully written book. Beginning with the transport of elephants imported from a game park in Swaziland, the book explores the delicate balance between conserving endangered animals and exploiting them for profit.

      I really appreciate the end notes that let readers know exactly where he got his information. The opening of the book reads as though French were on the plane with the elephants. Consulting the end notes, I saw that his description was based on interviews with those who were there. A lot of the time however, French's reporting is first-hand.

      One of the blurbs on the cover of my paperback called Zoo Story a "fun read." I recommend it highly, but I wouldn't call it "fun." The plight of many of these captive animals is devastating.
    • 4/5
      Herman and Bamboo the chimps, Enshalla the Sumatran tiger, Arnold the pig, and Ellie the African elephant, are just a few of the stars in the limelight at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Florida. These precious featured animals are sure to win your heart over as you read this amazing story of what it is to experience a day in the life of one of America's most coveted zoos. From Komodo dragons, to golden Tamarin monkeys, from poison-dart frogs, to rhinos, owls and pythons, Thomas French delivers a top-notch personal glimpse of one man's vision to bring the African Savannah experience to the Lowry Park Zoo in Florida. Starting with a hair raising tumultuous journey of 11 Swaziland elephants aboard a jet streaming toward America, and ending with the sad passing of an aged and wise old chimp who was Lowry's "King", what you find in between is a heart-warming and often hair-raising account of just what it takes to foster, feed, and care for all of God's creatures; big, small, sweet or scary, striped or spotted, feathered or scaled. All the animals residing at Lowry get the best of keepers to love and care for them, feed and heal them, raise them from birth, and bury them at death. Zoo Story is a marvelous missive on the circle of life within the animal kingdom.Thomas French's writing itself is impeccable. While realistic and informative, humorous, and heart-warming, he can make you smile and make you cry all in the blink of an eye, as that is the cycle that the daily rhythm in a zoo can evoke for both animals and humans alike. Emotions run high between caretakers and critters, one minute hugs, the next one tears. Bonding is inevitable, chaos is unavoidable, hijacks and hijinks abound. Yet through it all, zoo keeping is dirty, dangerous, and a thankless job that is definitely not a job for the weak of heart. It is a serious, scary, and sensitive world; one has to be a tough cookie to take it in stride while keeping alive and...sane. Crisis, calamity and chaos reign as the chimps screech and the elephants trumpet, all in a day's work shoveling lot of muck!As an animal lover, this true story totally won me over as I found myself unable to put the book down. I read many books on both elephants and primates, so for me I enjoyed those chapters the most. However, there is much more to this Noah's Ark story for all to enjoy. I say four and a half stars for this journalist's achievement. Why not five stars? No photos. This book could have been perfect with a center section photo collection of the many animals you are introduced to throughout the story that could have given readers a more personal image and visual experience to their personalities and characteristics. There were many species of animals I had never heard of when I was turning the pages. I often found myself googling their names to see what they looked like. Color photos either in a center section or dispersed throughout the book would have for me been a more enhancing experience of the zoo and it's inhabitants.
    • 3/5
      French's story of the Lowry Park Zoo was a quick, enjoyable read. I would have liked more about the animals and less about the people, but there were quite a few animal anecdotes. Too many of them ended with the death of said animal, however. A few cheerful anecdotes wouldn't have hurt.

      I think I expect every animal book to be Gerald Durrell, which isn't fair.
    • 4/5
      French has written a book that is on par just about anything written by Tracy Kidder ('House', 'Soul of the New Machine', amongst others). It is the classic journalistic treatment, bringing complex issues to a general audience - not by dumbing down the story but by taking the time to present it in context and unfolding it intelligently. The reader is given a wonderfully rich back story to the fundamental ethical and scientific debate about zoos - can the benefits that accrue from displaying animals in captivity justify the dislocation and distress that these animals must suffer in even the best run zoos. French presents all sides of the debate, and you get the sense that he may have struggled against some of his preconceptions about zoos in order to reach in the end a kind of ambivalence towards them. The power of French's writing is that he takes the reader along on the same journey without hectoring or lecturing, but by a series of portraits of animals and their keepers. A must read for anyone who ever considered a career in zoos, and a perfect companion to any of a range of excellent books detailing wildlife conservation in Africa. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      This book has it all: animal stewardship in zoos vs animal freedom, touching animal stories, labor relations issues, political machinations, power struggles, hubris. It is the story of the growth of Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, focusing on its elephants and Siberian Tigers with nods to other animals as well and also focusing on its director Lex Salisbury and how his overreaching brought him down. Highly recommended
    • 4/5
      Thomas French starts his book with the rescue of elephants moving from Africa to the USA via a jet airplane. Some disembark at Tampa's Zoo, while others go on to San Diego. The book focuses on the Tampa Lowry Park Zoo and all that goes on there from spectacular successes to an equally spectacular crash. I listened to the audio book version of this story and found it a great book for a couple of drives. It's a fascinating peek into the "bowels" of a fairly large zoo. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Chimps, Tigers, and Elephants, oh my. Described as a behind the scenes look at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, but actually much more then that. The book begins in Swaziland where elephants are being prepared for air transport to the U.S. The description of culls of herds of African elephants is unpleasant, but the actions are necessary. Who would have thought there are too many elephants in Africa? Lowry Park goes from one of the worst zoos in the country to one of the best, but have they expanded too fast? Are zoos inhumane prisons for animals or important institutions that protect the future of endangered species. French does a good job of giving both sides of the argument, an argument that many zoo employees have with themselves.
    • 2/5
      Somewhat interesting story about a zoo in Tampa Florida (Lowry Park), its animals, and its keepers. I would not recommend the book unless you are facinated by or highly interested in how zoos work.
    • 4/5
      I’ve always felt conflicted about zoos. On the one hand, I enjoy seeing the animals up close and personal. On the other hand, I always feel guilty. No matter how big or “friendly” their habitat, I still feel a bit melancholy when I see magnificent wild animals living their lives in such an unnatural way. Then I try to make myself feel better by telling myself that they might be better off in a zoo—safe from poachers and other dangers found in the wild. In short, like many others, I have a love/hate relationship with zoos. So when I saw journalist Thomas French’s book, Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives, that purported to give an inside look at Tampas’ Lowry Park Zoo, I snapped it up immediately.In addition to my curiosity about the inner workings of a zoo, I was also drawn to this book because we visited Lowry Park Zoo several times, and I always enjoy reading about places I’ve been to in real life. I was able to picture many of the places he described—and remember watching the baby elephant whose conception and birth is described in the book.This book tells many stories—including the rise and fall of the zoo’s controversial CEO Lex Salisbury to the reign and tragic ends of the zoo’s “king” and “queen” (Herman the Orangutan and Enshalla the Tiger). The book opens with the transport of a group of elephants from Swaziland, Africa to Florida. Using the acquisition and journey of the elephants to highlight some of the issues and controversies surrounding zoos, French highlights the reasons why so many of us are conflicted about zoos. He tells how the elephants are losing their native habitat through their own voracious appetites and why this perilous journey might be their best hope of survival, yet he contrasts this with the way the zoo markets the elephants and may not really have their best interests at heart. In addition, French’s account of the death of a young Lowry Park zookeeper at the hands of a captive elephant gives the reader pause about whether keeping wild animals in a zoo is really the best decision for all involved.The story that French is trying to tell is complex, and I think that both helps and hurts the book. On one hand, the reader gets to view the zoo from many different perspectives. We meet various keepers, the animals, and the zoo’s management. We get a glimpse of how a modern zoo must balance financial health, conservation efforts, and the well-being of the animals. In the case of Lowry Park Zoo, we also get an insider’s look at the controversy surrounding Lex Salisbury, who was both loved and reviled within the zoo. On the other hand, juggling so many different stories means that none of them get enough attention. I often found myself getting caught up in a particular story line and then being disappointed when I didn’t get more depth or follow-up. French has a wealth of material, and I wished he had written a longer book. Too often, I felt like the individual stories were given short shrift.Despite that, I found the book to be interesting and eye-opening. Although it did little to help me settle my own misgivings about zoos in general, the book provided me with lots of food for thought. If you’re interested in learning more about zoos, I think this book does a good job highlighting their pros and cons. (And it would be a great Z book if you are doing the A to Z Title Challenge.) A word of caution though: If you are reading this book mostly because you are interested in animals, you might be disappointed. Although French takes the time to discuss various animals, he spends considerably more time on the various political machinations that affected the zoo during Salisbury’s stewardship.
    • 4/5
      fascinating
    • 3/5
      The book had some very compelling anecdotes about animals being torn from their habitats and the subsequent life in the zoo. but I was left wondering about his point of view..If the habitats are no longer safe, where else should these beautiful creatures go?