CBS Dr. Minteer hosts MBL Seminar: History of Zoo and Aquarium Conservation

Throughout the week, seminar leaders and participants wrestled with a series of complex questions surrounding the history, philosophy, and practice of zoo and aquarium conservation, emphasizing the influence of earlier scientific and institutional models and concepts on the development of the modern zoological park.  Discussions centered on the challenge of understanding in a more analytical and multi-disciplinary way the roots and evolution of the conservation idea and the development of a wildlife protection agenda in today’s zoos and aquaria.  

In particular, the group considered the contradictions and challenges of presenting zoos and aquaria as agents of conservation given their strong historical commitment to the display of exotic animal attractions for public entertainment.  Seminar participants, in fact, engaged in an extended reflection on the interplay of science, values, and culture in the history of zoo and aquarium conservation, focusing on both the continuities and disjunctions between the modern zoo and earlier animal menageries and collections.  The week’s discussions concluded by asking a series of questions about how the narratives that zoos tell about their work conserving, preserving, and restoring wildlife relate to a more nuanced and complicated story about the shifting cultural and philosophical meanings of nativity, wildness, and domesticity in zoological parks over time.

This year’s History of Biology Seminar was also the launch of a larger, multi-year program focused on the evolution of zoo and aquarium conservation.  Ben Minteer, Jane Maienschein, and Jim Collins, all of Arizona State University, will lead this NSF-funded project, which will result in a series of scholarly and public events over the next several years.  The project will carry forward the historical and philosophical work of the History of Biology Seminar, using it as a foundation to engage additional issues and challenges within zoo and aquarium conservation science and ethics.  The University of Chicago Press will publish the final synthesis volume produced by the project as part of their newly launched MBL-University of Chicago book series.

The Marine Biological Laboratory first offered a History of Biology Course in 1987, as part of its Centennial celebration. Supported by the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology for many years, the seminar is now funded by ASU's Center for Biology and Society. Past seminar topics can be viewed here.