ANIMALS


Heart of Africa provides stunning vistas that place its resident animals in harmony with one another as they would be seen in the Savannah.


It’s called biophilia, this innate bond we feel with other living creatures. Our hearts melt at the sight of a young creature with a rounded face, soft features, and large eyes - whether it’s a toddler, a golden retriever pup, or a baby sea otter. And when they’re grown, animals continue to fascinate us.


We invite them into our families and observe them in their own, recognizing what we hold in common. After all, we share much of the same DNA, and our brains share many of the same neurochemicals.


“People everywhere have long believed that animals bear secrets,” writes Paul Shepard in Te Others: How Animals Made Us Human, “…and that they, being both familiar and extraordinary, are a means for charting our lives.” Spirit animals, a sudden meme on the Internet, are an ancient tradition: we con- nect ourselves to something in nature by claiming it as our own. Tribes choose totems, teams choose mascots, and Buddhist iconographers hide a little animal face in a person’s hair.


It’s easy to draw lessons from animals - and to read their simple, unambiguous reactions to us. Simpler than ours, their feelings become a vicari- ous outlet for our own more complicated emotions. We savor their uninhibited joy, their ease with their own bodies and needs. Unless they sense danger,


they are relaxed; they walk loosely, communicate freely, play and eat and sleep when they feel like it.


In a 2011 study at Caltech and UCLA, partici- pants only had to see a photograph of an animal, and neurons in the amygdale sparked to life. Te brain showed far more activity in response to ani- mal photos than to photos of buildings - or other people. And study after study has shown improve- ments in mood and decreases in blood pressure, heart rate, and stress hormones.


In the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s Heart of Af- rica, PGAV Vice President John Kemper and his team set out to create a savannah. Tey found trees as close to acacias as Ohio’s harsh climate would allow, and giant paddocks created wide open vistas with very few perceivable boundaries.


“Te effect of getting this close to wild animals,” Kemper says, “is caring about their situation in the wild. It makes me want to recycle and conserve water and compost and put solar panels on my house - anything to delay the destruction of their habitat.”


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