ZOOS OF THE WORLD

Beginning with an interest-catching illustrated history of zoos, once the exotic plaything of kings, Halmi then turns to public zoos which began, as an institution, when the French Revolution liberated wild animals kept by the nobility and housed them at the Jardin des Plantes. Over the years, urban zoos have become squeezed by growing human populations, and today crowded, abusive ""bad"" zoos abound (among the worst offenders, though belatedly coming around, is New York's Central Park zoo). Halmi surveys the animals' problems in adapting to captivity, new feeding habits, the boredom of zoo life (often relieved by learning ""tricks"" from trainers) and the personalities of their handlers in entertaining detail, and he ends with a tour of exemplary and innovative zoos where the animals' natural biosphere is reproduced as closely as possible and where attempts are made to perpetuate endangered species. Sound and readable.