‘Escape from Extinction’ film, Disney Plus ‘Meet the Chimps’ series showcase Brookfield and Lincoln Park Zoo conservation efforts
“Escape from Extinction” aims to shift the contemporary film narrative about zoos and aquariums.
Instead of an expose of alleged mistreatment of, say, a killer whale, this new documentary film — which features personnel and programs from Brookfield Zoo — makes the case that zoos and aquariums are doing vital work to preserve wild animals.
It’s a side of the story that animal-care professionals will tell you is overlooked or not understood by the folks who, for instance, protest for animal rights outside of “Sea World,” riled up by the likes of the 2013 film “Blackfish.”
Showcasing Brookfield’s work to help bring Mexican gray wolves back from the brink of extinction, as well as the wisdom of a couple of its key personnel, “Escape from Extinction” makes a vivid, beautifully filmed case for the dedication of workers at high-end zoos and for the necessity of the institutions' roles in managing our diminishing numbers of species and animals.
It dovetails nicely with another video project that debuts Friday, one that tacitly features conservation work done by the other big Chicago zoo, Lincoln Park Zoo.
Where “Escape” is a work of activism, however, the series “Meet the Chimps” on Disney Plus aims to be more of an entertainment. Narrated by Jane Lynch, it follows the group dynamics among chimpanzees at the large Louisiana facility Chimp Haven, a rescue center for chimps formerly used for research, show business or as pets.
It’s engaging as animal drama — Will the toddler learn to protect her food from older pack mates? Will newcomer Midge be accepted into the group? — and behind the scenes, Chimp Haven has strong ties to Lincoln Park.
The zoo is a partner of Chimp Haven’s, and the chairman of the not-for-profit’s board is Steve Ross, whose day job is director of Lincoln Park Zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes. Additionally, Chicago philanthropists Mark and Kimbra Walter gave the facility its largest-ever gift, $10 million in 2018, as part of an expansion project for the chimpanzee retirement home.
The conservation message in “Meet the Chimps” is more between the lines: This facility is dedicated to taking care of the primates who were mistreated by being forced into human service, but now that they’re in the Louisiana forest, chimps will be chimps.
“Escape from Extinction,” on the other hand, wears its messaging on its sleeve. “Support certified zoos and aquariums” is literally the film’s takeaway message, the last words on screen before the credits roll.
Getting a theatrical release starting Friday — thanks to the pandemic limiting the other available opinions for movie theaters — the film is the first from American Humane, the not-for-profit best known for certifying treatment of animals in film and television production.
“There’s been terrible misinformation about what zoos and aquariums are doing,” said Robin Ganzert, the organization’s president and CEO, in an interview. “The narrative was taken over by animal extremists who don’t really have a plan of action or, really, anything rooted in science.”
Her view echoes the one you will hear from zoo and aquarium professionals: “The modern zoo today is a modern animal embassy,” Ganzert said.
Certainly, the film strives to make that case, while highlighting the sometimes dark, sometimes uplifting recent history of animals humans have driven to extinction and, in some cases, brought back from the brink.
The film is narrated by Helen Mirren. “I’m not a big zoo person,” Mirren said via phone from near Lake Tahoe. “It was an education for me to to understand the evolution of zoos and actually how important the good zoos are, the accredited zoos.”
With Brookfield, the big zoo in Chicago’s near-western suburbs, the film tells of its Mexican gray wolf program, which breeds the endangered species on zoo grounds and “cross-fosters” with packs in the wild, placing puppies born in Brookfield into a wild pack in the southwest and vice versa to help increase genetic diversity.
Through this federal wildlife program that Brookfield partners in, the population of the Mexican wolves has risen from 7 to nearly 400.
Bill Zeigler, the zoo’s senior vice president of animal programs, appears briefly in a section on the perils of the wild animal trade. Referring to the scales on pangolins, popular in some countries' folk medicine and driven to near-extinction by this false belief, he says, “It’s fingernail stuff, not a cure.”
More prominent in the movie is Bob Lacy, conservation scientist emeritus with Brookfield’s parent organization the Chicago Zoological Society. In decades of working at Brookfield Lacy was more of a behind-the-scenes guy, one of the lead developers of software that has helped zoos and aquariums, nations and NGOs manage wildlife population. The Tribune profiled him early last year, following his retirement.
But here he doesn’t talk coding at all, serving instead as one of the movie’s guides to what it is that modern zoos try to achieve, a process that has seen some refer to them as “arks" or “lifeboats.” Lacy points out, for instance, how the focus of zoos changed from places of presentation to ones that aim to "make sure the populations will persist into the future.”
And addressing some activists' arguments that zoos should release animals back into the wild and let nature take its course, Lacy says that fails to comprehend what’s been going on. “It’s not nature taking its course. It’s: We killed them," he says, and we humans should do what we can to reverse that.
“Escape” is better for its wildlife photography than the subtlety of its storytelling. Yes, you will see big-screen imagery of a panda chilling up in a tree and of a wolf pack on the move in Yellowstone National Park.
But it is effective as a work of advocacy. Its compelling argument is that when animals are saved — from extinction, from oil spills or fishing nets, from youngsters being stranded away from their parents — it is very often because zoos and aquariums have made this work central to their mission.
And their continuing popularity with the public — despite the recent PR challenges — helps maintain human-animal connections that are themselves endangered. It also enables these institutions to be able to pay people like Steve Ross and Bob Lacy, people who want to make animal care their life’s work.
sajohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @StevenKJohnson
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