Zoo, Circus, Menagerie, Prison: Multispecies Captivity and Human-Animal Relations at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo
What separates a zoo from other sites of captivity? Combining archival analysis with ethnographic field methods, this research seeks to understand how the Woodland Park Zoo has transformed since its inception as the private menagerie of capitalist Guy Carleton Phinney (1852-1893) and how the zoo seeks to differentiate itself from other sites of captivity through discourses of conservation and ecological education. At its core, this project is an invitation to community members to think and reflect on their own relationship to the zoo and the animals who live there.