Contents page 1 — “Some will die” side 2 — “At the end of the man’s grip but in front of” On a page
read pass THE TIME: Mr Rübel, you for 28 years, the Zoo of Zurich. Could it be that you are in all of the years of delusion?
Alex Rübel: Hmmm. We try to keep the Faith out there. Our Zoo is scientifically guided.
TIME: but they believe that a Zooaufenthalt people to nature and animal conservationists.
Rübel: That is so! Claude Martin, former WWF boss, says that he has discovered in a Zurich Zoo conservation. The world famous animal conservationist Gerald Durrell is said that he was able to say as a child, First of all, the word “Zoo”. Also interesting is a study of Andrew Moss, Eric Jensen, and Markus Gusset. The three have interviewed people before and after the zoo, and come to the conclusion that a stay in a Zoo in the long term have a positive impact, for example, the Knowledge on biological diversity.
TIME: Richard David Precht writes in the book of animals think, that, remains, statistically, less than a Minute in front of an enclosure.
Rübel: it depends on The enclosure. This is also our own observations show. My employees follow sometimes, visitors, …
TIME: … and the knowledge of it?
Rübel: (laughs) … of course! Follow them discretely and make a note of who goes which way and where.
TIME: And?
Rübel: In Exortarium, where we have a lot of fish, but also crocodiles and king penguins, there are on both sides of the road enclosure. Most look at only half of the animals, because they are facing one side. Some linger in fact, just a Minute. Others will be fascinated.
TIME: Why can’t be a Zoo, what is he? A place of consumption, where you do not look at strange animals found in the forest.
Rübel: of Course you can come to us to have a rest simply. But still more pleased, if someone has an experience that touched him to change. Because he realizes: Oh, these animals are part of our world.
TIME: Are in the Zoo, real encounters possible?
Rübel: Why you say “real” encounter?
TIME: Because a pane of glass between the animal and the human, you can’t touch each other is not exposed.
Rübel: If I’m the bears, I astonish how the children’s soft, three, four steps back, when the animals come in their direction. Although a trench between them.
TIME: and Then it plays no role whether I am watching in the forest a deer feeding or in the Zoo the penguins?
Rübel: It is not the same, but from the feeling equivalent.
TIME: In Basel, and debate about a new Ozeanium, which is to build the zoo for 100 million Swiss francs. 19. May will be a vote on it. The Greens, Greenpeace and animal welfare organisations to tackle the project. How do you see that?
This article dates back to the TIME no 19/2019. Here you can read the entire issue.
Rübel: The worst thing that can happen is that you banished the animals from our world. That is exactly what the radical animal rights activists want. But this would have the opposite effect of what you are and also important to me. Because we would decouple from the nature. That would be a huge loss. The urban and digitized, the more important places where one can experience a certain degree of authenticity in nature.
TIME: The opponents of the Basel Ozeaniums say, most of the fish that would be shown there, no one could breed. You’d have to capture in the endangered coral reefs.
Rübel: That is so. The you get from the sea. About as many as in the city of Basel at a lunch on the plates of the people to land.
TIME: How do you hunt?
Rübel: In the good Zoos of the world you want to be able today to trace the path of each animal from the Wilderness. There are good and less good providers.
TIME: How big is the risk that a fish will not survive the long Transport?
Rübel: Some will die, unfortunately that is so. But not 80 percent, as the opponents claim. In contrast, if only one percent of the 700,000 visitors expected will be sensitized for the protection of animals, then it was worth it.
A life in the Zoo came to life at the Zoo
Alex Rübel (64) in 1981 as a veterinarian in the Zoo of Zurich, in 1991, he became Director. Since then, the area of the animal Park has been doubled. Under Rübel, among other things, a South American mountain mist forest for eyeglasses and nose of a bear was built, the Himalayan system for snow leopards, the Masoala rain forest and the Kaeng Krachan elephant Park. At Easter 2024, the largest facility, the Lewa is opened in Savannah, an enclosure for giraffes, white rhinos and grevy’s zebras.
Rübels line is increased, the number of employees from 82 to 320. In the Ranking of the best Zoos in Europe, Zurich is located in Vienna and Leipzig in the third place.
Alex Rübel father of three adult children and lives in Zurich. In a year he goes in Pension. jas
