Bunker was a young monkey who lived with his tribe. He always heard them talk about a ‘catcher’ and a ‘zoo’ and wondered what these things meant. He asked his mother and she just shivered and rolled her eyes.
One day, the monkeys had a group meeting.
“We should tell them about the dangers they face,” said their chief.
All the monkeys gave different opinions, but finally the monkey chief held that the young ones would be able to save themselves from danger if they knew about the danger.
So, an outing was planned. It was decided that the whole tribe would go to the zoo. They all set off early one morning, leaping from tree to tree and avoiding the traffic. They reached the zoo and went in before the visitors were to arrive.
The ticket counter was not open. The keepers were up and the animals and the birds were being fed. The zoo had a lot of open spaces in which landscapes had been made. At the back of each open space, which was called an enclosure, was a cage in which the animals were fed and where they slept at night.
The monkeys began to go around looking at each of the animals. There was a canal with fish that ran into an artificial lake with hundreds of birds.
They saw lions, tigers and bears in large open spaces with moats around them. High walls separated the moats from the people who came to watch. The deer were in a park and the elephants in a bamboo park. The snakes in glass cages frightened the monkeys.
There, they could hear a lot of cheering and clapping and followed the sound. The monkey cages were surrounded by excited children shouting and clapping and teasing the monkeys. Some children threw peanuts at the monkeys and some threw bananas.
The monkey tribe watched in horror. While they watched, a man came with a container on a bicycle. It had a monkey in it that looked frightened and miserable. They saw him put the monkey into a cage, using a long stick to push him in.
“That’s a catcher,” explained the monkey chief, “and this place is a zoo!”
“Why are the animals in cages?” asked Bunker.
“For people to see them and enjoy it!” said the chief, “It has its uses sometimes, when some of the animals have partners and more are born.”
“But we are prisoners!” said Bunker.
“Yes, now you just watch out for catchers and the zoo,” said the chief.
