The Ark and Beyond

Scores of wild species and ecosystems around the world face a variety of human-caused threats, from habitat destruction and fragmentation to rapid climate change. But there is hope, and it, too, comes in a most human form: zoos and aquariums. Gathering a diverse, multi-institutional collection of leading zoo and aquarium scientists as well as historians, philosophers, biologists, and social scientists, The Ark and Beyond traces the history and underscores the present role of these organizations as essential conservation actors. It also offers a framework for their future course, reaffirming that if zoos and aquariums make biodiversity conservation a top priority, these institutions can play a vital role in tackling conservation challenges of global magnitude.

While early menageries were anything but the centers of conservation that many zoos are today, a concern with wildlife preservation has been an integral component of the modern, professionally run zoo since the nineteenth century. From captive breeding initiatives to rewilding programs, zoos and aquariums have long been at the cutting edge of research and conservation science, sites of impressive new genetic and reproductive techniques. Today, their efforts reach even further beyond recreation, with educational programs, community-based conservation initiatives, and international, collaborative programs designed to combat species extinction and protect habitats at a range of scales. Addressing related topics as diverse as zoo animal welfare, species reintroductions, amphibian extinctions, and whether zoos can truly be “wild,” this book explores the whole range of research and conservation practices that spring from zoos and aquariums while emphasizing the historical, scientific, and ethical traditions that shape these efforts. Also featuring an inspiring foreword by the late George Rabb, president emeritus of the Chicago Zoological Society / Brookfield Zoo, The Ark and Beyond illuminates these institutions’ growing significance to the preservation of global biodiversity in this century.

Ben A. Minteer holds the Arizona Zoological Society Endowed Chair in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He is coeditor most recently of After Preservation: Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Jane Maienschein is university professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University and fellow and director of the History and Philosophy of Science Project at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She is coeditor most recently of Visions of Cell Biology: Reflections Inspired by Cowdry’s “General Cytology,” also in the Convening Science series and published by the University of Chicago Press. Maienschein is the 2024 recipient of the Sarton Medal, the most prestigious award of the History of Science Society, presented annually to an outstanding historian of science to honor a lifetime of scholarly achievement. James P. Collins is the Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He is coauthor of Extinction in Our Times: Global Amphibian Decline.

— Jenny Gray, CEO of Zoos Victoria, Australia, and president of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums

— Curt Meine, Aldo Leopold Foundation & Center for Humans and Nature

— Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History"

— Tiergarten

— Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune

— Andrew Flack, University of Bristol, Environmental History

— Miles A. Powell, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Journal of the History of Biology

— Biodiversity and Conservation