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Or should that be Zoolit, past tense?

The Boyfriend and I attended Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium‘s Zoolights on closing night for this season. Zoolights is an annual event beginning around the last week of November and ending around the first weekend in January.

As a longtime vegetarian/vegan for reasons related to animal welfare and rights, I have mixed feelings about zoos. On the one hand, I don’t like to see animals — especially those such as lions, tigers, and elephants that are large and/or like to roam — in such confined spaces. On the other hand, zoos (in America, at least, and Point Defiance in particular) have come a long way over the past 40 years. The animals are safe and well cared for, and allowing the public to see them may help promote conservation.

Years ago, I worked at a newspaper in a department that produced special advertising/editorial sections. One of my co-workers, C.R., was assigned to write a story about the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. A fellow vegetarian, she found the assignment distasteful — she did not want to visit or write about the zoo. In principal, she was opposed to zoos for the usual “animals in captivity and confinement” reasons.

I talked with C.R. after she had completed her visit and interview, and her opinion had completely changed. She came away with an understanding of and belief in the zoo’s commitment to education and conservation.

I’ve seen firsthand how much the Point Defiance Zoo has changed in recent decades. I remember visiting it as a kid in the 1970s, when a lot of the animals were in small, iron-barred cages. Now the animals are in larger areas that feel less confining (to me, at least; the animals may feel differently). And those old iron-barred cages are gone, replaced by fences, moats, and other means of keeping stupid humans away from wild, potentially dangerous animals.

Anyway, here are some photos from Zoolights 2010.