Excerpted from Andrew Vachss' Terminal, p92-93 (Pantheon, 2007)

I hate zoos. Lovingly supported by "nature-lovers," they're a crime against nature.

What's the point of saving a species from extinction if the only way they can live is behind bars? And if kids "need" the opportunity to see a rhino or a panda or whatever, why can't they just watch television?

Hell, why not have virtual zoos? Take the million miles of footage already stored, edit it down, and make zoos long, dim corridors lined with giant, hyper-definition screens. Label each one, put a drop-down menu along the side, and let the kids get a better look at the animals doing what they really do than they could ever get in some zoo?

What's better, watching a polar bear cross a glacier, or pace around in circles? What's more educational, a close-up of a tiger so tight you could count his whiskers, or smelling the foul rankness of his captivity?

Why pay extortion money to China to rent their goddamned pandas? Why pay big money for baby lions … especially when you know what had to have "happened" to their mothers for the "bring 'em back alive" heroes to harvest their crop? How do you put a Great White shark in an aquarium and call it a "lesson" for children?

How many kids have the patience to watch a butterfly leave its cocoon? On tape, they can watch it whenever they want, just by pushing a button.

How the fuck do you call the "creation science" loons ignorant when you keep your own ancestors behind bars?

A hundred years ago, The New York Zoological Society—yeah, that's right, they own the Bronx Zoo, now—actually kept an African pygmy in a cage, right next to the orangutans and chimps. Sure, slavery was outlawed by then, but that only applied to humans. An "explorer" had captured the pygmy in the Congo, and turned him into an exhibit at the St. Louis World Fair. When that show was over, the owner sold his property. It's the American way.

Excerpted from Andrew Vachss' Terminal, p92-93 (Pantheon, 2007)