If you've seen the summer box office hit, “Jurassic World,’’ you know that it is a sensitive portrayal of the essence of zookeeping thinly veiled as a blockbuster action film set in a theme park of genetically engineered dinosaurs.
Or maybe you don’t. But there is little doubt that the movie has struck a chord with members of the zookeeping tribe, who have flooded the Internet with photographs of themselves reenacting a scene involving the lead actor, Chris Pratt, and the three velociraptors with whom his character shares an uneasy bond.
The character, Owen Grady, is an animal expert who has – sort of – trained the vicious dinosaurs by interacting with them. Yet as he says to one of the many humans who don't seem to really get his raptors, “It's not about control. It's a relationship based on respect."
In one memorable scene, Mr. Pratt stretches out his arms, lion-tamer-like, managing to keep them at bay so that a newbie feeder who had fallen into their cage could escape unharmed.
The homages circulating under the #JurassicZoo and #JurassicZookeeper hashtags are on one level tongue-in-cheek nods to the relative risk of handling dinosaurs famous for mauling human prey and, say, otters.
“Thanks @prattprattpratt for teaching us how to wrangle our ferocious red pandas,’’ read the caption on a picture tweeted by the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown, Pa., depicting a keeper striking the same pose as three reddish cuddleballs eye him quizzically.
But zookeeper enthusiasm for the meme, which blossomed first on a Facebook group for keepers, appears to be rooted in the genuine delight of seeing the under-appreciated challenge of caring for zoo animals reflected in Mr. Pratt’s balancing act.
“It’s such an iconic moment for zookeepers, when you see that character establish a connection with those animals – that’s a big part of our life,’’ said Rick Schwartz, a zookeeper at the San Diego Zoo. “You can’t just go in there and boss things around, animals don’t work that way.’’
He said he hopes that the public’s embrace of #JurassicZoo will help correct a common misconception of zookeeping as a kind of 1930s circus act, complete with whips. Or at least show people that they have a sense of humor.
For a movie that blissfully ignores the scientific consensus that dinosaurs were feathered, it may come as no surprise that the authenticity of its animal-trainer ethos ends when Mr. Pratt agrees to round up his raptors to hunt down the blood-thirsty Indominus Rex marauding through the park. “We wouldn’t go running after another animal with our animals,’’ noted Mr. Schwartz. “After that, everything is very Hollywood.’’
—AMY HARMON
Cette photo, prise le 6 juillet par le '''', peut paraitre bien ordinaire au premier coup d'œil. Il s'agit de la Terre, notre planète. Et pourtant, cette photo est extraordinaire dans la mesure où il s'agit de la première photographie représentant la Terre illuminée dans son intégralité depuis la ''Bille bleue'', prise en 1972 par Apollo 17.



Ces deux clichés, pris à 43 ans d'intervalle, sont exceptionnels : pour montrer toute la surface visible de la Terre illuminée, l'appareil photo doit être situé entre la Terre et le Soleil et suffisamment loin pour pouvoir capturer entièrement la planète.

La photographie a été réalisée le 6 juillet dernier alors que le satellite (abrégé DSCOVR) se trouvait à 1,6 million de kilomètres de la Terre. La photo est une combinaison de 10 clichés réalisés dans différentes longueurs d'ondes par le télescope ''Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera'' (EPIC).

D'ici quelques mois, de tels clichés seront régulièrement réalisés par EPIC, permettant ainsi aux scientifiques d'étudier l'impact des aérosols présents dans l’atmosphère terrestre.