Conclusion: From Jumbo to Knut

Abstract

Concluding remarks reintroduce animal modernity as demonstrated by Jumbo’s journey from captive wild animal, to celebrity and marketing icon, to early death, raw material and toy. Jumbo’s case is compared to Berlin Zoo polar bear, Knut, who recently underwent a similar process from circus to zoo and toy icon. Like Jumbo, zoo management had Knut’s carcass stuffed, to much public disgust. Similarities between Jumbo and Knut indicate that we are still living in the periodization the book has defined as animal modernity, wherein citizens still primarily employ the consumer paradigm in determining the value and uses of animals in order to ignore how human activity is destroying autonomous animal populations. The conclusion thereafter calls for future research examining what “animal post-modernity” might mean by referring to the current majority-captivity status of tigers.