Zoos, éducation et malentendus: Essai d'anthropologie des émotion du visiteur de zoo

In the current debate about the zoo's educational role it s usually assumed that the emotional aspect of the zoo experience impairs the scienfic knowledge that people can gain from their visit. First we briefly describe four human-animal interactionnal patterns that can be observed in a zoo, and we recognise that indeed, in that context, the emotion experienced by the public impairs its knowledge of the animals. then we persent the Hediger's distinctin between an object and a subject animal and we hypothesise that the visitor's emotions impari animal knowledge only when the exhibited animals are object-animals. Those are incomplete animals : they are not complete beings in relation to their evolutionary environment. It is our view that when the exhibited animals are more complete organisms, the emotions can be a tool for a better knowledge of the animals.