Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.
Words matter, especially words defining complicated political arrangements, because they shape perceptions of the events of the past, attitudes toward policies being carried out in the present, and expectations about desirable directions for the future.
In all honesty, at that time, I never saw myself as an author... I was just a Mom in a state of panic, trying to enter a short story contest to win the prize money in order to keep the lights on in my home.