Captive Beauty

"Frank Noelker's work makes a powerful statement. It is both beautiful and profoundly disturbing. He has captured, in this series of portraits, the very essence of the problem of zoos... This book is not intended as an indictment against all zoos, but rather as a plea for greater understanding of the animal beings within them." -- Jane Goodall, from the Foreword "I wonder what the animals behind the bars saw when they watched Frank and his camera? Did they know he was unusual for his species? A rarity, almost extinct amongst humans. Not a white tiger, or the last carrier pigeon, but a human being who still had empathy, and believed that we humans have choices, even at five minutes to midnight... The animals must have perceived from their isolated cells, death row for most of them, that this was a man who was free, but chained to their fate in some way." -- Sue Coe, artist, activist, and author of Dead Meat and Pit's Letter