Zoos aren’t for animals. They’re for us. | Zoos say they’re leaders in protecting wildlife. But is it true?
Zoos aren’t for animals. They’re for us. | Zoos say they’re leaders in protecting wildlife. But is it true?
Zoos say they’re leaders in protecting wildlife. But is it true?
Okay, so I'm not far from the Fresno Zoo. Fresno Chaffee Zoo participates in wildlife re-introduction programs in order to bring species back from the brink (or from extinction in the wild, even). That's important work.
Does the threat of extinction justify subjugation? Well, I guess that's down to your personal moral outlook, I suppose. Personally, I think that it's better to preserve life than not, and given what poor stewards of the planet we're being, I'd suggest we have a duty to keep these populations going until we can get our shit together. But, again, it's a question of personal convictions.
People don't read the plaques at the zoo? So what. Imo, you can't judge educational efficacy on that metric alone. I think that seeing these animals helps make them real to people, instead of just some thing you saw on TV once. Besides that, this doesn't account for a number of things, like:
-How often did the polled attendees visit the zoo in the last year? If they visit frequently, reading the plaques probably is kind of a moot point
-How familiar are attendees with zoos in the first place? If an attendee is familiar with a zoo, it's not really that much of a shock to say that they didn't have their world view changed by the visit. It's possible their world view has already been affected by previous zoo visits.
I'll concede that the system can use some work, but I see that as cause for reform, not cause for burning the whole thing down.
I appreciate where the author of this article is coming from, but I think they're being a bit too one-sided.
For example, they make the point that zoos don't contribute enough to conservation, donating only around 5% of their spending, as if the millions of dollars given doesn't justify their existence. But if zoos didn't exist, that's a big chunk of money that wouldn't be going towards conservation at all.
They also talk about the education aspect, that visitors don't necessarily read the information about the animals and instead go for the spectacle. But a child isn't going to read those plaques regardless, but seeing animals up close might ignite an interest in conservation later in life.
And one thing that the article doesn't really go into is the fact that humans are still actively hunting animals in the wild, and destroying habitats for profit. And while I think zoos are a bit of a band-aid fix when it comes to endangered species, I'd much rather see an animal in captivity surrounded by zookeepers that care about it rather than extinction.
In an ideal world, zoos wouldn't exist. In a slightly less ideal world, only open-plain zoos would exist. But we are a very long way from that, and I personally believe that reputable zoos are a positive in the world we currently live in.
Hunting also needs to be looked at objectively. Many people hunt, and for many different reasons.
Poor people will hunt because it's is free food. Some risk they're lives to do it. Some places like Tanzania will kill poachers. We need to look into removing that incentive, as in, we need to reduce global poverty.
I hunt because one deer will be most of my meat for a year. The price to have someone else cut it up makes it cost the same as cheap grocery store ground beef, but it tastes better and is much more eco friendly than that cute would have been.
Rich people BS hunting like I imagine you're referring to is BS, but they pay big money to do it. The money they spend on that one animal funds the preservation of many times more animals, and by having a legal process to do it, there is less incentive to do it illegally, where accurate counts of animals taken can't be done.
The first example I can think of showing the success of this is the American Alligator. They were almost wiped out, but now they flourish because people want to hunt and/or eat them. I think it's something like 10 are raised fire every one that is allowed to be hunted. I'll admit, it's a bit like strange logic at first, but there are success stories to show it works.
I love animals. I even take care of the spiders at my house the best I can. But I hunt ethically as possible, just one legal deer a year. That deer lived a better life than a feed lot cow, didn't need to clear cut or pollute land to live, and it was appreciated for it's sacrifice every day by me, and I do my best to not waste a scrap of that meat, because I had to do the hard part myself.
I've met unethical hunters, and I won't associate with them. They're trash like any other cruel person. But most are regular people.
I hunt because one deer will be most of my meat for a year. The price to have someone else cut it up makes it cost the same as cheap grocery store ground beef, but it tastes better and is much more eco friendly than that cute would have been.
You kill another sentient beeing, altough you could easily life without doing so. I know you don't want to hear this, but looking objectivly at that it's neither a sensibel nor a moral thing to do.
Trigger Warnung, I compared eating meat to sexual violence in the next bit.
spoiler
I rape because one woman will be most of my pussy for a year. See what I mean? Your logic falls apart completely, once you use a different context. And no, it's not better because I only rape happy women.
I went through a questioning phase with respect to zoos a while back. Captivity is bad, so why would I support it? Breeding programs are important, but they're not enough to justify subjugation of animals, especially if some species only exist to be bred in captivity. However, the conclusion that I arrived at is that zoos are primarily for education. I wouldn't know enough about penguins, pandas, capybaras, or koalas to care about threats to their survival and habitats without zoos. I know that captivity is bad, but the benefits to the species in terms of awareness outweigh the suboptimal living environment of a comparatively small number of animals.
Also zoos take in animals that are injured or otherwise unable to be rehabilitated to the wild, often as part of breeding programs, so it’s not like “we captured a wild X to breed it”.
Yet zoos also kill perfectly healthy creatures, however, because they are seen as "surplus"
So it's not like they are being just held there while they are healing and then released once they are healed
I think video documentaries provide the same if not better benefits without having to imprison animals. You can even show directly how their habitats are endangered (see Our Planet documentary series).
Not to a 7 year old.
Walking through a zoo, watching the animals interact with each other, and with guests, reading about habitats, and experiencing an animal you've never even heard of before is a magical experience. I just got back from taking my daughter to a zoo 3 hours away from our house because she'd heard about okapis and wanted to see one. A documentary got her interested in the animal but the zoo let her learn a lot more.
Here's the thing. An animals environment can be completely fucked. Their environment is not going to get better anytime soon, and they are in the verge of extinction. Is it better to let them go extinct or put them into captivity? This is not a hypothetical, California Condors faced this issue as an example.
This is actually discussed in the article, which states that the raising awareness effect of zoos is very very small compared to its entertainment effect on individuals.
From the article
On the contrary, most people don’t read the educational plaques at zoos, and according to polls of zoo-goers, most go to spend time with friends or family — to enjoy themselves and be entertained, not to learn about animals and their needs. One study found the level of environmental concern reported by attendees before they entered the zoo was similar to those who were polled at the exits.
People donate and will want to protect things they can see and experience. Zoos are an experience that help the public want to protect animals.
From the article
On the contrary, most people don’t read the educational plaques at zoos, and according to polls of zoo-goers, most go to spend time with friends or family — to enjoy themselves and be entertained, not to learn about animals and their needs. One study found the level of environmental concern reported by attendees before they entered the zoo was similar to those who were polled at the exits.
Ive never met anyone who is anti zoo that actually has any experience in animal conservation or wildlife rehabilitation.
I think of it as the armchair psychology of the biology world, given the near 1:1 comparisons between the two.
Exactly. When people here zoo, they usually picture something between the Tiger King and Sea World.
When in reality, it's closer to a medical research center for animals.
There are a lot of different kind of zoos, but yes general rule is that if the zoo is good for human visitors it is not good for the animals.
Let me elaborate.
There are zoos which are more designed for the animals, i.e. Korkeasaari in Finland, but the problem is that it is not so visitor friendly. For example you rarely see the big cats, because the cats have large habitat, and lots of places to hide. This is good for the animals, but it makes lots of crying children because they didn't see the tiger.
The most interesting zoos for the humans put the animals close to humans and in small cages. Some even let you interact with the animal. This makes the animals live very stresful life.
IMO it is very narrow minded to say all zoos are bad, but in general all the "good" ones are bad
Edit: you can go read tripadvisor reviews to see how it is that many leave 5-star saying that animals look happy and 1-star reviews saying that didn't see any animals.
A zoo is a business, and there are good, decent, and bad zoos out there. But the people working there and visiting there are there because of their fascination for animals. They're not a single solution to all the issues animals face, but they're doing more pro-animal than most businesses are.
To compare zoos to rescues seems a bit disingenuous, especially when the author is from an animal liberation organization. Rescues serve a different purpose and are funded differently and have different rules to follow. I'm not against any of the ideas the author supports, but I don't see it as a zero sum game. There is room for different organizations to support animals in different ways.
I don't mean offense to anyone reading here, and not to the author either, because I believe there are ethical ways to have animals in captivity, but here's what I don't get. Author goes on about how animals don't get to consent to where they're placed in captivity, that there's no need to have captive animals that aren't endangered, that zoos should at least not serve meat, etc., but then this same guy lives in the city, with a large dog, that he buys ground up animals to feed to the dog, but that's ok. And that's where I feel his right to criticize others on this stops.
Want to advocate for better treatment? Good.
Want to promote vegetarianism or veganism? Good.
Want tight regulations on places and people that keep animals? Good.
But nobody else should do what I do because I do it the right way? I'm not as cool with that. If you're going to paint all zoos and aquariums as overall morally bad while you do the same thing with no rules or oversight doesn't sit right with me.
Again, just my opinion. Check my posts, I promote animal rescues every day on here. I think good animals centers do good work, whether it's a for profit business or a non-profit. In some states, zoos are the only ones licensed to rehabilitate some animals. If not for the zoo, those local animals that could be healed and released again would be euthanized.
Sorry again, this stuff just gets me worked up. Some people would rather throw everything out than have an imperfect but still working system...
It's just bad faith arguments and inflammatory comments
This article also seems to rely a lot on logical fallacies
I've read about a few conservation programs where zoos had a central role in aiding with the resources and the reproduction and building of numbers of animals to reintroduce in the wild.
But besides that, it has been close to a decade I've been to a zoo and I don't miss it.
At a point in my life I wanted to get a degree in biology to work at a zoo. Nowadays, I think the best "zoo" is 500 square kilometres of land, with the closest human settlement 50km away.
This definitely falls under "Betteridge's law of headlines".
This is the best summary I could come up with:
An examination of how zoos spend their money suggests that, despite branding themselves as champions of conservation, they devote far more resources to their main, original prerogative: confining animals for entertainment and profit.
There are some exceptions, Marris notes, in which zoos have played a starring role in reintroducing threatened and endangered species to the wild, including the California condor, the Arabian oryx, and Black-footed ferrets, among others.
Mileham told Vox captive breeding programs at zoos do more than just create insurance populations, and that they contribute to field conservation by providing opportunities for researchers to learn about species’ behavior, nutrition, veterinary needs, and more.
While the educational value of zoos is dubious, there’s certainly one message zoo-goers receive, if only implicitly: That it’s perfectly fine, even good, to put wild animals on display in tiny enclosures for the public’s leisure.
But there’s also this: One-third of Earth’s habitable land is devoted to cattle grazing and growing corn and soy to feed farmed animals, which has resulted in mass habitat loss for wildlife and crashing biodiversity levels.
Fashion designers are replacing leather and fur with animal-free textiles, meat companies are now selling plant-based nuggets and burgers, and in 2018, the traveling circus Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey announced it would stop using animals, such as lions, tigers, and bears, in its shows.
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