Can zoos be redesigned for a more ethical generation?
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
I'd be interested to hear precisely what the headline's author meant by "more ethical", and his/her reason for believing that the current generation is more ethical.
"More civilized societies"
"Barbarians"
"Taming the savages"
Be afraid of a world without zoos. Look at what happens to people who never see animals. Talk to anyone who grew up without dogs. They have all sorts of misconceptions. Zoo animals represent the wild. They manifest our nebulous ideas about wildlife and wild spaces. Without them our kids will too easily dismiss wild nature. To demonstate to kids that wild animals have the right to exist we need to first show them how they actually exist. Nothing does that so well as seeing the wild in the flesh.
That said, I think zoos are critical to educating the public about animals, preserving endangered species, enabling injured animals to live, and making people care about animals from an early age.
[0] https://www.wired.com/2014/07/animal-madness-laurel-braitman...
[1] https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/why-are-these-penguins-taking-a...
[2] http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/why-do-polar-...
[3] http://www.toledoblade.com/frontpage/2005/09/12/Zoos-using-d...
[4] http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2014/06/20/animal_mad...
It's not controversial around here to say that humans are having an enormous impact on the natural environment. The distinction between 'zoo' and 'wild' is not a binary one; humans effects are seen in both.
Lots of people have this romantic image of the wild as this pristine place where everything lives in beautiful harmony. In reality it's much more like the Hunger Games than we'd care to admit.
How about life?
Not to mention that the starving could be due to human disruption to its habitat...
A theoretical zoo paradise could work, but such a zoo would look more like a wildlife refuge than what we're typically used it. And members of the public may even have to put up with wild predators actually killed their food, and not seeing some of the wildlife very often.
Most zoos have small enclosures for economic reasons, not because it is what the animals themselves need.
No where in his post do I see him arguing for putting a lion in a cage small enough that it can't run.
That's arguing for zoos in general. There aren't any zoos with large enough enclosures, only nature reserves. A zoo is putting a large animal in a small enough cage so that the public can wonder passed and look at it, that isn't compatible with a large enough enclosure for the size animal we're discussing.
If you want to go ahead and link me to one of these "ethical zoos" that has a lion enclosure, I'd welcome it.
Here's some info on the conservation efforts they do: http://institute.sandiegozoo.org/species/african-lion
Here's info about where they breed them and care for them:
You can see the small scale here:
Do you know what happens to male lions in the wild? A stronger male lion takes their mate, kills their children, and then kills them. And this is just the ones lucky enough to survive that long. Male lions are kicked out of their pride as soon as they reach adolescence. Most don’t even make it to adulthood or survive long enough to mate. And if you’ve never seen an animal kill another animal, they don’t exactly prioritize a quick and painless death. Life as a wild lion is nasty, brutish, and short. It’s incredible, the the romantic notions that people dream up for themselves.
Wtf is being proposed here, to keep lions at capture to avoid the parts of their lifestyle we don't like or consider too savage?
That which you described is what MAKES a lion.
As an aside: I personally don’t think it actually matters whether captivity is better than nature, but I’m pointing out arguendo that it probably isn’t. I think it is fine, short of wanton cruelty, for us humans to use animals for our own ends.
Of course it does.
>The way humans live in the wild is pretty different than in civilization too.
The civilisation is human's wild. We built this, it was not imposed upon us.
Also, by the logic you're using, you can just as well say that possibly living in captivity is the lion's new nature. After all, humans are part of nature and our capturing of animals then is too.
It's a sad day when you need to give a reason why captivity is worst than letting lions live free.
In the end, even genocide is not good or bad objectively. It depends on a value judgement, which from a rational perspective it's still a leap of faith or "fallacy".
Either you acknowledge the value of freedom for animals or you don't.
But to avoid the "naturalistic fallacy" let's perform an empirical, scientific experiment: let's keep you captive in a cage for several years, and see how you fare, and whether you find it alright afterwards. We'll also have a control group and everything of course, lest we mess up the experiment.
>Also, by the logic you're using, you can just as well say that possibly living in captivity is the lion's new nature. After all, humans are part of nature and our capturing of animals then is too.
In the lion's case, it's a nature imposed on them, so there's a difference. Just because we're all parts of nature doesn't mean we enjoy or thrive under everything that happens in nature: we wouldn't enjoy being eaten by lions or being kept captive in cages by higher sentient animals (e.g. aliens).
You’re right that enclosure size is mostly determined by business concerns rather than animal satisfaction. Practically speaking, however, the enclosures can rarely be large enough to completely suit an animal’s needs.
You are making a straw man argument.
There is no reading of their position for which this is a reasonable interpretation.
Except if you have in mind some huge zoos, where animals run, hunt, and explore a large area free, the parent's is a perfectly reasonable understanding of what the grandparent wrote, not a strawman.
>And members of the public may even have to put up with wild predators actually killed their food
Isn't it unethical in regards to "food"? Or are only animals at the top of the food chain deserving of "ethics"? Maybe it's more ethical to cage all the carnivores (it could be argued that meat-eating is unethical in itself), thus allowing a larger number of prey animals to roam free.
The downvotes are because in 2018, people believe the only legitimate positions are ones in which they agree. The others must become greytext, since they might convince other people.
The thought of kids only seeing sharks in a VR helmets is more politically acceptable these days. That future fills me with dread. Too many people hate sharks already.
Lol, the votes on my previous post are bouncing between -3 and +2 every minute. It is more devisive than trump's twitter feed.
And who paid for those statistics and what measures did they use? I'd love to know how you quantify a tiger's happiness.
Granted, peta and humane society have exposed some zoos mistreat many animals which may swing the statistics in favor of the wild. Nonetheless, we have laws and those laws are meant to protect the animals even if they dont succeed 100% atm
Very well in what regard? Live many years?
Slaves can live many years too if you don't abuse them too much.
>Work with animals in the wild. Learn the misery that is thier "natural" life before making some high-minded judgement about fences.
Misery for who? For the tiger, or for those judging that they must be miserable because they have ...ticks or hadn't had a deer in a few days?
Perhaps zoos aren’t the solution, maybe if we stopped the wholesale destruction of animals in our every day lives that compassion would spread to wild animals and we wouldn’t need zoos to remind people that animals aren’t just tools for us to abuse.
There's a false equivalence here. Zoos--and other tools like them which grant exposure--bring awareness to a challenge or a problem. Without them, awareness would be fleeting if not entirely absent from the western world as a direct consequence of the fact that far too many species housed in zoos just do not exist in the same regions of the world as developed economies right now.
In other word, zoos beget awareness, which drive people like yourself to protect and care for the many forms of life with which we share this planet.
I suspect there would be a much harder time convincing people in the developed world to pay e.g. Africa or the Pacific Islands a visit without an initial exposure to their simulated wilds in a well-maintained zoo.
The fundamental problem is that humans view animals as tools, torture and murder for our benefit is normalised from birth and zoos are just an extension of that.
You can argue that zoos play a part in giving some humans some compassion towards some animals but what use is that when their next stop after the lion enclosure is the hotdog cart.
We shouldn’t need zoos. There’s lots of non-invasive ways to learn about animals, and if our shared fundamental belief was that we should do everything we can to show animals compassion and respect, then at no point would anyone need to say “unless these kids see a caged tiger they’re not going to consider the consequences of deforestation”.
I apologize for making you feel that way.
> The fundamental problem is that humans view animals as tools, torture and murder for our benefit is normalised from birth and zoos are just an extension of that.
I'd encourage you to visit the Smithsonian National Zoo (a choice local to me, admittedly) to shift the perspective that led you to draw this generalization.
> You can argue that zoos play a part in giving some humans some compassion towards some animals but what use is that when their next stop after the lion enclosure is the hotdog cart.
I can argue it quite successfully given the number of conservation and anti-endangerment efforts well-maintained zoos seek to fund and manage. See e.g. the Smithsonian's efforts with Giant Panda breeding.
> We shouldn’t need zoos. There’s lots of non-invasive ways to learn about animals, and if our shared fundamental belief was that we should do everything we can to show animals compassion and respect, then at no point would anyone need to say “unless these kids see a caged tiger they’re not going to consider the consequences of deforestation”.
Regarding non-invasive ways, there really aren't. Life is driven to experience the world through sensation. As best as we know, humanity is the first species to substantially experience the world through reading, writing, speaking (well, others likely have a claim to this), and general indirect exposure. Billions of years of evolution went into honing the senses, whereas only a few hundred thousand went into honing our capacity to perceive and imagine in any amount of detail.
If you want people to care, you've got to stimulate the senses. We can't bring everyone to the wilds, so the closest we can do to achieve this is to bring the wilds to them.
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All of that aside, I'll acknowledge that there are tons of poorly maintained zoos, but the ones driven by academia or through public funding are the ones with this public interest at heart and likewise the ones I'd prefer to keep.
How many whales are there on earth? How many lions? 50,000 at most. You could put a bullet in the head of every lion on earth tomorrow and it would be a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of millions of farm animals that would be killed _on that same day_. And the lions at least wouldn’t have spent their lives packed 10 to a square foot in a barn dying to sickness.
There are some incredible, highly regarded documentaries (planet earth, blue planet) that do far more for educating people about animals than viewing that animal in a cage ever can. If zoos actually created any sort of compassion in visitors for animals then we wouldn’t be having this argument — all they create is fascination in a select few species we’ve deemed to be interesting enough, and what use is that to the animals being tortured on a scale millions of times greater.
Exotic animals are just a tool used to support an entire species cognitive dissonance.
I can't really keep repeatedly refuting generalizations like this. Please re-read the emphasis I've been placing on the sorts of facilities I'm defending.
> There are some incredible, highly regarded documentaries (planet earth, blue planet) that do far more for educating people about animals than viewing that animal in a cage ever can. If zoos actually created any sort of compassion in visitors for animals then we wouldn’t be having this argument — all they create is fascination in a select few species we’ve deemed to be interesting enough, and what use is that to the animals being tortured on a scale millions of times greater.
They've done much more than what you've described. Please re-read my post.
Here's a great start since I'm principally focusing on one facility which can be a model for others, in case you need a particular reference: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/conservation
If you can, I'd encourage you to read it with an open mind.
Please reread my comment, I am talking about farms (specifically chicken farms where 10% of chickens will die before they reach 1 month old because they are often packed 50,000 to a barn and not cared for), not zoos. I am not arguing that some zoos don’t do fantastic conservation work, I am arguing that it’s comparatively meaningless when you look at the wholescale abuse of animals perpetrated by the absolute majority of humans on this planet.
At no point was there an assertion that zoos are a cure-all, just that without them, the abuse you're highlighting would be worse, and that there's an opportunity to further heal and reduce those abuses by building and curating more well-maintained zoos.
It seems we've departed from the original premise which drew me to the conversation. I'm not equipped to solve general animal cruelty; I'm only equipped to defend the little corner which zoos seek to aid.
Thank you for the debate. I wish you well.
Well, technically, the abuse is perpetrated for the absolute majority of humans on this planet.
My landlord would probably have an issue if I were to pack a few thousand chickens in my spare bedroom yet I like me some chicken nuggets every now and then. And don't even get me started on Whataburger's Buffalo Ranch Chicken Strip Sandwich...pure tasty goodness that is.
I'd make an exception for research institutions, but with the rise of drone, camera, etc technology, we could and should be studying animals in the wild.
What about for our education?
The zoo is the closest a lot of people even come to the natural world and to appreciating and connecting with animals beyond common cats and dogs.