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Comment by James_K | Hacker News Reader

Zoos are really quite cruel.

Most zoos nowadays are important research centers.

Besides that, they have an important educational component that surely contributes politically for conservation efforts.

Big Zoos, yes. And they do some great research, as well as preservation and rehabilitation. But I've also been to a few small zoos in rural America that are essentially someone's private animal collection that they charge you a fee to see. I think those are less common than they used to be, but they do exist.

I don't think those can be considered zoos from your description.

And maybe stop going to them (you went to a few?) and they will become even less common.

Never seen one of those, but there's plenty of private animal habitats I've seen that take injured and stray animals.

Usually just ran/funded by someone who loves animals.

I went there as a kid. One visit was actually a school field trip. I have not been to one in nearly 30 years. And I should have more clearly said that I've only actually been to one, but have seen others while traveling. That was my mistake in saying that I've been to a few.

False dichotomy. If we wanted to, we could do both preservation and not lock them up.

It’s highly questionable if wildlife and habitat protection had the same level of political support if most people would only knew the affected animals from photos and nature documentaries. Zoos can have a lasting impact on people.

Poppycock. I could make the exact inverse argument. Perhaps animals being easy to access in a city makes people care less about them. "Who cares if it goes extinct in the wild, I can still see it at the zoo." Without any kind of practical evidence, you cannot know what effect zoos have. The only effect zoos have had on me is that I went to a local aquarium one time and saw a giant sea turtle swimming round a very small tank. The sheer cruelty of that stays with me. A creature which migrates thousands of miles in nature confined to a cage perhaps ten meters long. It is, without a doubt, one of the saddest things I've ever witnessed. I don't think anyone who can tolerate zoos actually cares about animals.

Zoos are a lesser evil argument, locally they are not the best for the animals but they provide globally long-term benefits for humans and nature as well.

What’s the alternative? The implied greater evil?

A world with no zoos and less appreciation and consideration for nature as well as the long term necessity of caring for it?

I’m wondering about creating more nature parks instead of zoos. Of course not as accessible for people in cities, but could be a much better compromise.

In general, we should avoid putting animals in small cages as much as possible.

Speaking of nature parks instead of zoos, the San Diego Wild Safari Park is just that. Very large enclosed pastures with multiple species living alongside each other.

Nature park is still basically a zoo, and yes the lesser evil is the sacrifice of animal wellbeing to ensure that the masses of urbanized humans get to physically see these animals. It is an inevitable tradeoff and there is no way around it, no euphemism for zoos or general appeals about animal wellbeing can paper over that.

If the benefit of putting wild animals in small zoos is some sliver of human cultural contact with the wilds, then that calculus is worth it, however paradoxical and politically incorrect it may appear to be. That's the argument.

The implication here is that it would be impossible to fund conservation without zoos. As a counter argument: we could just do it. Increase taxes by the amount people spend in zoos and spend that on conservation. The only argument in favour of the zoo over that other approach is that people want to look at animals in cages.

> As a counter argument: we could just do it. Increase taxes by the amount people spend in zoos and spend that on conservation.

Why do you think we could do that?

I say we could just increase taxes by $5,000 per person per year and spend it on breeding and releasing mosquitoes in Los Angeles.

Yes, we could do that, but what would be the benefit? I'm saying that whether we want nature conserved and whether we want them to be in cages for us to look at are entirely separate issues that should be evaluated separately. The best argument in favour of zoos is assuming that the people who want to look at dancing bears would be sufficiently enraged by their absence that they would decide to condemn the whole of nature in not doing conservation.

As for why I think we could do it, the answer is because we obviously can. The world become a much worse place once you realise the many things of which humanity is capable, yet which we choose not to do.

I suggest to you that if you try to make that happen, you'll find that in fact you can't. Not everything you can imagine people doing is something that it's actually possible to make them do.

> We can't do it because people won't do it.

This logic is at the root of almost everyone who has been complicit in evil through history. It would once have been said about the abolition of slavery, gay rights, etc. It is a lazy attitude that's entirely self-justifying. Change is often opposed primarily by the great mass of people who use this same logic, in spite of them recognising that the change would be good.

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