Modern Zoos

[Her]

The controversy over the shooting of Harambe the gorilla has inevitably led to the topic of whether zoos are ethical/should exist in the first place, or how they can be changed for the better. For the purpose of the thread, I'm defining 'modern zoo' as one whose primary efforts are on providing animals for the voyeuristic public & 'edutaining' them, not ones dedicated primarily towards conservation of these animals. Those are a different category in my eyes, but you are welcome to disagree and talk about that as you wish. Most zoos tend to have a bit of both, with the paying public supposedly funding research and conservation efforts, but the obvious focus is on the entertainment aspect.

Anyway, where do you stand on zoos today?

 

[smocks]

I don't mind Zoos if they have sanctuary like-goals and treatment & to spread awareness for preservation of the species, but Zoos that solely put their animals up for shows and pure displays I purely don't support.

 

[killer-curry]

fuck the Internet I supposed to post my stuff 3 hours ago but it**********

But anyways,

I never visit a zoo before, but I see zoo as a place for showing people about wild animals and protecting them as well. But due to highly potential profit made, the management could have mistreating them by forcing them to do shows or abuse them.

So, about the news I think that the Gorilla could have survive IF that lady took care well of that boy and avoided from falling down. You see the gorilla is 17 years old and did no harm to public for the whole time, if you just shoot it just because that small incident you might made a huge mistake to kill an innocent animal.

This thing could have been prevented if the zoo followed the special instruction to control this kind of situation where animals might attacked people or went out from their place. It is a shame to see that the sharpshooter used bullets instead of tranquilizer to stop that gorilla.

 

[Omicron]

All decent zoos have, for more than half a century now, switched from the menageries and living collections that they were to spaces of conservation, research and education, greatly thanks to Gerald Durrell and the Jersey Zoo.

For this debate, zoos that do not comply with hygiene and security measures and that don't provide proper care for their animals should not be counted, because they are at a fault to start and are a really, really small number of zoos in developed countries. Most of these will get closed and the animals relocated.

If not for zoos, there are a lot of species that would be extinct now. IE the scimitar oryx, the milu, the Mexican wolf and the Przewalski's horse. All of these species extinct in the wild currently or previously with only individuals in zoos, private and public. Of these examples, the last Przewalski's horse sighted in the wild was in 1966 with 13 individuals in zoos. Breeding projects of these animals begun, some going to other zoos to start more breeding projects and research. From those 13 horses, there is now a wild population of at least 300 free ranging horses in their native Mongolia and over 1500 in captivity around the world. The largest breeding efforts are from a reserve in Ukraine and some were even released into the Chernobyl exclusion area, which is a de facto nature reserve now, with populations rapidly growing in number. There are breeding projects and reintroduction efforts for all of the species I mentioned above.

Now, to which is the flagship species of conservation, Pandas. Pandas are not extinct solely because of the interest people have in going to a zoo to see them. Almost all Pandas in every zoo are property of the Chinese government, with some exceptions like some at a Mexican zoo and at a Taiwanese zoo which were gifts, and are rented to zoos worldwide. It is of great profit to the Chinese government and it is because of that that they have the most successful panda breeding program in the world and many natural reserves dedicated to them. Pandas also work as an umbrella conservation species. Because of the interest in pandas, the bamboo forests and coniferous forests of central China are protected. Because of this, many other species that share the habitat are protected as well. This indirect help, added to the direct conservation efforts of some of these species has helped them stabilize their population or has at least made habitat loss the lesser of their problems. Some of the species that have benefited from this include the red panda and the snow leopard, whose main problem is now poaching. Even then, populations have been declining at a slower rate.

A lot of what is known about the biology of animals, that helps understand them for conservation efforts, are known from studying the animals in zoos. For example, quetzales, endangered and elusive, couldn't be kept in captivity until a couple of decades ago. All of the ones in captivity would die and no one was sure why, meanwhile the populations of wild ones kept dwindling and disappearing from parts of their natural range. It was until further examination conducted at an aviary that they realized they were getting poisoned by iron in the water. They have to be given almost distilled water, like the one they drink from bromelias in the wild, to drink. Now there are successful breeding programs that are reintroducing them to the wild. Quetzales were so elusive that little was known about them, like where they drank. It was the studies they were able to make to the individuals in captivity which let the investigators know this and save the species.

It is also completely absurd and fallacious (ad naturam) to think that an animal, by being in the wild, is happy by default or that captive animals are sad by default. In a (good) zoo, animals have a perfectly balanced diet, medical attention 24/7, clean environments and habitats with behavioral enrichment. They don't have to worry about anything and hormonal analysis of urine and blood prove it. It is true that the public may cause them stress, but well designed habitats allow them to expose themselves to the public only when they want to and they are not forced to leave their night houses if they don't want to. Wild animals in the other hand are in constant competition with other animals, they are full of parasites, they have to forage for food or hunt, defend themselves from predators, etc. It's not that they are unhappy, but their lives are considerably more stressful and they die much younger than their captive counterparts.

Shows are less common in zoos now as well. And unlike circus shows, most of the ones that still exist are made by positive reinforcement training. No animal is mistreated or doing things against their will.

 

[Esper]

I find that how think about zoos reflects how you feel about animals in general. Omicron has more than demonstrated the good that zoos do, but in my experience not all zoos are equal. There are several in the areas of Japan I lived in, one of which was a "bear park" with not much space for the bears, and, to give you some idea of the mindset of people regarding the animals, the gift shop sold canned bear meat.

Here's an image of the enclosure:

Spoiler:

I'm no expert, but this doesn't seem like enough space for all these bears. There is more than you can see, but overall the space is smaller than a soccer/football field. The whole point of this place is to get tourists to come and see the animals. I'm sure there is some amount of education and whatnot, but in this case I don't think it's justified.

I just wanted to point out that Japanese people at this park think it's great but all the Americans I know who've been there thought it was horrible. I worry that one's cultural perspective can get in the way of being objective. I would love to have someone who knows these things better than I do tell me that what I'm looking at isn't actually that bad for the animals. I would feel a lot better knowing that.

 

[Omicron]

I would hardly call that a zoo. It's hard to make a fair assessment of the park when you can't see it completely, but it doesn't feel like the place the bears have is adequate, in space or the condition it is in.

The bears in the pictures don't show any obvious signs of health problems, but it is impossible to tell for sure from the pictures alone.

I'll look up more information about the park.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

Omicron hit the nail in the head of this topic. I should also mention the San Diego Zoo and its sister location, the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park, are doing excellent jobs taking care and saving their animals from mere extinct. Recently they found a diet formula that would help rhinos reproduce faster (information can be found on the video's description).

Unfortunately, I'm afraid all of the zoos' attempts to save Giant Pandas from going extinct are all in vain, because they live in poor life styles in the wild and are bound to go extinct via natural selection.

 

[Desert Stream~]

Huh, I suppose they could be ok if they are preserving species, but if random people can walk in and see endangered animals, I feel like nature preserves are better.

 

[Sir Codin]

Here's an image of the enclosure:

Spoiler:

I'm no expert, but this doesn't seem like enough space for all these bears. .

It really isn't. It doesn't take an expert to know that even half of that amount of bears need three times that amount of space AT MINIMUM.

 

[gimmepie]

Huh, I suppose they could be ok if they are preserving species, but if random people can walk in and see endangered animals, I feel like nature preserves are better.

People coming in to see the animals gets people invested in preserving the species and provides opportunities for education.