I had always thought that animal activists liked zoos because of the conservation work that they engage in (assuming, of course, that the zoos are treating the animals humanely) and the animal education that they provide to the general public.
Yet, here there is a story about a new law passed in San Fransisco mandating that elephants have 15 acres of space to live in. In all likelihood, this will cause the San Fransisco Zoo to have to give up elephants, since opening a 15-acre exhibit solely for elephants will cost millions of dollars.
As it turns out, the animal activists were hoping for an outright ban on elephants at the zoo. They couldn’t get the outright ban, but in the words of Elliot Katz, president of In Defense Of Animals:
So, color me confused… when did animal rights activists start hating zoos?
As I understand it, they don’t “hate zoos” in general, but they believe that life in a zoo is inappropriate for certain animals, such as elephants and big cats. I think they would prefer zoos only to keep animals who show no signs of stress, boredom, antipathy towards breeding or retarded development for the size of the enclosure available, and leave elephants or big cats to open ‘safari’ parks and the like.
Keep in mind that environmentalists and animal rights activists don’t see eye to eye on everything. In fact, in The Case for Animal Rights, Thomas Reagan refers to John Muir’s environmental crede as “environmental fascism,” quite seriously and without a hint of hyperbole.
Animal rights folks tend to focus on the good of individual creatures; environmentalists tend to look at the good of the ecosystem. As far as that goes, an animal rights advocate such as T. Reagan doesn’t see the extinction of a species as a particular wrong: the death of the last elephant will carry no more moral weight than the death of one more cow.
At least, that’s how I remember his stance when I read his book in the late eighties; I don’t know if he’s modified it since then.
I’ve always (I’m 30) heard outcries against zoos from enviromental types. That’s why zoos today are so much better than they were when I was a kid.
Seriously, less than 30 years ago, the best zoo in our area (Brookfield Zoo ) was rows and rows of cages with bare concrete floors. There was no attempt to give the animals anything like a natural habitat, or the room they need for mental and physical health. That has been changing over the years, and now there’s only a few animal houses left that are the old “row of cages” variety. Most of them have beautiful looking homes with concrete mountains and fiberglass trees to climb, real foliage and room to run. This was due to changing values and pressure from animal rights groups - changing the way the zoos and the patrons felt about caged animals.
I think this benefits the animals, and also the patrons. The animals certainly seem happier, whatever that means (less pacing, less apathetic lying there) and get to be their normal selves. The patrons get to see the animals in something much closer to their natural habitat. A tiger laying on a concrete floor is sort of pathetic. A tiger crouching in tall grass or drapped over a tree branch is breathtaking.
It seems to my undereducated self that you can always find at least some AR people who are opposed to any darn thing. The movement does not seem to have a Pope to impose discipline and one consistent theology upon them.
I would suppose there have been more than a few fist-fights within the AR movement.
It depends on which ARA you’re talking about. And then, certain aspects of zoos or zoo like behaviour can be disliked by those who don’t believe in animal rights at all and dislike those that do.
I know one prominent animal activist who hates zoos - Bill Maher. I heard him talking about it on Politically Incorrect once, and was shocked, because he’s more of a moderate (to my ear) than anything. He felt it was cruel to the individual animals involved. I think he had one of those Wild Kingdom type guys on (like the ones that are always on Carson/Leno), sans animals, and they really got into it.
Personally, I think that zoos help people appreciate the need for better treatment of animals. Put another way, if we didn’t have zoos, people just wouldn’t know enought to care.