So what? Some animals are in cages but can never return to the wild. Is that any good?
I have a real moral dilemma in regards to great apes, whales, dolphin etc so called higher order mammals being kept in small cells. A dolphin in a swimming pool seems cruel to me.
This is a tough one for me to reconcile but this whole idea that zoos keep endangered animals alive is flawed, I could only support it if they had the express purpose of returning them to the wild.
All our animals are clicker trained to some degree. Some, like the elephants, get a LOT of training. All animals are trained to be good shifters (to go from their exhibits to their backups when they’re supposed to) and are trained to do things like submit to medical care. We have one lemur who gets insulin every day, and she’s trained to go into an overhead shifting area, be closed off with a board, get a shot, and get a grape for it. She does it every day easy as you please. The gorillas are trained to be desensitized to needles - they see the needles and are rewarded for being calm, sometimes they’re injected with saline, etc. They’re trained to get on the scale when commanded, to come to the door, etc. The training is enrichment for them just like puzzle feeders and similar devices, and it’s imperative for the health of the animal. It would be awful if the only way to give a gorilla a shot were to shoot it with a tranq gun or something.
Yes there are cruel aspects to zoos, but we have made a lot of progress. The recent article in the National Geographic about the endangered tiger hits even harder for the many of magnificent ones I have seen over the years in zoos.
Years ago when our kids were little, we always had a family pass to a nearby zoo and visited several times a year. Another great benefit was that the pass was good at zoos all over the country. When we visited family in Birmingham or Pittsburgh, we could always treat the kids to a zoo visit. They also got to visit the zoos along the road, Columbus, Louisville, Omaha, etc. Anybody that has spend all day in the car with kids can understand the value of a high quality break.
I strongly recommend a family zoo pass to anybody with kids.
Excellent example of the naturalistic fallacy. Nature’s awesome, but never mistake it for benevolent. Our ancient pagan ancestors never did; that’s why the old Mother Nature got so many sacrifices to Her.
So no, if we want animals to have the best “care” possible, we absolutely shouldn’t leave them in their natural environment. How does that make any sense? What definition of “best” possibly makes that sentence true?
Well sadly reality dictates that breeding programs are about our best hope instead. The constant pressure of the every growing human population and the deforestation and other damage to the natural world is ongoing and would mean the end of most greater predators without large preserves and zoos running breeding programs.
I support world-class ones like in Singapore or southern California. There are some really crappy ones out there though.
I understand the preservation aspect of breeding programs, but if that’s the future of every (soon to be) endangered species we might aswell start calling them pets.
I’m just not comfortable with the idea of creating and maintaining nature as we see fit. But on the other hand, this is what we do and what we are. So yeah, dilemma of epic proportions.