Zoos aren’t for animals. They’re for us. | Zoos say they’re leaders in protecting wildlife. But is it true?

I appreciate where the author of this article is coming from, but I think they're being a bit too one-sided.

For example, they make the point that zoos don't contribute enough to conservation, donating only around 5% of their spending, as if the millions of dollars given doesn't justify their existence. But if zoos didn't exist, that's a big chunk of money that wouldn't be going towards conservation at all.

They also talk about the education aspect, that visitors don't necessarily read the information about the animals and instead go for the spectacle. But a child isn't going to read those plaques regardless, but seeing animals up close might ignite an interest in conservation later in life.

And one thing that the article doesn't really go into is the fact that humans are still actively hunting animals in the wild, and destroying habitats for profit. And while I think zoos are a bit of a band-aid fix when it comes to endangered species, I'd much rather see an animal in captivity surrounded by zookeepers that care about it rather than extinction.

In an ideal world, zoos wouldn't exist. In a slightly less ideal world, only open-plain zoos would exist. But we are a very long way from that, and I personally believe that reputable zoos are a positive in the world we currently live in.

Okay, so I'm not far from the Fresno Zoo. Fresno Chaffee Zoo participates in wildlife re-introduction programs in order to bring species back from the brink (or from extinction in the wild, even). That's important work.

Does the threat of extinction justify subjugation? Well, I guess that's down to your personal moral outlook, I suppose. Personally, I think that it's better to preserve life than not, and given what poor stewards of the planet we're being, I'd suggest we have a duty to keep these populations going until we can get our shit together. But, again, it's a question of personal convictions.

People don't read the plaques at the zoo? So what. Imo, you can't judge educational efficacy on that metric alone. I think that seeing these animals helps make them real to people, instead of just some thing you saw on TV once. Besides that, this doesn't account for a number of things, like:

-How often did the polled attendees visit the zoo in the last year? If they visit frequently, reading the plaques probably is kind of a moot point

-How familiar are attendees with zoos in the first place? If an attendee is familiar with a zoo, it's not really that much of a shock to say that they didn't have their world view changed by the visit. It's possible their world view has already been affected by previous zoo visits.

I'll concede that the system can use some work, but I see that as cause for reform, not cause for burning the whole thing down.

I went through a questioning phase with respect to zoos a while back. Captivity is bad, so why would I support it? Breeding programs are important, but they're not enough to justify subjugation of animals, especially if some species only exist to be bred in captivity. However, the conclusion that I arrived at is that zoos are primarily for education. I wouldn't know enough about penguins, pandas, capybaras, or koalas to care about threats to their survival and habitats without zoos. I know that captivity is bad, but the benefits to the species in terms of awareness outweigh the suboptimal living environment of a comparatively small number of animals.

People donate and will want to protect things they can see and experience. Zoos are an experience that help the public want to protect animals.

Ive never met anyone who is anti zoo that actually has any experience in animal conservation or wildlife rehabilitation.

I think of it as the armchair psychology of the biology world, given the near 1:1 comparisons between the two.

There are a lot of different kind of zoos, but yes general rule is that if the zoo is good for human visitors it is not good for the animals.

Let me elaborate.

There are zoos which are more designed for the animals, i.e. Korkeasaari in Finland, but the problem is that it is not so visitor friendly. For example you rarely see the big cats, because the cats have large habitat, and lots of places to hide. This is good for the animals, but it makes lots of crying children because they didn't see the tiger.

The most interesting zoos for the humans put the animals close to humans and in small cages. Some even let you interact with the animal. This makes the animals live very stresful life.

IMO it is very narrow minded to say all zoos are bad, but in general all the "good" ones are bad

Edit: you can go read tripadvisor reviews to see how it is that many leave 5-star saying that animals look happy and 1-star reviews saying that didn't see any animals.

A zoo is a business, and there are good, decent, and bad zoos out there. But the people working there and visiting there are there because of their fascination for animals. They're not a single solution to all the issues animals face, but they're doing more pro-animal than most businesses are.

To compare zoos to rescues seems a bit disingenuous, especially when the author is from an animal liberation organization. Rescues serve a different purpose and are funded differently and have different rules to follow. I'm not against any of the ideas the author supports, but I don't see it as a zero sum game. There is room for different organizations to support animals in different ways.

I don't mean offense to anyone reading here, and not to the author either, because I believe there are ethical ways to have animals in captivity, but here's what I don't get. Author goes on about how animals don't get to consent to where they're placed in captivity, that there's no need to have captive animals that aren't endangered, that zoos should at least not serve meat, etc., but then this same guy lives in the city, with a large dog, that he buys ground up animals to feed to the dog, but that's ok. And that's where I feel his right to criticize others on this stops.

Want to advocate for better treatment? Good.

Want to promote vegetarianism or veganism? Good.

Want tight regulations on places and people that keep animals? Good.

But nobody else should do what I do because I do it the right way? I'm not as cool with that. If you're going to paint all zoos and aquariums as overall morally bad while you do the same thing with no rules or oversight doesn't sit right with me.

Again, just my opinion. Check my posts, I promote animal rescues every day on here. I think good animals centers do good work, whether it's a for profit business or a non-profit. In some states, zoos are the only ones licensed to rehabilitate some animals. If not for the zoo, those local animals that could be healed and released again would be euthanized.

Sorry again, this stuff just gets me worked up. Some people would rather throw everything out than have an imperfect but still working system...

I've read about a few conservation programs where zoos had a central role in aiding with the resources and the reproduction and building of numbers of animals to reintroduce in the wild.

But besides that, it has been close to a decade I've been to a zoo and I don't miss it.

At a point in my life I wanted to get a degree in biology to work at a zoo. Nowadays, I think the best "zoo" is 500 square kilometres of land, with the closest human settlement 50km away.

This definitely falls under "Betteridge's law of headlines".

This is the best summary I could come up with:

An examination of how zoos spend their money suggests that, despite branding themselves as champions of conservation, they devote far more resources to their main, original prerogative: confining animals for entertainment and profit.

There are some exceptions, Marris notes, in which zoos have played a starring role in reintroducing threatened and endangered species to the wild, including the California condor, the Arabian oryx, and Black-footed ferrets, among others.

Mileham told Vox captive breeding programs at zoos do more than just create insurance populations, and that they contribute to field conservation by providing opportunities for researchers to learn about species’ behavior, nutrition, veterinary needs, and more.

While the educational value of zoos is dubious, there’s certainly one message zoo-goers receive, if only implicitly: That it’s perfectly fine, even good, to put wild animals on display in tiny enclosures for the public’s leisure.

But there’s also this: One-third of Earth’s habitable land is devoted to cattle grazing and growing corn and soy to feed farmed animals, which has resulted in mass habitat loss for wildlife and crashing biodiversity levels.

Fashion designers are replacing leather and fur with animal-free textiles, meat companies are now selling plant-based nuggets and burgers, and in 2018, the traveling circus Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey announced it would stop using animals, such as lions, tigers, and bears, in its shows.

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