Zoos. Cruel, or still educational in this day and age?

[Monocock]

Triggered by a comment on the killer whale thread, I was wondering whether the consensus is that zoos are bordering on being unacceptable in this day and age with animal rights etc.

Have the onset of the Internet and YouTube made them rather redundant from an educational perspective?

I went to London Zoo a few years ago and came away feeling rather sorry for the animals, which isn't really what I expected as I've never felt sorry for a farmed animal in any way, even when they're bred for meat and don't live a particularly long life.

I'm generally no softy, but I can't say I'm very fond of keeping animals in such confined captivity. Game parks, yes. But concrete compounds, no.

Or am I being overly soft?

[Pete L]

Whipsnade feels completely different - generally large herbivores in decent sized paddocks - almost into your category of game park. The only bit that feels a bit tacky is the penguins.

[jayeff]

With respect to education and instilling a love of animals, you could argue that seeing them in the flesh carries more effect than watching them on telly. However, in my view zoos were a Victorian form of entertainment which are best consigned to history.

Having said that, zoos perform valuable services in understanding wildlife and for some creatures on the brink of extinction they provide a safe haven from which breeding stock can be returned to the wild if possible (the Mauritius kestrel is a prime example of this).

[Monocock]

Fair point, John.

It's a bit like the Giant Panda. Evolutionarily, they have developed a diet that is so specific that thy can no longer live in the wild. So, to continue to procreate they need to do so in captivity, in zoos. One could argue that if they can't survive unaided, should they be made to survive if they're no longer a natural part of the world's independent organisms?

My BIL stayed over Christmas. He's doing a Masters in evolutionary science and his view is the one I've outlined above.

[lobstaboy]

if they can't survive unaided, should they be made to survive if they're no longer a natural part of the world's independent organisms?

To me that is absurd. Loads of (maybe most of) the natural world is there because man creates or manages the environment. We decide what survives and what doesn't. Imagining that there is a pure, virgin, truly "natural" world somewhere out there is foolish.

Anyway, Mono, you couldn't survive unaided - you are no longer part of the world's independent organisms. Are you being made to survive un-naturally?

Zoos - Victorian anachronism.

[Carole P]

I think that Zoos today are very different from what they were even a few years ago when I was a child. They spend so much time involved in captive breeding programmes with an intention to repopulate the wild in a number of species. I have a friend who works at Monkey World as a Keeper, they have to have degrees these days before they are accepted in that position, they spend their days doing what they can to enable the animals to have a level of quality of life. There will be very few keepers in modern zoos who would not prefer that their creatures were in the wild but they accept there is a need for Zoos especially when many of their animals are captive bred and without the Zoo would be extinct or close to extinction.
I have to say I am of the view that perhaps letting Pandas die out may be what is required, they only eat bamboo and need to eat an extensive amount each day to gain any nutrition and the females are only capable of conceiving for around 36 hours a year, without human interaction one really does wonder if they would still be in existence?

[charlie crocodile]

Colchester Zoo is just down the road from me so I get to visit regularly with the kids, I find it a fascinating place and they clearly spend a lot of money each year expanding the zoo for the animals, not necessarily getting additional animals, but making bigger enclosures.

One distressing part is the chimps, they've rescued one which was used for animal experimentation and whenever the group of chimps argue she simply sits there rocking back and forth against the cage. There's a sign explaining that she was rescued and this is simply her way of coping with with the environment. I guess at the zoo she's fed, watered and has shelter, in the wild she more than likely wouldn't survive.

Oh, and there was one incident last year where they performed a bird of prey display, as they do every day, where the bird flew into the lion enclosure with loads of kids watching. Circle of life sprang to mind!

[Timothy]

Speaking as someone who has spent much of the last week on safari, and seen these amazing animals in the wild, ranging over tens of miles (we have tracked leopards, elephants and rhinos for hours at a time), to confine them to a zoo just seems abominable. They need space and territory.

[Paul_Sengupta]

What irks me is that the human population has grown to such an extent that there aren't vast swathes of natural habitat left. This is apparent in countries such as India and various countries in Africa, where wildlife is now in reserves, with the rest of the land being given over to human habitation.

[Timothy]

True, but don't knock the reserves. They are absolutely massive, and are protected from poachers and any other man created dangers. I guess it's a matter of glasses being half full or half empty, but, given the pressures from humans, the reserves are massively important.

[Rotorboater]

Not everyone can afford to go on Safari & it's really not suitable for a 3 year old, zoos give children their 1st chance to see the real animals and the bigger ones, like Chester zoo, seem very well run & the keepers are incredibly well informed and enthusiastic. There is still a place for them.

[Bill McCarthy]

So, you need a 'kin degree to be a monkey keeper - doesn't that just say it all, when any toe rag can be a keeper of children. Nature reserves may be massively important but yet, poachers are whittling down rhino and elephant numbers within them, and still they allow the super rich to blast away at the drugged lion or two. If I had my way I'd round up the poachers and the quasi lion hunters and set them loose slap bang in the middle of a hungry pride to see how they'd manage.

[Timothy]

Bill,

Where I am, the efforts being put in to control poaching are massive; the people here say that they are very effective, though not 100% so.

Funnily enough, the conservationists are broadly for hunting. Generally the hunted animals are the ones on their last legs anyway (I don't think they are drugged, but they are often old or sick) and the hunters pay stupid money for the privilege of doing what nature would do quite soon anyway. (Also, animals are being killed naturally in their thousands every day anyway - including the big five - so the effect of the odd rifle bullet is somewhat marginal.)

That money gets ploughed back into conservation and pays for more habitat protection and poaching control.

So the people here (who are life-long passionate on the subject) are actually reasonably sanguine that things are moving in very much the right direction.

[Bill McCarthy]

Timothy,
I agree that culling is necessary to prevent prolonged suffering in any animal, but film of the wealthy, taking a shot at a healthy lion preening himself in the shade of a tree has me climbing the walls. The Chinese have a lot to answer for with their unquenchable thirst for ivory, tiger and Silverback "parts". Perhaps we ought to turn the tables on them and show footage of someone consuming a Giant Panda to see if they get the message.

[JoeC]

Zoos are about entertainment aren't they? I think the conservation thang has been tacked on over the last 4 or 5 decades. I'm sure some do good work but if it really was about conservation and education they would be run, funded and presented completely differently.

I think that David Attenborough/BBC has done more for education, inspiration and raising consciousnesses of the the natural world through the power of good program making than any zoo masquerading as a worthy cause.