Zoo-ology
Greg Laden has written a good post on the recent slaughter of a tiger.
That phrase is ambiguous on purpose. Tatiana the tiger killed someone, and was killed for it. It’s a tiger-eat-man-and-gets-shot-down world, eh? As Laden says:
It should always be assumed that large carnivores are deadly…. that’s why we call them l a r g e … c a r n i v o r e s…. See? Carn - i - vores = meat eater. Large meat eater. Large meat eating beast. Look out! Why do people not get this?
He goes on to question the very existence of zoos. Zoo visitors are notoriously bad at behaving themselves, often taunting the animals, trespassing and in other ways putting themselves and others in danger.
Should there be zoos, then? A couple of years back I visited what I believe is the largest zoo in Sweden as part of a course in ethology. We got to personally meet a pack of four male wolves, which was an extremely powerful experience, as well as see the “backstage” lion cage. We were told not to go too close to the bars, because although they were quite close together, lions could still fit a claw or two through them, and these captive lions have absolutely no respect for humans. That’s what happens when you try to treat large carnivores well: They see you as a bipedal snack. Wild lions at least have marginal respect for humans, because they don’t know us as well.
Let’s just say a male lion lunging at you is one of the scariest things imaginable. Even if there are thick iron bars between you and him.
One of my coursemates made the mistake of staring into the eyes of a silverback gorilla a moment too long. That also created quite a ruckus.
Anyway, apart from the large carnivores, the zoo obviously also keeps dolphins, giraffes and other animals. We were told that apart from quite a lot of research being done on site, many of the endangered animals are used for breeding. Zoos, the keepers explained, exist for conservation purposes.
I can understand that, and I don’t really see any better way. If we need to help animals to breed, then we need to keep animals in captivity in some way. The question, I suppose, is whether zoos should really be built for visitors (other than students of biology), or whether we ought to start thinking ONLY of conservation and research. Chances are the cages would then be constructed in ways better for the animals and safer for the humans. But the educational aspect and public outreach would be completely lost. Are a few maimed visitors and mad monkeys worth it?
zoo, carnivores, tigers, lions, wolves
It is a tough call. I know a lot of people who would prefer there to be no zoos. I still think there can be a lot of value to children and curious adults, insofar as they learn and are xposed to these animals, they may be moved to help in some way. Nothing is more powerful than meeting them face face to help conservation.
In David Brin’s powerful novel “Earth”, the zoos have moved only to conservation and are referred to as Arks or Lifearks. The idea being that they are massive, massive completely contained as-close-to-natural as you can get environments to protect the animals until human interference on Earth begins to reverse. An interesting idea at any rate.
Comment by The Flying Trilobite — December 30, 2007 @ 14:45
Like flying trilobite I would also say that the benefits outweigh the costs. I think that zoos make people more empathic towards animals. I would prefer a movement toward making zoos as animal-friendly as possible.
Comment by Anders Rasmussen — December 31, 2007 @ 11:28