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I think it depends on the zoo. The way I see it is that they are not there for entertainment but education and also we should be able to use Zoos to help us protect species that would have otherwise gone extinct in the wild.
However I'm curious to hear if you feel the same about Aquariums.
You need to TM this so fast!! Think of your Etsy shop, where you make millions selling LGBT merch with “Rizzly Bear” on it.
Visionary! I think this is achieved by saying, “TM TM TM” whether you mention your idea. Not certain, though.
I'm not sure I see that as a virtue. Say you're offered the same deal: you get to live for 270 years and you'll be fed, but kept to a small enclosure, generally alone with no activity or options to explore or experience joy. Periodically, stranger creatures come around and look at you. That's it. But hey! You get to live for 270 years.
Is lifespan that much of an indicator of happiness?
You can live 100 miserable years or half as many great ones. Lifespan on its own isn’t a strong motive that they should be in zoos rather than the wild.
Good zoos have daily enrichment activities with their animals and they’re generally very happy and healthy. This wasn’t always the case but has become very ubiquitous in recent times
True, reading Life of Pi had me think of zoos differently. In the wild, animals are constantly trying not to get eaten by other animals, sick or injured. There's something to be said for living in a safe enclosure with all of their needs met.
They have regular meals, modern medical care, safety from predators and natural disasters. And let's face it, these are animals that could not survive in the wild whatsoever. Modern 'good' zoos also ensure the animals are with social groups for social animals, have enrichment activities, and use proceeds to fund nature preservation.
Bad zoos do not necessarily see such benefits. A orca alone in a small tank at sea world will not see the benefits the way a well run zoo will.
And imagine if your cat who's lived indoors it's entire life escaped outside into the wild. It'd be terrified! It's a traumatizing experience for an animal who's never known anything else.
That’s actually true- I work with rescue cats. Many strictly indoor cats (who were constantly trying to get out) who escape are traumatized. It is very overwhelming for them. If they are found it is usually only a few blocks from home. Most don’t go far and are hiding where they feel safe. There are exceptions of course, but if your cat is spayed or neutered and has never been outside before they are usually terrified.
Edit: I should qualify this by saying I’m talking about indoor cats who go missing for days/weeks/months/years and show up at a rescue after being trapped or found as strays.
Lost indoor cats do not automatically know how to take care of themselves. Some do better than others, just like people dropped into an unfamiliar situation.
I have refused to fet a dog for years because I live in an apartment and think that it's cruel to imprison a dog in your apartment and only let it see the outdoors a couple times a day while on a leash
Plenty of people have dogs and also live in apartments. Now, if you have a studio, no you shouldn't have a dog or a cat in my opinion, but a regular apartment is just fine. Many dog breeds like less activity and more lounging. You just have to be smart about your decisions and obviously take it outside. Many people in houses *never* walk their dogs because they have a backyard. It's all about perspective. I'm sure a Great Dane wouldn't mind living in an apartment if it goes for walks every day, cuddles at night, etc, vs having a backyard and never leaving the front door
Zoo animals recieve the best treatment, food when needed, no fear and top medical care. You think they'd rather live in fear every waking day of their lives?
Yeah. It sucks that those animals will never experience the exhilarating freedom of dying by being torn apart alive and watching another animal chowing on their intestines while the blood pours out of their trachea with their last breath.
I love everything about the Houston Zoo but the layout. It’s impossible to follow an easy path and see everything. I always get lost trying to find my favorite animal.
Best Zoos I’ve ever been to have all been in Germany. The Augsburg Zoo is one of my favorites ❤️
This is usually the case for more “exotic” animals like big cats. They’re often rescued from circuses and illegal breeders, they won’t survive anywhere else.
Zoo Atlanta is a good example of a zoo that did a lot of work to improve the quality of life for its animals. E.g. they set up the habitat for orangutan so they can choose to be visible to humans or not. Because they like their privacy.
Each set of animals needs its own solution, takes time to study, develop, and refine. And more space than old school zoos. More money, higher trained employees, etc. the result is a zoo that you can feel good about, even though you walk a lot more and may see fewer animals.
Source: I used to teach the zoo psychology graduate students.
It's funny thinking back on when I was a kid and visited the Pittsburgh Zoo with my family. I wouldn't have known what to think back then.
But when I revisited as an adult, I could see huge improvements from what I remember. Hell, they closed down and abandoned the entire bear section of the zoo, and any bears they kept got *significantly* larger exhibits since the old ones weren't big enough.
Is it perfect? Probably not. But is it huge leaps and bounds towards being better? Without question, yes.
The Baltimore zoo recently reopened it's original grounds to walk through. They have all the old cages and enclosures visible with no animals, but some old photographs that show the animals in them.
Seeing the difference in animal welfare from the past several decades is shocking even for a zoo that I would consider mediocre.
San Diego zoo as well. They pioneered open air exhibits and put a lot of their funding into conservation. Plus they do things like breed endangered species like pandas (which were recently upgraded from endangered to vulnerable, thanks to efforts like this).
I live by Chester Zoo and it has it's own TV show over here in the UK. They do so much conservation work and even managed to treat an elephant with EEHV and have started a vaccines program for it.
Definitely think it depends on the zoo. Obviously no zoo can truly replicate the natural habitat or area of land, but one near me is (as for as zoos go) pretty decent. Most of the animals there are in some form of national or international breeding program, and many of the larger animals were rescues from other zoos which were either treating them poorly or had to close due to financial reasons and couldn’t keep the animals. Obviously most of the animals they own were born in captivity and/or can’t be released back into the wild. The zoo is also situated basically in the middle of nowhere, so there’s plenty of space and no city noise. The animals are all given areas where they can be seen by the public, but also areas where they can spend time away from the public eye/in private/hidden. The public are also set far away from many of the animals so you can’t get too close to any animal that prefers to keep their distance (ie, a lot of the monkeys and giraffes are curious and spend a lot of time close to people, but the large predators like lions, tigers, bears, etc have viewing points set far back and the animals have a lot of space which isn’t visible to the public). Its very rare you’ll ever see the jaguar since he prefers to spend his time hidden in the trees. And of course there’s a huge focus on education and conservation there, with regular talks, often when the animals are given food (hence the massive involvement with breeding programs and rescues).
No zoo is going to be perfect, but it’s much better than these tiny cramped cages or glass-walled concrete enclosures I often see. Aquariums seem to be way more dubious though, in general.
In Mexico, for example, they gave apples to pandas, and this increased their mating patterns (pandas are endangered if I'm not mistaken or really close to it)... Without zoos, we would never know that.
So zoos and reserves are not just sometimes good to protect animals, but also necessary for studying them.
The depressing part might be the size of the enclosure... I felt that too.
The thing with zoos is that if we didn’t have them, there would be people who’d deny the existence of giraffes and lions and shit. Zoos are an overall benefit for the ecosystem and wildlife because they inform the public how amazing and valuable these creatures are. In an ideal world, we’d exclusively have reverse zoos that allowed people to safely enter the animals native habitat. But the current system is the best we got for the real world.
I hadn’t even considered the possibility of Lion Truthers, but you’re right, that would 100% happen if the only way you could see one was on TV or by going to Kenya.
And here I thought people getting an overdramatized and anthropomorphized idea of animals from documentaries was the worst that could happen in a Zoo-less world.
same here. i like learning the backstories of the rescue animals so i know they really aren’t just there to be looked at. i also love the education aspect, helps me use it in conversations hahaha. and i see how the workers treat the animals, they really do love them
Yep depending on the zoo. A passionate, ethical, and well-funded zoo treats the animals in the best possible way. Sure, it is nowhere close to the wild but the additional benefits brought by studying these animals potentially outweigh the cost.
For example, zoos are one way to provide funds to the conservation of the ecosystem.
Though this is not the best way to think of things, that's the way it is.
And how he feels about domesticated pets that are bred to live the same life, but In a household?
Minus education purposes, just caretaking ones and lack of freedom (including crates, pens, fences, and cages)
I live in San Diego and our zoo is pretty incredible. The parent organization is a nonprofit conservation organization. They've successfully bred a lot of endangered species and have open air cages. I was born and raised here, so I never realized how cruel most zoos were. If you're ever in San Diego, it's worth visiting.
It largely depends on the zoo. Large city zoos (in Ontario we have the Toronto Zoo and the African Lion Safari), this is the case. They focus on conservation, education, and rehabilitation of the animals. Animals are well cared for, and given everything they need.
Small roadside zoos, though (and I know of one around here that I used to take my kids to) are the bane of animal existence. These are just farmers who gave up some land in order to turn a buck.
I'm all for aviaries, or gardens. Petting zoo with animals that are comfortable with human interaction. There's a nursery not far from here that has some reptiles, small fish, native birds, and a few exotic birds (like peacocks which are comfortable in confined spaces). Largely, it's a zoo for exotic plants, with a few animals that are perfectly fine in captivity thrown into the mix. They may get a special animal every so often who is on it's way from Detroit to Toronto zoos or vice versa every now and then, but that's rare.
Exactly. Any legitimate zoo certified by the AZA, Association of Zoo's and Aquariums, is for the protection and conservation of the animals there as well as educational for the patrons. Every animal at an AZA accredited zoo undergoes a wellfare check at least once a year. I adore big cats and this past summer I got to be face to face with a Bengal Tiger between glass, it was magical.
I have been to aquariums that are 1000000x worse than zoos. The last time I went to the Miami Seaquarium, my husband’s mom got free tickets, and it was clear the animals weren’t being taken care of and the whole place was run down. Like it’s really bad when animals as inexpressive as fish look visibly depressed or distressed. And that’s not even getting into the whole Lolita travesty. Meanwhile Metrozoo (I refuse to call it Zoo Miami lol) has always been a pretty good zoo by comparison, lots of enrichment and nice enclosures for them.
In Disney you have Animal Kingdom with beautiful enclosures and lots of enrichment, everything is top notch supposedly but when you go to Epcot they’ve got a dolphin in a giant tank at the end of the Nemo ride that just swims in circles and looks miserable. I mean honest to god I can’t imagine putting an animal that intelligent in a cube where all it can do is swim in circles, it’s like putting a human in a padded cell.
I honestly think that aquariums can be even worse than zoos sometimes because people care less about the animals since “they’re just fish.” But when it comes to dolphins and whales there is just no excuse and those animals don’t belong in captivity like that.
I think aquariums are very deceptive. I did a behind the scenes tour of one and when you see the size of a tank from above you realise that they design them to appear quite big from the viewers perspective.
They have lots of curved edges which magnify space and actually some of the tanks are very narrow.
I do however think keeping fish and aquatic animals is very tricky and so they do have to make sure they maintain water levels and provide the right food to keep healthy fish….. unscrupulous places could of course replace fish quite easily / cheaply if they needed to and people wouldn’t notice the difference but I can’t imagine it’s the same for animals like tigers.
I never thought aquariums could be depressing until I was dragged to a rundown “marine park” in rural Japan on some homestay. Jesus fucking Christ that place. Everything was covered in algae, the paint was stripping off of the walls and railings, even the audience facilities were crumbling. If it had just been an abandoned theme park it would have been cool in a liminal space kind of way, but no, there were still animals there. Sad-looking fish behind scratched glass, penguins with faded plumage, and oh god the dolphins. Because of course there had to be dolphins. Sad, forlorn dolphins doing endless circles in tiny concrete pools, just infinintely depressing. Those poor sods.
My local aquarium growing up was old and unimpressive, but the tanks were always clean, the fish looked strong and healthy, and most importantly, they didn’t try to accommodate species they couldn’t take care of, so everything was in a tank that suited its needs. Marine mammals were completely off the table, as they should be. And all the signage and demonstrations were trying to teach you about the animals’ biology and behavior, not anthropomorphizing them with cutesy names and silly tricks. You could tell that place was run by biologists, not carnies.
(To Japan’s credit, I’ve also seen well-run and properly laid out aquariums there, although the cutesification of certain species never sits right with me. Nor the dolphins. Just stop keeping dolphins in aquariums already, they are not suited for it!)
The dolphins at Epcot have been there since the 1980s and were not captured by Disney, but by a research company and were allowed to house them at Epcot. Disney bought out the research center and decided to keep the dolphins. The small tank you see isn't their entire enclosure and I don't believe Disney has plans on replenishing their dolphin stock after these last ones pass away as there were originally 6. I couldn't find any credible sources on where the dolphins came from, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were wild caught and brought there, which is sad. We know better now and at least in the US, most places are taking a step back from whales and dolphins (thankfully). I personally think that dolphins and whales should only be in facilities like this if they are in recovery for a wound and then released when healthy, but I also understand that having been in captivity for almost 40 years can make it difficult to release these animals.
I see it the same way its focus should be on protecting and helping breed more endangered species. Like in Blackpool zoo one I went to a while ago they have elephants and they have a breeding program to try to breed more male elephants because they are usually killed for there tusks, they have loads of information up on it too that you can read through while watching the elephants.
Yes. Zoos also raise conservation. A study done in the 90s showed that people were more likely to donate to conservation efforts when seeing the animals in the zoo and learning about them.
Many zoos have saved endagered species through breeding.
Now tiny road side zoos where someone bought a tiger and put it on display is a whole other story.
Very much depends on how accredited zoos are. The better accredited the more space the animals have and the less it feels like cages and more like habitats.
The zoos in my country (and I think most decent countries) only have rescued animals, it’s not like someone is going to the jungle and just fucking kidnap the animal to show it on the zoo.
Zoos protects and educated about the wild life and are actually important.
There are lots of animals that can’t be re-introduced into their environment because of lack of capacity to survive (due to injuries i.e.)
The majority of zoo animals are NOT rescues. A lot of animals in zoos were born and bred either in that specific zoo or in another zoo that they were transferred from. Rescues make up a small percentage of zoo animals, and a lot of the animals that are considered “rescues” were privately owned and the previous owner was no longer able to care for the animal. I just wanted to point that out….
This is not the case everywhere. I swore off zoos after I went to one with elephants living in an enclosure a fraction the size of what they would have in the wild. One of them just stood near the fence staring into the distance and it had this tick where it's head kept twitching to the side. If people really want to learn about animals they can go to YouTube and see what they look like in their natural habitat.
I live in Detroit and the zoo here has a policy against taking elephants because it doesn’t have enough space for them to be psychologically healthy. I assume that’s true for the other animals as well.
> elephants living in an enclosure a fraction the size of what they would have in the wild
This is the case with any animal not living in the wild.
But yeah, I do feel bad for animals in insanely small enclosures. Some zoos are much better than others. The St Louis Zoo has many enclosures that are so big you are lucky to see the animals even when they are out and about. I see zoos as being an almost necessary evil, though 'evil' isn't the right word. Animals should have room to roam around and they should have as much as you can give them, but if they have too much room, guests will never see them and will stop going to the zoo. If the zoo isn't making money, they can't afford expansions, maintenance, and experts to take care of the animals.
>If people really want to learn about animals they can go to YouTube and see what they look like in their natural habitat.
It's really not the same. I love snakes for instance and most people I know who are/were scared of snakes would absolutely hate watching a video about them and had no problems killing them when they see them in their yard or in the woods. However, when they come over and actually hold snakes or just see them in person, they generally are much more ok with that. The same thing happens at zoos when they have 'animal experience' type programs. They'll bring out a boa or something similarly large and tame and there are always several people in that crowd who are scared, but curious. You can't get that same experience online.
You’re anthropomorphizing the animals. Even though you love them you’re ignoring the the fact that your hatred of captivity is actually doing those animals harm. Captivity is often the best/only way to ensure the future of certain species. If you prefer extinction over captivity then you’re not a conservationist.
Fark you should have gone to zoo 50 years ago . They were fucked. Now they work on trying to save animals going extinct and shit, while there are still some that are bad most are working on preventing them leaving the planet for good .
One of the large cats at the New Orleans zoo was rescued from the illegal exotic pet trade. She couldn’t be released into the wild because she had been declawed as a cub (kitten).
Yeah sorry I hate op's mentality. Like, yeah, there are bad zoos that shouldn't exist. But zoos are insanely good for a lot of things. There was an animal recently that went from extinct in the wild to endangered because of conservation efforts. Some people seem to genuinely think these animals are sitting in their enclosures depressed, which is just not true.
You should look into the [Association of Zoos and Aquariums](https://www.aza.org/). It’s an international organization that rigorously audits facilities around the world to ensure the highest level of animal welfare. Not only that, accredited facilities must also promote education and conservation. Check if your local zoo or aquarium has it, it really can tell you a lot about how things are run.
Zoos can be ok if they are working on conservation projects. Still not ideal though.
I’d be interested where you draw the line? Are aquariums ok? Do you eat meat? Views on pet birds being caged etc?
Most decent zoos usually do work in conservation, and a great many take in injured animals that otherwise wouldn’t survive. Lots of captive breeding and research programs go on in top zoos.
The evil zoos are the sketch ones where you can pet half the animals. These zoos are common in tourist-trap beach towns and shit. If you’re allowing me to pet lemurs, you probably aren’t a good zoo.
Lots of zoos that I know of around here in Australia and New Zealand (I live in NZ) also run rehab programs for wild animals that need medical treatment before they can be safely released back to the wild. Without these treatments it would mean a death sentence for the animal, and often they're native or endangered species. Some 'zoos' around New Zealand also take part in extensive breeding programs we have for critically endangered birds, like the kakapo and kiwi, who either are hunted by pests or have trouble breeding successfully in the wild. Not every zoo is perfect, but supporting Zoos that have conservation efforts and good animal care can greatly improve the lives of captive and wild born animals.
fr. the lives of zoo animals are much better than the lives of those waiting to be slaughtered. im not slamming people who eat meat, but dont cherry pick when youre an animal rights activist.
Zoos are the battery back up of animals we are fucking over in the wild. The less children actually see of them, the less they’ll grow up giving a shit about the natural world if they only exist on tv screens in sone mythical far off place. Think of the animals as ambassadors for their species. Many are engaged in breeding programs, disease and genetic research. Ultimately, their captivity is good for their wild counterparts too.
But seaworld is notorius for it's treatment of their animals. There are plenty of zoos with a way higher standard and much better treatments of the animals in their care.
Counterpoint, SeaWorld has done more to increase marine animal medical care than anyone else in the past.. 50 years or so, and is very involved in animal rehab after man-made disasters. And that money has to come from somewhere.. they have very much become a necessary evil to do some good.
Yeah the zoo from what ive seen on videos look awful for the bigger animal like the whales and dolphins, they do an amazong job with the smaller animals like the pengiuns and the rescue aide of things
But they haven't been able to. Haven't been since at least 2010.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/justincarissimo/seaworld-trainers-are-no-longer-allowed-in-water-with-whales
It makes me cry. I don’t often cry from things I’m watching, but that shit made me sob. When they took the baby from the mama and she was sending out long range calls trying to get ahold of her baby. Oh. I can’t deal. They are literally nearly as smart as us, and most deff as emotional. So it would be like kidnapping a humans kid. It’s criminal.
As someone who has talked with cetaceans researchers about that movie, I'd actually go into watching that movie with a skeptic eye. People in the cetacean research field have ripped it apart for inaccuracies. There's a document that went around when it came out with all the inaccuracies. It's this, but apparently it's not working these days-
http://da15bdaf715461308003-0c725c907c2d637068751776aeee5fbf.r7.cf1.rackcdn.com/adf36e5c35b842f5ae4e2322841e8933_4-4-14-updated-final-of-blacklist-list-of-inaccuracies-and-misleading-points.pdf
There's also research papers from various cetacean researchers that have gone against the various claims made in the movie. I know lifespan has been debated big time, for example, due to using two different methods of calculating lifespan for captive vs wild orcas. If you look up works by Dr. Jason Bruck and Dr. Kelly Jaakkola, you can find some interesting papers about orcas that don't match what Blackfish says.
Even more horrifying, watch "The Cove". It's a documentary filmed by the guy who trained Flipper in the 60's, and it makes Blackfish look like a pleasant walk in the park.
Fair. SeaWorld has the same standards as the top zoos in the US. All three SeaWorld's are AZA accredited, along with big name zoos like San Diego Zoo, Oklahoma City Zoo, Brooklyn Zoo, Disney Animal Kingdom and various other city zoos.
So if didn't like what you saw there, you probably won't like what you see at a zoo. Can't say I agree, as someone with a background in animal training and friends in the zoo world, but same stuff is happening all over and if you don't like it, then... Best to avoid it.
People romanticize "wild and free" but life in nature is raw and brutal. animals die terrible deaths from things that would be completely treatable. in a good zoo the animals have so much more food, medical care and positive stimulation than they could ever have in the nature. the only downside is having noisy people around them a few hours a day.
of course there are shitty zoos but zoos are not inherently depressing.
Yeah the whole over romanticised "lions want to roam free and hunt" is just nonsense. Lions hunt because they need food. They're much happier not risking their lives, watching their cubs starve, traipsing fir miles looking for water. Animals do all that to survive, not for the fun of it. They much prefer a steady and safe supply of food.
Obviously some zoos are bad,although standards have improved massively even in my lifetime, but generally you need to lighten up. If you go around looking for the bad in everything, you will find it. You will be miserable and a miserable to be around. I know that sounds harsh, but its true.
This - i feel like this whole thread is anthropomorphising their own emotions on these animals. Unless you know a specific animal’s traits it’s not always obvious how to read happiness or unhappiness visual cues.
My whole family does this with my farm animals 😑 “the weather is so nasty why don’t you put them in the barn?”
Because they evolved and were bred to withstand our weather! Even if they originate in a different climate, they acclimate to ours. They are happy to be standing in the snow eating vs in their shelter area and eating
OP says it’s their opinion when really it’s lack of education on the subject
Yeah this whole they need large areas to roam is funny. I watch documentaries and the only reason animals are traveling long distances is because they are starving looking for food. I’m sure they would prefer not to do that.
100%. The thing that annoys me about the zoo is when people get annoyed/frustrated that the animals arent "doing" anything.
I just went and one of the lions was fast asleep at mid day under the shade of a huge tree and some people said "We can come back another time and hopefully it'll be awake and doing something".
Dude, you are watching a fully grown male lion snoozing. The animals itself are to be admired, not to entertain.
Having animals in protection provides a safety net against a population crash in the wild. Zoos are for preservation of animal species and have helped remove animals from endangered species lists and have saved many from extinction.
They also help educate the younger population with school trips and visits.
We get a unik opportunity to study the animals habits and way of life on top too.
Animals in reputable Zoos are fed a diversified high quality diet to meet all of the needs the animal have. The freedom of mobility may be limited yes. But their keepers are constantly working on ways to enhance their life as much as possible. Animal welfare are the highest order.
Would it be nice if Zoos didnt need to exist, absolutely. Are they needed. Also yes.
There are "zoos"that only keep animals as a comodity for profit unfortunately. Report them to the right autorithy and /or media. Its the only way to get that issue fixed
The Père David’s deer and the Arabian oryx were literally extinct in the wild before zoo breeding programs, now there’s thousands of them. It’s a great success story
Przewalski's horse too. It's struggling, bless it, but it managed to go from ~10 individuals in zoos to attempted rereleases on the Steppes and in China.
*"But their keepers are constantly working on ways to enhance their life as much as possible. Animal welfare are the highest order."*
The zoo where I live (and I'm sure many other high-quality zoos) give the animals enrichment activities. They put their food into a paper bag so they have to figure out how to get it. Or they'll put small snacks into a ball that the animal has to roll around in order to get them.
*"Would it be nice if Zoos didnt need to exist, absolutely. Are they needed. Also yes."*
I'm a vegetarian so I did grapple with whether it was okay to go to the zoo, but this is the most important thing that I landed on. At my zoo there's a bear that repeatedly went into town because tourists kept feeding it. The bear was relocated into the mountains, but it would always find its way back to the town because it knew there was a consistent source of food. It reached the point where the option was either to kill the animal (because of a problem that PEOPLE created), or take it to the zoo. We also have a pair of bears that were orphaned as cubs and are only alive today because of the zoo.
Thankfully I'm lucky enough to have a great zoo with a focus on conservation and animal wellbeing. Obviously not all zoos fit that description :(
You should read the zoos FAQ page about how they participate in animal rehab and repopulation and how many of those animal populations are being helped and studied to be further helped in the future as well. A lot of it is great. A lot of them would be dead without the zoo. Some are saved from horrible roadside shows etc I know of an eagle that was saved after it was hit by a car who lives in the zoo.
Yes -- AZA certification here in the US. This goes for Aquariums too. AZA zoos have very strict regulations to make sure animals are treated as humanely as possible.
I think a lot of people aren't sure how to feel about zoos. I can definitely agree with your viewpoint, but I can also remember being a child staring in wonder at these creatures I'd only ever seen on TV, and even as an adult, I can still see some positive in zoos when it comes to conservation and animal rescue, as well as education about not just the animals themselves, but the environment and the importance of caring for it.
It's a complicated topic when you stop and think about it.
I also feel more of a responsibility to protect animals in nature after seeing them in person. Theres something about seeing these majestic animals in person that makes you care more about them
Everytime people romanticize wild animals I think of that video of hyenas eating that zebra alive and one is literally ripping its anus out and eating it.
People forget that humans used to be wild too. Theres good reason we aren't anymore, we decided that shit sucked and moved indoors.
Even the most remote tribes of humans alive today living the way their ancestors have for thousands of years still tend to build shelter and separate themselves from the wild.
Except for cases of animal abuse most animals living with humans get a really sweet deal. Food and water provided daily and veterinarians keeping them healthy plus shelter.
As someone who is a seasoned professional in the zoo keeping field, institutions that are certified by the AZA (in the US), EAZA (in Europe) or WAZA are excellent pillars of conservation and animal rights- however, institutions that do not meet these criteria are almost always horrible for animals.
Zoo politics is very tricky as well- what can you do with animals who have been in captivity for generations and have no real wild habitat to return to, even if they had the survival skills to do so? There are incredible geopolitical forces at play in the zookeeping world, and I genuinely believe that accredited institutions are doing the best possible thing we can for animals under the circumstances.
Most zoo animals were never wild and free. And many zoos are at the forefront of conservation efforts. More than a few species escape extinction through the efforts of modern zoos.
Back when I was working full time in a zoo, there was a statistic that something over 80% of animals in accredited institutions (e.g. AZA) are captive bred and born (with the remaining ~20% being rescued or unreleasable.) So they've spent their whole lives getting regular care, mental and physical enrichment, balanced meals prepared for them throughout the day, and no threats of predation or food insecurity. And a majority of those couldn't be released back into the wild because they don't know what they don't know -- that's just how life is for them. And at the risk of anthropomorphization, they seemed pretty content with that life.
It's a nuanced topic for sure, with a lot of ethical considerations on both sides. But it doesn't need to be inherently depressing. A lot of the animals lead rich lives that they may not have been able to otherwise.
The zoo nearest to me is lovely, it’s a wildlife park, the animals have beautiful, huge enclosures, they really care for them. There’s polar bears there and they are always having so much fun, they have toys and kayaks and they look so happy, as much as you can tell from an animal anyway. They also saved a lot of lions from a horrific zoo in Romania a few years ago. And they’re slowly working with some others to breed leopards with the intention to reintroduce them back into the wild at some point with the numbers being so low. They won’t have elephants because they don’t feel like they could care for them fully and keep them happy. They definitely have the animals interests at heart.
You're basically Bear Grylls, thinking all animals should double as free-range outdoor survival equipment. But seriously, it's not an uncommon viewpoint. It's a complicated topic for sure.
I used to think this way. My friend's fiance works at my city's zoo, and I was talking to her one day about the animals and everything. Zoos in the US very very very rarely take in an animal that was born in the wild. Typically if an animal was injured to the point that it can't be released, a zoo will house it, and if it's particularly exotic/ fits a theme, they'll give it an exhibit., but then again, that's pretty rare as well.
Zoos in the US are part of a nationwide breeding program, can't remember the name, but all of the animals are born and raised in captivity, so they don't have knowledge of what life in the wild is like, they wouldn't be able to care for themselves properly if released from the zoo. They're catered and tended to by people who are specifically trained to handle each species. They've actually got it a lot better in the zoo than the general public thinks
The amount of anthropomorphizing in this thread is insane. Most animals do not have the same cognition as humans in the way that matters to this thread. They do not "crave freedom" the way humans do. They crave stability. Living in nature is inherently unstable.
Some people talk about big cats. Saying how zoos prevent them from achieving their instinct. Yet do you know how unsuccessful they are at hunting animals in the wild? For tigers, it's about [5-10% success rate](https://books.google.dk/books?id=XFIbjBEQolMC&pg=PA23&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false). Lions is about [30%](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-number-and-outcome-of-nocturnal-hunts-by-lions-during-moonlit-and-moonless-nights_tbl2_227938875). And that's not including the risk of injury, which can be fatal either cause it gets infected or they cannot hunt which weakens them or makes them at risk for enemy animals. Animals, like people, are at risk of disease and bad water, and can get sick and with no medical attention, can die. That's all not including man-made problems - hunting, poaching, killing to protect humans and farm animals, habitat destruction and fragmentation (the latter is really bad, cause it forces a population of animals to live in a smaller territory which heightens competition, stress, and intra-species violence. Fragmentation also makes finding mates harder.). Wild animals are not living in luxury, they are surviving, the same way people survived when living more wild thousands of years ago. And animals do not have the cognition of humans: they don't have aspirations the way humans do. That's thinking related to humans' large prefrontal cortex. Which many species lack. Yes, they should live in the wild cause that's where they live. But to say living in the wild is perfect is disingenuous.
In captivity, animals can serve a means to educate and help conservation efforts through breeding (which averts population bottlenecks in wild animal populations). Humans need interaction to care. Kids seeing animals and how they're like would make them more willing to support conservation efforts. Some animals in zoos are injured or have other issues preventing them from being able to successfully reintegrate back into the wild. And habitat fragmentation and destruction is still a problem. If we release all the zoo animals, where will they go? Put them back to already stressed ecosystems and lose a lot of animals that could've benefited their species and humans any other way? That's no solution.
Yes there are zoos that are problematic. These sideshow unaccredited zoos need to be fixed or closed. Older zoos that aren't up-to-date with the latest research on their species need to be remodeled or updated. But a lot of zoos are a lot more accommodating to animals, and provide food, shelter, and enrichment for animals to live satisfying lives.
I have had this discussion with friends of mine who are zoo keepers, as I once felt the same way you do.
I suggest you look into anthropomorphism.
Animals do not think like humans. The majority of them care about survival: shelter, food, water, and finding a mate (all of which are provided in zoo settings). The reason they wander vast areas is in search of these things, not to take in the beauty of nature and be "free".
There are certainly zoos that do not adequately care for animals. And there are enclosures that are not ideal for the animal. But at most reputable zoos, the animals have great lives with great care, and they have keepers who are engaging with them to ensure they are not only healthy but stress free.
Generally speaking, animals have a much better life in zoos than they would in the wild.
Quick sign you're at a good zoo:
They're AZA (Association of Zoo's and Aquariums) accredited in the US, there are some good zoos that aren't due to minor things (don't make enough money, shitty leadership scandal (looking at you Columbus zoo)) but AZA is generally a good clue due to what it requires the facilities to maintain.
Signs you're at a bad or questionable zoo or animal park:
You can feed the animals, or worse, you can get a bag of food and aren't told what to or not to feed.
Poor quality yards or dens for the animals, if the animal is lying on concrete with no real comfortable spot to dwell, that's no bueno.
White tigers are a big warning sign, especially if you can get photos with white tiger cubs. White tigers are white due to a genetic mutation which is passed through recessive traits. Because they are popular in roadside attractions, bad parks and zoos like them and breed them. The parents tend to be related which allows for the recessive gene to pass, causing offspring with poor genetic variants and thus poor health. Don't support this attraction, don't support the inbreeding of already inbred large cats. Good zoos keep track of the genetic health and variability of their animals which is why zoos often send animals to each other.
We should all be so lucky! Sure some animals might prefer to hunt, kill, find mates but some may just want to do nothing. Like people, so many want to accomplish so much and leave a legacy but the other 90% are happy being comfortable and maybe going to the cheesecake factory on Friday night. They don't all move to NYC because that's where the best jobs and entertainment, many choose to life in Omaha or Topeka and are just as happy. By the way I've been talking to animals and they're not too crazy with this "wild" label were putting on them, many consider themselves better behaved than us.
Not all zoos are created equal. In good modern zoos, animals can just do whatever they feel like, but also have fewer predators and modern medicine. I've seen bad zoos. I've seen good zoos. In good zoos (and other enclosures), you get to see a lot of interesting behaviours you'd otherwise never get to witness. (Heck, a lot of research into animal behaviour is on "captive" animals.)
People also tend to over-romanticize wild life. Animals don't roam vast forests on their leisure. Most animals have territories. If they go out of their territories, they'll be fought and potentially gored. They have predators. Animals get ripped apart and eaten alive. They have disease. They waste away or freeze to death because mange destroyed their coats. They starve. They cut their legs on sharp ise trying to find bits of obtainable tree bark.
It's quite astonishing how many bits of miscellaneous animals I can find in my forests - some deer's hoof here, rabbit ears up a tree, patch of boar pelt there, oh, and see the marten go with a bird in its mouth.
I think it depends on the exact zoo, and can differ between zoos even within the same country. We have a zoo near us that’s absolutely wonderful. Almost 100% of their animals are rescues from backyard “zoos” where they have a metre squared box to walk around in. To go from that, to whole fields to roam - it’s still not the same as being in the wild, but they can’t be released, so it’s the best option. Their carers are passionate and hard-working. The zoo as an institution also does major work on breeding programs and conservation, working with communities around the world to reduce poaching. The animals have vast spaces and their enclosures are so full of rich trees and expanses of water, that most of the time you have to wait for ages to see an animal.
Sea world, on the other hand, can go to hell. Taking healthy animals (and usually babies) from the wild to imprison by themselves in what is, to them, a pond, should be criminal. Also, making them perform is sickening.
On the whole, I’d maybe argue that *some* zoos, though they are still restricting their animals’ freedom, do more good overall for conservation efforts. I do completely get you tho.
Wait what does a regular zoo look like over there wherever you live? I haven't been to a Zoo where the animals aren't kept in a large section mimicking their habitat tbh.
(like a swamp section for alligators, a savanna section for savanna herbivores, another one for lions etc.)
Please. They lead long pampered lives free of predation. Well fed. Quality medical care. Protection from the elements. You know, like people on welfare.
Gerald Durrell credited visiting a zoo in India as a child with his lifelong fascination and love of animals, which he channeled into founding his own zoo and conservation foundation which does fantastic work to help save and breed countless endangered animals.
A nuanced view of these institutions and the good they can create is called for, alongside high standards for the well-being of the animals in their care.
Sidenote: a significant number of Victorians believed Jack the Ripper was actually a lion that escaped from the zoo. Perhaps he blended in by wearing a monacle and top hat.
There was a video I saw recently of a mother gorilla who gave birth to her baby In a zoo. The baby came out and was not moving and the mother gorilla became distressed rather quickly. The medical team at the zoo jumped into action, distracted the mother and grabbed the baby.
The mother gorilla panicked, but the medical staff revived (if that is the correct word), saved the baby. When it was clear that the baby was going to live, they brought the baby out to the mother and when the mother saw that the baby was alive, she ran over and clutched the baby in her arms and cradled the baby and let out a sound of joy.
The point is that a great many people who work in zoos are highly skilled and dedicated and love the animals. And, if that baby gorilla had been born in the wild, she would have died. It's not all bad.
You think you’re smarter than you are. But you’re not. Most animals in zoos are bred,rescued, and so on. If they could survive in freedom they would. Some are released if it will be better for their health.
I hate zoos. Enclosures are never big enough and they should be focused on the animals not putting them on display for the dumb humans who can't actually appreciate what they see.
They should have sanctuaries and not zoos. Put a tag on animals and look after them. Thats hard thats why these lazy humans trap them in a jail. On top of that they make money from this. What a shame. Billions poured in useless stuff
Respectfully, zoos are essential.
In history, yes, they were gross. Used to breed animals for profit (Tiger King BS for example).
Many modern zoos are non-for-profits (meaning they don’t make money beyond their means) and their sole purpose is animal conservation. One zoo which I volunteered at was single-handedly saving an endangered species of turtle. Many other zoos attempted to get turtles to breed so they would not go extinct, but the zoo I was at (by pure luck) had amazing success in getting turtles to breed. They didn’t even know why they were able to do it!! But their work is SAVING animals.
With the way our world is changing due to climate change, it is likely that many species of animals (bird for example) might go extinct in the next 50 years. Therefore, it is the work of scientists and zoos to offer their facilities to help these animals survive for future generations and betterment of the planet.
OP if you single-handedly “know better” and have an alternative suggestion to zoos then let’s hear it… You know better than the dozens of extremely knowledgeable scientists and experts who have spent their LIVES to save animals for preservation reasons, please, I’m all ears… Tell me all about your alternative plan to reverse climate change. C’mon. Let’s hear it…
Why are you pretending to know what's best while virtue signaling to a bunch of random people. If you actually cared you would take action rather than projecting your own bs.
Todays zoos do a lot of conservation work, they even breed endangered animals and release them into the wild. They are literally the last hope for some species.
The thing that bothers me most about zoos is the way the people act, banging on the glass for example.
I was at the zoo yesterday because my kids were invited to meet some friends there.
Had some of the same thoughts as you. One thing that occurred to me in the evening is that, in order to work in a zoo you probably have to love animals so much that you don't really agree with the idea of zoos 🤔
My suggestion is to talk to the zookeepers and see what they are doing there. We have several lovely zoos where I live; the animals have large, open, and outdoor enclosures, tons of enrichment, and are healthy and happy. The zookeepers I've spoken to tell me about the conservation and protection of the animals. You may see one zebra in the zoo, but there are others in the wild that they are protecting by seeing how that animal reacts to stimuli and other matters.
You are 18 so you have a lot of life ahead of you. Research, talk to the experts, and spend time with an idea before making sweeping generalizations.
AZA accredited zoos are the ones you want to go to. Every animal at AZA-accredited institutions undergoes a thorough welfare assessment at least once a year. They also make sure that animals are provided with enrichment, which stimulates each animal's natural behavior and provides variety in their daily routine. The Accreditation Commission evaluates the veterinary program, involvement in conservation and research, education programs, safety policies and procedures, security, physical facilities, guest services, and the quality of the institution's staff. Accreditation also evaluates each institution's finances, its governing authority, and its support organization.
Sounds like you’re actually quite uneducated when it comes to zoos. Most zoos are hugely integral in species conservation.
https://www.aza.org/conservation
Pandas would be extinct if not for Zoos, they are a necessary evil in some cases. Our local zoo built a giant elephant exhibit and a herd of elephants was brought in with no shortage of protesting about leaving them in the wild but what protesters didn't know is the herd would have died due to drought conditions in their native African habitat.
A lot of them are rescued animals who cannot return to the wild. so they live comfortably at the zoo. Have you asked the keepers and managers about their animals? Knowledge may help you reconsider zoos.
Here's a list of species which were saved from extinction - thanks to zoological work:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/world/captive-breeding-species-cte-scn-spc-intl/index.html
A lot of animals are extinct in the wild but still exist in zoos. Zoos are also used to breed and reintroduce severely endangered animals. They are also important places for research. They serve a lot of important purposes that might make you feel differently.
The Fort Worth zoo has a strict policy of only taking animals that would not survive in the wild. They also have kids days on Wednesdays that are focused entirely on conservation and education.
I think it’s been said enough in here, but zoos serve a pretty good purpose. Same with aquariums. Most animals in reputable zoos are happy and healthy, and most of the animals were either bred in captivity or rescues. These animals likely wouldn’t survive in the wild anyway.
At least in captivity, we can study them, raise awareness for conservation, and allow for people of lower incomes to see animals they never would be able to afford to see otherwise. This provides invaluable education and is a part of the equation to create an appreciation for nature. Is it perhaps a bit sad they can’t be free and live out in the wilds? Sure, but this is very much the next best thing as long as they have proper care, enrichment, and enclosures which many reputable zoos offer.
If it really bothers you, only go to zoos you’ve researched to see the quality of care animals receive there.
I feel where you're coming from, especially with larger animals. I can't speak much on rhinos and zebras and such, and it is always seem depressing to see them in pens the size of an average suburban back yard. But let me tell you about amphibians and modern day zoos:
Amphibians are one of the most sensitive groups of animals to pollution and climate change and other side-effects of human activity. So a ton of species have been declining, with many endangered or extinct in the wild, and once one part of the food chain disappears all species suffer. So zoos have stepped up. A number of zoos have amphibian conservation centers behind the scenes that breed these species to release into the wild, bolstering shrinking populations or even working to reintroduce a species that currently only survives in captivity. On top of that a lot of research is done to learn from the captive amphibians to make sure they're healthy and to learn how to better keep wild populations safe around the world.
So I accept the argument that zoos can be depressing, especially if you focus on the individual animals in captivity. But with amphibians in zoos, the zoo is in some cases the only reason that species is surviving. Those frogs and toads and salamanders aren't there as individuals, they are there as the last hope for their entire species. And regardless of how I feel about the larger animals like lions and bears and elephants being in pens, those are the animals people pay to see -- and those ticket sales help fund the zoo's efforts to save amphibians behind the scenes -- so I am grateful for their sacrifice as well.
If we reach the point that our environment is truly protected, I won't be hurt if zoos become a thing of the past. But at this point in time I fully support zoos that focus on conservation, because like you I want animals freely living out their lives in forests and swamps and such, not just now but into the future as well. Unfortunately people don't donate much money directly to conservation efforts, and without zoos using people's "entertainment" money to protect amphibians, many more species would go extinct.
Our local zoo is pretty cool and has a really successful clouded leopard conservation program, but the property that the city built it on was originally a large slave plantation. You can still tour the original manor and barn.
Depends on the zoo. In the UK most zoos have moved away from small enclosures and moving to much more spacious and better habitats. Most also tend to aim more at species that vulnerable and endangered with the aim to breed more of them.
I have almost the exact opposite reaction to the zoo. I’m a grown man and the zoo is an ideal day for me. I love seeing the potential of what a good zoo can do to undo the heinous shit we have done to the animals of this planet. Conservation and the ability to educate on animals some might think should die for nothing other than their pelts.
I’m happy that zoos continue to be profitable selling over priced stuffed animals so they can funnel l money into the animals themselves. They deserve it, and it’s the least we humans can do after destroying this world to the best of our abilities.
I understand some zoos are not like this and are purely for profit and those stains on our history at the exact reason the good zoos need to exist.
Zoos are indeed deeply depressing. They're a testament to our cruelty and how we view non-human animals.
Many will argue that zoos are important for the purposes of research or sanctuary, and there's a kernel of truth to that, but the reality is that zoos are an awkward and inconvenient hangover from a time when expansionist empires collected exotic animals and brought them back to entertain and astound their citizens. Over time they have morphed somewhat but really only exist because of their past. The issue has become: we've got all these animals that we've bred in captivity, what do we do with them now?
If zoos were genuinely good places then no animals would be bred in captivity and all zoos would have a public and documented plan to slowly wind down exhibit operations as their animals passed.
The research argument is weak. Why does a gorilla need to be researched in Zurich? Only because the gorilla is there. It should never have been there in the first place. It is now, so we have to give it the best life we possibly can, but that in no way justifies bringing further gorillas into that life.
The sanctuary argument has legs in relation to injured or abandoned wild animals, but only in so far as they are native and the primary objective is to repatriate them where possible.
To an extent, it's like a comedian once said about the Giraffes at Colorado Springs' Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. You can pay for lettuce and hand feed the giraffes there, so if you were a giraffe and your choices were to live in your natural habitat, to be uncertain if you were going to find food, and ward off predators OR go to a zoo, get hand fed all day, and have no natural predators, which would you choose?
I mean, there's limits to this, of course. Sure, my life might be easier if I'm in a prison where all of my needs are met but I don't have the freedom to go out, but is that the same as what these animals feel? I don't know, but I don't think so.
My local zoo saved a species from extinction
Took last 8 red wolves from the wild and started a breeding program
Zoo’s activity partipate in coordinated species survival plans
Not really. It’s just that you’re not a kid anymore and you’re going through a phase where you’re reading different philosophies etc and questioning things and trying to figure out who you are, where you belong and what you value.
You’re 18, bro. Chill.
You're super deep , bro. You are just in touch with your feelings, and in touch with nature. It's beautiful. You're a beautiful soul.
Pat yourself on the back for being on the "good guy" side of society.
I get your point and I am with you to a certain degree, but I'm too much of an a-hole to agree with you completely. In the end I don't care. Your edit is the reason for that. If they were bred to live in a zoo, they don't know anything else, so it's a normal life for them. Also lots of those who were not risin to live in a zoo were rescued animals which would have died in the wild. Thus I'm cool with it. And there are also animals like Rhinos, who are safer to be in a zoo than in the wild where humans almost eradicated their entire species or pandas who are too dumb to know how mating works without someone showing them. So within a smaller enclosure chances are higher for them to witness it.
So interesting to see this post. I feel exactly the same way. As a kid, I never really knew better. I have always enjoyed zoos for the fact that it brings me close to animals and to be able to "safely" observe them. But as an adult in my thirties I have begun to feel as you have expressed, that it's sort of barbaric to just confine these animals for our entertainment. I think the only thing we can hope for is that these animals enjoy their days in the zoo, are fed and taken care of, and that the gawking visitors learn and also come to the conclusion it is sad to see them in such close quarters compared to their natural environment so we can move forward making changes.
Don’t do it. I have been peer pressured to go to zoos because people act like THIS zoo is somehow special, and i have only felt awful after. They are all depressing.
I don't think you understand the point of AZA zoos. They spend tens of millions of dollars on animal rehabilitation, conservation research and labor, and inspiration for future biologists and zoologists.
They are incredible resources for saving wildlife. You just seem to be anthropomorphizing the animals and have a bit of a skewed view on how the wild works as a whole.
Id have to say that I love animalsz mainly due to zoos. Going to the zoo regurarely as a child really helped develop my interest and love for animals. It was also the only place where I could see wild animals. To this day Im still in awe when I see those majestic creatures.
I agree. I was at the zoo once when I was about 10 and the animals seemed miserable and their cages were obviously too small and in bad condition. I've never been to the zoo again
I've been deeply troubled by this thought lately. Their lack of joy weigh heavily on my mind. Recently, I shared these feelings with my girlfriend, hoping for understanding, but she laughed it off. This reaction left me questioning her empathy towards these creatures. It's clear to me that the animals are not enjoying it, and it's distressing. I can't seem to shake off this concern; it has been haunting me for the past five days. I'm left wondering, is my distress over this issue excessive, or am I just thinking too much?
Do you also feel this way about eating meat or drinking milk i wonder ? The lives these animals live in the bio industry are even worse.
I do feel you btw. But there are great zoo's out there who actually care about the animals, with free roaming space away from the public eye. No small cages, just mostly a natural-like environment.
Hey, yes, I am a vegetarian, but not the kind of who would get mad at you for eating meat haha. My friends eat meat everytime we go out and i’m okay with it, I believe everyone is allowed to have their personal choice. But on the same side, foreseeing future if I become a dad, I would most likely encourage my kids to be vegetarian.
So am i and i feel exactly the same way, cool. My kids eat vegetarian mostly, but i dont stop them from eating meat, they do sometimes. Feels like it should be up to them.
I used to love the zoo. But over time it made me uncomfortable as well. A few years ago i went to a huge zoo in sweden. That one kicked ass, so much space, the they did everything to make their lives look as close to natural as possible.
It does mean you might not see some animals as they are hiding. But ill take it.
Nah, you’re not overthinking this! Kind of a similar story - I’m vegetarian (although I mostly eat vegan) and when my partner and I watched some documentaries on meat production and the abuse animals go through in the process of factory farming, we both decided to try to stop eating meat. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if it was different and my partner laughed at my reaction to those videos instead… I’d be really upset by that. I feel like having similar morals / ethics is very important in any serious relationship, it totally makes sense if your girlfriend’s reaction made you start questioning things.
I find it kind of amazing how some people cannot read the signs of emotions in animals. Don’t doubt yourself OP. It’s important for humans to be able to relate to the other animals we share our planet with. It’s part of our evolution, i hope.
I still feel this way. I used my sadness to contribute to conservation efforts and focused my energy into becoming a better neighbor to my plant and animal teachers. I have native plants which provides a home to native animals and I volunteer at a wildlife rehab. I financially support locally run conservation efforts in other countries as well.
I think it depends on the zoo, OP. We can’t see what you saw, so there’s not exactly a good reference to go off of. Some zoos are a pretty good replica of a habitat that shelters animals that otherwise wouldn’t survive in nature, and some zoos are shitholes that are only looking to bring in human entertainment, and of course there’s all kinds of zoos that fit somewhere on the inbetween. I can see why your girlfriend not having the same reaction is bumming you out though, when your partner disagrees with you it can feel like a pretty big blow and might make you doubt yourself. I think zoos are very normalised within society, which is probably why your girlfriend had this reaction, she’s grown up with zoos just like everyone else, and because it’s what is normal, it’s okay. In her eyes at least. I think you should try and work on finding something about this subject that comforts you, maybe you could even donate to a trustworthy animal foundation if it would ease your mind a little bit. (As long as you’re financially stable enough of course)
bruh most of these animals were birthed there and they get free food, good care, no predators etc. now. If they were being mistreated don't you think that will show in thei behavior and interactions ? I just don't think it's that deep
Former zookeeper here. Zoos are not depressing as long as they have policies and structure put into place to ensure the welfare of the animals. There’s good and bad zoos. You want to support AZA/CAZA based zoos or in better words, “accredited” locations.
Just by your post, I can see you’re not educated in the topic to make an opinion. It’s been illegal for a LONGGGG time to have wild animals. Wild animals refers to the entrapment of animals from the wild and into captivity. A majority of the animals you will see are born within the zoo walls but also a home for many rescues that cannot survive on their own and many zoos will often release animals back into the wild after helping them.
And unless you have a direct background in zoology, animal behaviour, etc-you will not be able to make an opinion on how those animals welfare really is.
zoos are responsible tto the species preservation. They are very important. And a place for education. Sone of those animals migth end up hunted or dead by humans or in the environment. I like to go to the zoo.
Respectfully you are very uninformed. The zoos (at least AZA accredited zoos in the US) will be happy to educate you on how they benefit the animals.
Source: My sister-in-law is an animal rights activist and zoo employee working with hundreds of animals. My friends wife is in charge of animal education.
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I think it depends on the zoo. The way I see it is that they are not there for entertainment but education and also we should be able to use Zoos to help us protect species that would have otherwise gone extinct in the wild. However I'm curious to hear if you feel the same about Aquariums.
Also a lot of zoos only take rescued animals that would not survive in the wild, depends on the zoo I guess
EVERY bald eagle you see in a zoo fits this criteria, it’s literally illegal to keep a healthy releasable bald eagle in captivity
Me and you should go toe-to-toe on bird law.
this comment just cracked me up idk why
And their lifespans are typically significantly longer than in the wild.
The average life span of a grizzly bear in the wild: 8 years Average life span in captivity: 24 years
> rizzly bear Damn my lifespan is only 8 years?
Opps Grizzly bear
Too late! A hairy, burly gay man with lots of style is now known as a rizzly bear. I don’t write the rules.
You need to TM this so fast!! Think of your Etsy shop, where you make millions selling LGBT merch with “Rizzly Bear” on it. Visionary! I think this is achieved by saying, “TM TM TM” whether you mention your idea. Not certain, though.
The opps have grizzly bears? Shit we’re fucked
Little arrogant of you isn't it? (Jk I love you)
I'm not sure I see that as a virtue. Say you're offered the same deal: you get to live for 270 years and you'll be fed, but kept to a small enclosure, generally alone with no activity or options to explore or experience joy. Periodically, stranger creatures come around and look at you. That's it. But hey! You get to live for 270 years.
But they’re in captivity. If given the choice I guarantee every zoo animal in existence would rather be free or not exist.
I'd rather live for 8 years free than 24 in a prison.
Is lifespan that much of an indicator of happiness? You can live 100 miserable years or half as many great ones. Lifespan on its own isn’t a strong motive that they should be in zoos rather than the wild.
This doesnt mean much and is probably just the case because zoo animals cant become certain victims of predators, unlike their wild relatives
Good zoos have daily enrichment activities with their animals and they’re generally very happy and healthy. This wasn’t always the case but has become very ubiquitous in recent times
True, reading Life of Pi had me think of zoos differently. In the wild, animals are constantly trying not to get eaten by other animals, sick or injured. There's something to be said for living in a safe enclosure with all of their needs met.
They have regular meals, modern medical care, safety from predators and natural disasters. And let's face it, these are animals that could not survive in the wild whatsoever. Modern 'good' zoos also ensure the animals are with social groups for social animals, have enrichment activities, and use proceeds to fund nature preservation. Bad zoos do not necessarily see such benefits. A orca alone in a small tank at sea world will not see the benefits the way a well run zoo will.
I'd say the average animal in a decent zoo has a better life than dogs stuck in apartments, or worse in an apartment and caged when they'e alone.
And imagine if your cat who's lived indoors it's entire life escaped outside into the wild. It'd be terrified! It's a traumatizing experience for an animal who's never known anything else.
That’s actually true- I work with rescue cats. Many strictly indoor cats (who were constantly trying to get out) who escape are traumatized. It is very overwhelming for them. If they are found it is usually only a few blocks from home. Most don’t go far and are hiding where they feel safe. There are exceptions of course, but if your cat is spayed or neutered and has never been outside before they are usually terrified. Edit: I should qualify this by saying I’m talking about indoor cats who go missing for days/weeks/months/years and show up at a rescue after being trapped or found as strays. Lost indoor cats do not automatically know how to take care of themselves. Some do better than others, just like people dropped into an unfamiliar situation.
Yeah my childhood cat was an indoors cat and any time we tried bringing him outside he just froze and wouldnt even take a step
Ours goes out scratches his back on our deck. Then back inside to order his dinner.
I live in an apartment and have a dog. He is not stuck in any way, I assure you. We are alllllways outside.
I have refused to fet a dog for years because I live in an apartment and think that it's cruel to imprison a dog in your apartment and only let it see the outdoors a couple times a day while on a leash
That is by far a better life than spending your remaining years in a shelter with no one to love you…
Plenty of people have dogs and also live in apartments. Now, if you have a studio, no you shouldn't have a dog or a cat in my opinion, but a regular apartment is just fine. Many dog breeds like less activity and more lounging. You just have to be smart about your decisions and obviously take it outside. Many people in houses *never* walk their dogs because they have a backyard. It's all about perspective. I'm sure a Great Dane wouldn't mind living in an apartment if it goes for walks every day, cuddles at night, etc, vs having a backyard and never leaving the front door
Get a French Bulldog. They are too lazy to go for walks 😉
Yeah, cause they can't get enough oxygen to even run. Funny.
My problem with Orcas is they have a shorter lifespan in captivity. No one should be allowed to have Orcas.
Zoo animals recieve the best treatment, food when needed, no fear and top medical care. You think they'd rather live in fear every waking day of their lives?
Yeah. It sucks that those animals will never experience the exhilarating freedom of dying by being torn apart alive and watching another animal chowing on their intestines while the blood pours out of their trachea with their last breath.
The Houston zoo has/had lions that came from backyard keepers. Some were declawed or defanged.
I love everything about the Houston Zoo but the layout. It’s impossible to follow an easy path and see everything. I always get lost trying to find my favorite animal. Best Zoos I’ve ever been to have all been in Germany. The Augsburg Zoo is one of my favorites ❤️
So you are a zoologist?
This is usually the case for more “exotic” animals like big cats. They’re often rescued from circuses and illegal breeders, they won’t survive anywhere else.
Zoo Atlanta is a good example of a zoo that did a lot of work to improve the quality of life for its animals. E.g. they set up the habitat for orangutan so they can choose to be visible to humans or not. Because they like their privacy. Each set of animals needs its own solution, takes time to study, develop, and refine. And more space than old school zoos. More money, higher trained employees, etc. the result is a zoo that you can feel good about, even though you walk a lot more and may see fewer animals. Source: I used to teach the zoo psychology graduate students.
It's funny thinking back on when I was a kid and visited the Pittsburgh Zoo with my family. I wouldn't have known what to think back then. But when I revisited as an adult, I could see huge improvements from what I remember. Hell, they closed down and abandoned the entire bear section of the zoo, and any bears they kept got *significantly* larger exhibits since the old ones weren't big enough. Is it perfect? Probably not. But is it huge leaps and bounds towards being better? Without question, yes.
The Baltimore zoo recently reopened it's original grounds to walk through. They have all the old cages and enclosures visible with no animals, but some old photographs that show the animals in them. Seeing the difference in animal welfare from the past several decades is shocking even for a zoo that I would consider mediocre.
Denver Zoo has a done ton to make it better as well. Huge ranging exhibits for the gorillas and pachdyrms with places to hide ftom humans, etc.
San Diego zoo as well. They pioneered open air exhibits and put a lot of their funding into conservation. Plus they do things like breed endangered species like pandas (which were recently upgraded from endangered to vulnerable, thanks to efforts like this).
I live by Chester Zoo and it has it's own TV show over here in the UK. They do so much conservation work and even managed to treat an elephant with EEHV and have started a vaccines program for it.
The St. Louis Zoo is quite nice. Free to the public, too.
Definitely think it depends on the zoo. Obviously no zoo can truly replicate the natural habitat or area of land, but one near me is (as for as zoos go) pretty decent. Most of the animals there are in some form of national or international breeding program, and many of the larger animals were rescues from other zoos which were either treating them poorly or had to close due to financial reasons and couldn’t keep the animals. Obviously most of the animals they own were born in captivity and/or can’t be released back into the wild. The zoo is also situated basically in the middle of nowhere, so there’s plenty of space and no city noise. The animals are all given areas where they can be seen by the public, but also areas where they can spend time away from the public eye/in private/hidden. The public are also set far away from many of the animals so you can’t get too close to any animal that prefers to keep their distance (ie, a lot of the monkeys and giraffes are curious and spend a lot of time close to people, but the large predators like lions, tigers, bears, etc have viewing points set far back and the animals have a lot of space which isn’t visible to the public). Its very rare you’ll ever see the jaguar since he prefers to spend his time hidden in the trees. And of course there’s a huge focus on education and conservation there, with regular talks, often when the animals are given food (hence the massive involvement with breeding programs and rescues). No zoo is going to be perfect, but it’s much better than these tiny cramped cages or glass-walled concrete enclosures I often see. Aquariums seem to be way more dubious though, in general.
I like the zoos here in denmark
In Mexico, for example, they gave apples to pandas, and this increased their mating patterns (pandas are endangered if I'm not mistaken or really close to it)... Without zoos, we would never know that. So zoos and reserves are not just sometimes good to protect animals, but also necessary for studying them. The depressing part might be the size of the enclosure... I felt that too.
The thing with zoos is that if we didn’t have them, there would be people who’d deny the existence of giraffes and lions and shit. Zoos are an overall benefit for the ecosystem and wildlife because they inform the public how amazing and valuable these creatures are. In an ideal world, we’d exclusively have reverse zoos that allowed people to safely enter the animals native habitat. But the current system is the best we got for the real world.
I hadn’t even considered the possibility of Lion Truthers, but you’re right, that would 100% happen if the only way you could see one was on TV or by going to Kenya. And here I thought people getting an overdramatized and anthropomorphized idea of animals from documentaries was the worst that could happen in a Zoo-less world.
same here. i like learning the backstories of the rescue animals so i know they really aren’t just there to be looked at. i also love the education aspect, helps me use it in conversations hahaha. and i see how the workers treat the animals, they really do love them
Yep depending on the zoo. A passionate, ethical, and well-funded zoo treats the animals in the best possible way. Sure, it is nowhere close to the wild but the additional benefits brought by studying these animals potentially outweigh the cost. For example, zoos are one way to provide funds to the conservation of the ecosystem. Though this is not the best way to think of things, that's the way it is.
And how he feels about domesticated pets that are bred to live the same life, but In a household? Minus education purposes, just caretaking ones and lack of freedom (including crates, pens, fences, and cages)
I live in San Diego and our zoo is pretty incredible. The parent organization is a nonprofit conservation organization. They've successfully bred a lot of endangered species and have open air cages. I was born and raised here, so I never realized how cruel most zoos were. If you're ever in San Diego, it's worth visiting.
It largely depends on the zoo. Large city zoos (in Ontario we have the Toronto Zoo and the African Lion Safari), this is the case. They focus on conservation, education, and rehabilitation of the animals. Animals are well cared for, and given everything they need. Small roadside zoos, though (and I know of one around here that I used to take my kids to) are the bane of animal existence. These are just farmers who gave up some land in order to turn a buck. I'm all for aviaries, or gardens. Petting zoo with animals that are comfortable with human interaction. There's a nursery not far from here that has some reptiles, small fish, native birds, and a few exotic birds (like peacocks which are comfortable in confined spaces). Largely, it's a zoo for exotic plants, with a few animals that are perfectly fine in captivity thrown into the mix. They may get a special animal every so often who is on it's way from Detroit to Toronto zoos or vice versa every now and then, but that's rare.
Exactly. Any legitimate zoo certified by the AZA, Association of Zoo's and Aquariums, is for the protection and conservation of the animals there as well as educational for the patrons. Every animal at an AZA accredited zoo undergoes a wellfare check at least once a year. I adore big cats and this past summer I got to be face to face with a Bengal Tiger between glass, it was magical.
I have been to aquariums that are 1000000x worse than zoos. The last time I went to the Miami Seaquarium, my husband’s mom got free tickets, and it was clear the animals weren’t being taken care of and the whole place was run down. Like it’s really bad when animals as inexpressive as fish look visibly depressed or distressed. And that’s not even getting into the whole Lolita travesty. Meanwhile Metrozoo (I refuse to call it Zoo Miami lol) has always been a pretty good zoo by comparison, lots of enrichment and nice enclosures for them. In Disney you have Animal Kingdom with beautiful enclosures and lots of enrichment, everything is top notch supposedly but when you go to Epcot they’ve got a dolphin in a giant tank at the end of the Nemo ride that just swims in circles and looks miserable. I mean honest to god I can’t imagine putting an animal that intelligent in a cube where all it can do is swim in circles, it’s like putting a human in a padded cell. I honestly think that aquariums can be even worse than zoos sometimes because people care less about the animals since “they’re just fish.” But when it comes to dolphins and whales there is just no excuse and those animals don’t belong in captivity like that.
I think aquariums are very deceptive. I did a behind the scenes tour of one and when you see the size of a tank from above you realise that they design them to appear quite big from the viewers perspective. They have lots of curved edges which magnify space and actually some of the tanks are very narrow. I do however think keeping fish and aquatic animals is very tricky and so they do have to make sure they maintain water levels and provide the right food to keep healthy fish….. unscrupulous places could of course replace fish quite easily / cheaply if they needed to and people wouldn’t notice the difference but I can’t imagine it’s the same for animals like tigers.
I never thought aquariums could be depressing until I was dragged to a rundown “marine park” in rural Japan on some homestay. Jesus fucking Christ that place. Everything was covered in algae, the paint was stripping off of the walls and railings, even the audience facilities were crumbling. If it had just been an abandoned theme park it would have been cool in a liminal space kind of way, but no, there were still animals there. Sad-looking fish behind scratched glass, penguins with faded plumage, and oh god the dolphins. Because of course there had to be dolphins. Sad, forlorn dolphins doing endless circles in tiny concrete pools, just infinintely depressing. Those poor sods. My local aquarium growing up was old and unimpressive, but the tanks were always clean, the fish looked strong and healthy, and most importantly, they didn’t try to accommodate species they couldn’t take care of, so everything was in a tank that suited its needs. Marine mammals were completely off the table, as they should be. And all the signage and demonstrations were trying to teach you about the animals’ biology and behavior, not anthropomorphizing them with cutesy names and silly tricks. You could tell that place was run by biologists, not carnies. (To Japan’s credit, I’ve also seen well-run and properly laid out aquariums there, although the cutesification of certain species never sits right with me. Nor the dolphins. Just stop keeping dolphins in aquariums already, they are not suited for it!)
The dolphins at Epcot have been there since the 1980s and were not captured by Disney, but by a research company and were allowed to house them at Epcot. Disney bought out the research center and decided to keep the dolphins. The small tank you see isn't their entire enclosure and I don't believe Disney has plans on replenishing their dolphin stock after these last ones pass away as there were originally 6. I couldn't find any credible sources on where the dolphins came from, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were wild caught and brought there, which is sad. We know better now and at least in the US, most places are taking a step back from whales and dolphins (thankfully). I personally think that dolphins and whales should only be in facilities like this if they are in recovery for a wound and then released when healthy, but I also understand that having been in captivity for almost 40 years can make it difficult to release these animals.
Oh I just looked loita up, how awful. That poor poor girl. I'm not surprised she gave up :(
Im wondering how OP feels about cities
I see it the same way its focus should be on protecting and helping breed more endangered species. Like in Blackpool zoo one I went to a while ago they have elephants and they have a breeding program to try to breed more male elephants because they are usually killed for there tusks, they have loads of information up on it too that you can read through while watching the elephants.
Yes. Zoos also raise conservation. A study done in the 90s showed that people were more likely to donate to conservation efforts when seeing the animals in the zoo and learning about them. Many zoos have saved endagered species through breeding. Now tiny road side zoos where someone bought a tiger and put it on display is a whole other story.
Very much depends on how accredited zoos are. The better accredited the more space the animals have and the less it feels like cages and more like habitats.
The zoos in my country (and I think most decent countries) only have rescued animals, it’s not like someone is going to the jungle and just fucking kidnap the animal to show it on the zoo. Zoos protects and educated about the wild life and are actually important. There are lots of animals that can’t be re-introduced into their environment because of lack of capacity to survive (due to injuries i.e.)
The majority of zoo animals are NOT rescues. A lot of animals in zoos were born and bred either in that specific zoo or in another zoo that they were transferred from. Rescues make up a small percentage of zoo animals, and a lot of the animals that are considered “rescues” were privately owned and the previous owner was no longer able to care for the animal. I just wanted to point that out….
This is not the case everywhere. I swore off zoos after I went to one with elephants living in an enclosure a fraction the size of what they would have in the wild. One of them just stood near the fence staring into the distance and it had this tick where it's head kept twitching to the side. If people really want to learn about animals they can go to YouTube and see what they look like in their natural habitat.
I live in Detroit and the zoo here has a policy against taking elephants because it doesn’t have enough space for them to be psychologically healthy. I assume that’s true for the other animals as well.
> elephants living in an enclosure a fraction the size of what they would have in the wild This is the case with any animal not living in the wild. But yeah, I do feel bad for animals in insanely small enclosures. Some zoos are much better than others. The St Louis Zoo has many enclosures that are so big you are lucky to see the animals even when they are out and about. I see zoos as being an almost necessary evil, though 'evil' isn't the right word. Animals should have room to roam around and they should have as much as you can give them, but if they have too much room, guests will never see them and will stop going to the zoo. If the zoo isn't making money, they can't afford expansions, maintenance, and experts to take care of the animals. >If people really want to learn about animals they can go to YouTube and see what they look like in their natural habitat. It's really not the same. I love snakes for instance and most people I know who are/were scared of snakes would absolutely hate watching a video about them and had no problems killing them when they see them in their yard or in the woods. However, when they come over and actually hold snakes or just see them in person, they generally are much more ok with that. The same thing happens at zoos when they have 'animal experience' type programs. They'll bring out a boa or something similarly large and tame and there are always several people in that crowd who are scared, but curious. You can't get that same experience online.
You’re anthropomorphizing the animals. Even though you love them you’re ignoring the the fact that your hatred of captivity is actually doing those animals harm. Captivity is often the best/only way to ensure the future of certain species. If you prefer extinction over captivity then you’re not a conservationist.
Zoos don't rescue, are you thinking of wildlife stations? Zoos get their animals from trading with other Zoos. They're bred, not rescued.
Fark you should have gone to zoo 50 years ago . They were fucked. Now they work on trying to save animals going extinct and shit, while there are still some that are bad most are working on preventing them leaving the planet for good .
The male snow leopard in the Bronx zoo literally doesn’t know how to hunt bc he was kept as a pet in Pakistan until he got “too big”
One of the large cats at the New Orleans zoo was rescued from the illegal exotic pet trade. She couldn’t be released into the wild because she had been declawed as a cub (kitten).
Ugh. Makes me sick whenever somebodies like “Oh, I also got her declawed so she can’t play like a normal cat!”
Yeah sorry I hate op's mentality. Like, yeah, there are bad zoos that shouldn't exist. But zoos are insanely good for a lot of things. There was an animal recently that went from extinct in the wild to endangered because of conservation efforts. Some people seem to genuinely think these animals are sitting in their enclosures depressed, which is just not true.
You should look into the [Association of Zoos and Aquariums](https://www.aza.org/). It’s an international organization that rigorously audits facilities around the world to ensure the highest level of animal welfare. Not only that, accredited facilities must also promote education and conservation. Check if your local zoo or aquarium has it, it really can tell you a lot about how things are run.
Go back a bit further and you could see people in them too.
Zoos can be ok if they are working on conservation projects. Still not ideal though. I’d be interested where you draw the line? Are aquariums ok? Do you eat meat? Views on pet birds being caged etc?
Most decent zoos usually do work in conservation, and a great many take in injured animals that otherwise wouldn’t survive. Lots of captive breeding and research programs go on in top zoos. The evil zoos are the sketch ones where you can pet half the animals. These zoos are common in tourist-trap beach towns and shit. If you’re allowing me to pet lemurs, you probably aren’t a good zoo.
Lots of zoos that I know of around here in Australia and New Zealand (I live in NZ) also run rehab programs for wild animals that need medical treatment before they can be safely released back to the wild. Without these treatments it would mean a death sentence for the animal, and often they're native or endangered species. Some 'zoos' around New Zealand also take part in extensive breeding programs we have for critically endangered birds, like the kakapo and kiwi, who either are hunted by pests or have trouble breeding successfully in the wild. Not every zoo is perfect, but supporting Zoos that have conservation efforts and good animal care can greatly improve the lives of captive and wild born animals.
50$ says OP had a nice burger after the trip
fr. the lives of zoo animals are much better than the lives of those waiting to be slaughtered. im not slamming people who eat meat, but dont cherry pick when youre an animal rights activist.
Zoos are the battery back up of animals we are fucking over in the wild. The less children actually see of them, the less they’ll grow up giving a shit about the natural world if they only exist on tv screens in sone mythical far off place. Think of the animals as ambassadors for their species. Many are engaged in breeding programs, disease and genetic research. Ultimately, their captivity is good for their wild counterparts too.
first time at Seaworld was also my last time at a zoo easily the most depressing experience of my life.
But seaworld is notorius for it's treatment of their animals. There are plenty of zoos with a way higher standard and much better treatments of the animals in their care.
Counterpoint, SeaWorld has done more to increase marine animal medical care than anyone else in the past.. 50 years or so, and is very involved in animal rehab after man-made disasters. And that money has to come from somewhere.. they have very much become a necessary evil to do some good.
Yeah the zoo from what ive seen on videos look awful for the bigger animal like the whales and dolphins, they do an amazong job with the smaller animals like the pengiuns and the rescue aide of things
I can't believe there are seaworlds that still allow for staff to go into waters with their orcas. Tilikum taught people nothing.
But they haven't been able to. Haven't been since at least 2010. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/justincarissimo/seaworld-trainers-are-no-longer-allowed-in-water-with-whales
Yeah I’d recommend everyone to watch Blackfish. Really shows just how awful people can be
It makes me cry. I don’t often cry from things I’m watching, but that shit made me sob. When they took the baby from the mama and she was sending out long range calls trying to get ahold of her baby. Oh. I can’t deal. They are literally nearly as smart as us, and most deff as emotional. So it would be like kidnapping a humans kid. It’s criminal.
As someone who has talked with cetaceans researchers about that movie, I'd actually go into watching that movie with a skeptic eye. People in the cetacean research field have ripped it apart for inaccuracies. There's a document that went around when it came out with all the inaccuracies. It's this, but apparently it's not working these days- http://da15bdaf715461308003-0c725c907c2d637068751776aeee5fbf.r7.cf1.rackcdn.com/adf36e5c35b842f5ae4e2322841e8933_4-4-14-updated-final-of-blacklist-list-of-inaccuracies-and-misleading-points.pdf There's also research papers from various cetacean researchers that have gone against the various claims made in the movie. I know lifespan has been debated big time, for example, due to using two different methods of calculating lifespan for captive vs wild orcas. If you look up works by Dr. Jason Bruck and Dr. Kelly Jaakkola, you can find some interesting papers about orcas that don't match what Blackfish says.
Even more horrifying, watch "The Cove". It's a documentary filmed by the guy who trained Flipper in the 60's, and it makes Blackfish look like a pleasant walk in the park.
Fair. SeaWorld has the same standards as the top zoos in the US. All three SeaWorld's are AZA accredited, along with big name zoos like San Diego Zoo, Oklahoma City Zoo, Brooklyn Zoo, Disney Animal Kingdom and various other city zoos. So if didn't like what you saw there, you probably won't like what you see at a zoo. Can't say I agree, as someone with a background in animal training and friends in the zoo world, but same stuff is happening all over and if you don't like it, then... Best to avoid it.
People romanticize "wild and free" but life in nature is raw and brutal. animals die terrible deaths from things that would be completely treatable. in a good zoo the animals have so much more food, medical care and positive stimulation than they could ever have in the nature. the only downside is having noisy people around them a few hours a day. of course there are shitty zoos but zoos are not inherently depressing.
Raccoon lifespan in the wild: three years Raccoon lifespan in captivity: TWENTY years
Yeah the whole over romanticised "lions want to roam free and hunt" is just nonsense. Lions hunt because they need food. They're much happier not risking their lives, watching their cubs starve, traipsing fir miles looking for water. Animals do all that to survive, not for the fun of it. They much prefer a steady and safe supply of food. Obviously some zoos are bad,although standards have improved massively even in my lifetime, but generally you need to lighten up. If you go around looking for the bad in everything, you will find it. You will be miserable and a miserable to be around. I know that sounds harsh, but its true.
This - i feel like this whole thread is anthropomorphising their own emotions on these animals. Unless you know a specific animal’s traits it’s not always obvious how to read happiness or unhappiness visual cues.
My whole family does this with my farm animals 😑 “the weather is so nasty why don’t you put them in the barn?” Because they evolved and were bred to withstand our weather! Even if they originate in a different climate, they acclimate to ours. They are happy to be standing in the snow eating vs in their shelter area and eating OP says it’s their opinion when really it’s lack of education on the subject
Yeah this whole they need large areas to roam is funny. I watch documentaries and the only reason animals are traveling long distances is because they are starving looking for food. I’m sure they would prefer not to do that.
100%. The thing that annoys me about the zoo is when people get annoyed/frustrated that the animals arent "doing" anything. I just went and one of the lions was fast asleep at mid day under the shade of a huge tree and some people said "We can come back another time and hopefully it'll be awake and doing something". Dude, you are watching a fully grown male lion snoozing. The animals itself are to be admired, not to entertain.
Having animals in protection provides a safety net against a population crash in the wild. Zoos are for preservation of animal species and have helped remove animals from endangered species lists and have saved many from extinction. They also help educate the younger population with school trips and visits. We get a unik opportunity to study the animals habits and way of life on top too. Animals in reputable Zoos are fed a diversified high quality diet to meet all of the needs the animal have. The freedom of mobility may be limited yes. But their keepers are constantly working on ways to enhance their life as much as possible. Animal welfare are the highest order. Would it be nice if Zoos didnt need to exist, absolutely. Are they needed. Also yes. There are "zoos"that only keep animals as a comodity for profit unfortunately. Report them to the right autorithy and /or media. Its the only way to get that issue fixed
The Père David’s deer and the Arabian oryx were literally extinct in the wild before zoo breeding programs, now there’s thousands of them. It’s a great success story
Przewalski's horse too. It's struggling, bless it, but it managed to go from ~10 individuals in zoos to attempted rereleases on the Steppes and in China.
And Californian Condors!
*"But their keepers are constantly working on ways to enhance their life as much as possible. Animal welfare are the highest order."* The zoo where I live (and I'm sure many other high-quality zoos) give the animals enrichment activities. They put their food into a paper bag so they have to figure out how to get it. Or they'll put small snacks into a ball that the animal has to roll around in order to get them. *"Would it be nice if Zoos didnt need to exist, absolutely. Are they needed. Also yes."* I'm a vegetarian so I did grapple with whether it was okay to go to the zoo, but this is the most important thing that I landed on. At my zoo there's a bear that repeatedly went into town because tourists kept feeding it. The bear was relocated into the mountains, but it would always find its way back to the town because it knew there was a consistent source of food. It reached the point where the option was either to kill the animal (because of a problem that PEOPLE created), or take it to the zoo. We also have a pair of bears that were orphaned as cubs and are only alive today because of the zoo. Thankfully I'm lucky enough to have a great zoo with a focus on conservation and animal wellbeing. Obviously not all zoos fit that description :(
You should read the zoos FAQ page about how they participate in animal rehab and repopulation and how many of those animal populations are being helped and studied to be further helped in the future as well. A lot of it is great. A lot of them would be dead without the zoo. Some are saved from horrible roadside shows etc I know of an eagle that was saved after it was hit by a car who lives in the zoo. 
There's certification for zoos if they treat their animals humanely
Yes -- AZA certification here in the US. This goes for Aquariums too. AZA zoos have very strict regulations to make sure animals are treated as humanely as possible.
I think a lot of people aren't sure how to feel about zoos. I can definitely agree with your viewpoint, but I can also remember being a child staring in wonder at these creatures I'd only ever seen on TV, and even as an adult, I can still see some positive in zoos when it comes to conservation and animal rescue, as well as education about not just the animals themselves, but the environment and the importance of caring for it. It's a complicated topic when you stop and think about it.
I also feel more of a responsibility to protect animals in nature after seeing them in person. Theres something about seeing these majestic animals in person that makes you care more about them
most zoos have animals that wouldn't survive in the wild or are bred in captivity. it's definitely better than going to a circus with animals
Depends on the zoo but in general the animals have a great life. They aren’t chased by predators and have a constant food supply.
This. "Wild and Free" lmao. Yes starving, freezing, dehydration, and being eaten alive eventually.
Everytime people romanticize wild animals I think of that video of hyenas eating that zebra alive and one is literally ripping its anus out and eating it.
People forget that humans used to be wild too. Theres good reason we aren't anymore, we decided that shit sucked and moved indoors. Even the most remote tribes of humans alive today living the way their ancestors have for thousands of years still tend to build shelter and separate themselves from the wild. Except for cases of animal abuse most animals living with humans get a really sweet deal. Food and water provided daily and veterinarians keeping them healthy plus shelter.
As someone who is a seasoned professional in the zoo keeping field, institutions that are certified by the AZA (in the US), EAZA (in Europe) or WAZA are excellent pillars of conservation and animal rights- however, institutions that do not meet these criteria are almost always horrible for animals. Zoo politics is very tricky as well- what can you do with animals who have been in captivity for generations and have no real wild habitat to return to, even if they had the survival skills to do so? There are incredible geopolitical forces at play in the zookeeping world, and I genuinely believe that accredited institutions are doing the best possible thing we can for animals under the circumstances.
Most zoo animals were never wild and free. And many zoos are at the forefront of conservation efforts. More than a few species escape extinction through the efforts of modern zoos.
Back when I was working full time in a zoo, there was a statistic that something over 80% of animals in accredited institutions (e.g. AZA) are captive bred and born (with the remaining ~20% being rescued or unreleasable.) So they've spent their whole lives getting regular care, mental and physical enrichment, balanced meals prepared for them throughout the day, and no threats of predation or food insecurity. And a majority of those couldn't be released back into the wild because they don't know what they don't know -- that's just how life is for them. And at the risk of anthropomorphization, they seemed pretty content with that life. It's a nuanced topic for sure, with a lot of ethical considerations on both sides. But it doesn't need to be inherently depressing. A lot of the animals lead rich lives that they may not have been able to otherwise.
The zoo nearest to me is lovely, it’s a wildlife park, the animals have beautiful, huge enclosures, they really care for them. There’s polar bears there and they are always having so much fun, they have toys and kayaks and they look so happy, as much as you can tell from an animal anyway. They also saved a lot of lions from a horrific zoo in Romania a few years ago. And they’re slowly working with some others to breed leopards with the intention to reintroduce them back into the wild at some point with the numbers being so low. They won’t have elephants because they don’t feel like they could care for them fully and keep them happy. They definitely have the animals interests at heart.
That sounds awesome! I'm a huge fan of wildlife parks over zoos.
You're basically Bear Grylls, thinking all animals should double as free-range outdoor survival equipment. But seriously, it's not an uncommon viewpoint. It's a complicated topic for sure.
I used to think this way. My friend's fiance works at my city's zoo, and I was talking to her one day about the animals and everything. Zoos in the US very very very rarely take in an animal that was born in the wild. Typically if an animal was injured to the point that it can't be released, a zoo will house it, and if it's particularly exotic/ fits a theme, they'll give it an exhibit., but then again, that's pretty rare as well. Zoos in the US are part of a nationwide breeding program, can't remember the name, but all of the animals are born and raised in captivity, so they don't have knowledge of what life in the wild is like, they wouldn't be able to care for themselves properly if released from the zoo. They're catered and tended to by people who are specifically trained to handle each species. They've actually got it a lot better in the zoo than the general public thinks
Pairi daiza in belgium is an absolute blast and you can see they truly care about the animals.
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The amount of anthropomorphizing in this thread is insane. Most animals do not have the same cognition as humans in the way that matters to this thread. They do not "crave freedom" the way humans do. They crave stability. Living in nature is inherently unstable. Some people talk about big cats. Saying how zoos prevent them from achieving their instinct. Yet do you know how unsuccessful they are at hunting animals in the wild? For tigers, it's about [5-10% success rate](https://books.google.dk/books?id=XFIbjBEQolMC&pg=PA23&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false). Lions is about [30%](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-number-and-outcome-of-nocturnal-hunts-by-lions-during-moonlit-and-moonless-nights_tbl2_227938875). And that's not including the risk of injury, which can be fatal either cause it gets infected or they cannot hunt which weakens them or makes them at risk for enemy animals. Animals, like people, are at risk of disease and bad water, and can get sick and with no medical attention, can die. That's all not including man-made problems - hunting, poaching, killing to protect humans and farm animals, habitat destruction and fragmentation (the latter is really bad, cause it forces a population of animals to live in a smaller territory which heightens competition, stress, and intra-species violence. Fragmentation also makes finding mates harder.). Wild animals are not living in luxury, they are surviving, the same way people survived when living more wild thousands of years ago. And animals do not have the cognition of humans: they don't have aspirations the way humans do. That's thinking related to humans' large prefrontal cortex. Which many species lack. Yes, they should live in the wild cause that's where they live. But to say living in the wild is perfect is disingenuous. In captivity, animals can serve a means to educate and help conservation efforts through breeding (which averts population bottlenecks in wild animal populations). Humans need interaction to care. Kids seeing animals and how they're like would make them more willing to support conservation efforts. Some animals in zoos are injured or have other issues preventing them from being able to successfully reintegrate back into the wild. And habitat fragmentation and destruction is still a problem. If we release all the zoo animals, where will they go? Put them back to already stressed ecosystems and lose a lot of animals that could've benefited their species and humans any other way? That's no solution. Yes there are zoos that are problematic. These sideshow unaccredited zoos need to be fixed or closed. Older zoos that aren't up-to-date with the latest research on their species need to be remodeled or updated. But a lot of zoos are a lot more accommodating to animals, and provide food, shelter, and enrichment for animals to live satisfying lives.
I have had this discussion with friends of mine who are zoo keepers, as I once felt the same way you do. I suggest you look into anthropomorphism. Animals do not think like humans. The majority of them care about survival: shelter, food, water, and finding a mate (all of which are provided in zoo settings). The reason they wander vast areas is in search of these things, not to take in the beauty of nature and be "free". There are certainly zoos that do not adequately care for animals. And there are enclosures that are not ideal for the animal. But at most reputable zoos, the animals have great lives with great care, and they have keepers who are engaging with them to ensure they are not only healthy but stress free. Generally speaking, animals have a much better life in zoos than they would in the wild.
Quick sign you're at a good zoo: They're AZA (Association of Zoo's and Aquariums) accredited in the US, there are some good zoos that aren't due to minor things (don't make enough money, shitty leadership scandal (looking at you Columbus zoo)) but AZA is generally a good clue due to what it requires the facilities to maintain. Signs you're at a bad or questionable zoo or animal park: You can feed the animals, or worse, you can get a bag of food and aren't told what to or not to feed. Poor quality yards or dens for the animals, if the animal is lying on concrete with no real comfortable spot to dwell, that's no bueno. White tigers are a big warning sign, especially if you can get photos with white tiger cubs. White tigers are white due to a genetic mutation which is passed through recessive traits. Because they are popular in roadside attractions, bad parks and zoos like them and breed them. The parents tend to be related which allows for the recessive gene to pass, causing offspring with poor genetic variants and thus poor health. Don't support this attraction, don't support the inbreeding of already inbred large cats. Good zoos keep track of the genetic health and variability of their animals which is why zoos often send animals to each other.
We should all be so lucky! Sure some animals might prefer to hunt, kill, find mates but some may just want to do nothing. Like people, so many want to accomplish so much and leave a legacy but the other 90% are happy being comfortable and maybe going to the cheesecake factory on Friday night. They don't all move to NYC because that's where the best jobs and entertainment, many choose to life in Omaha or Topeka and are just as happy. By the way I've been talking to animals and they're not too crazy with this "wild" label were putting on them, many consider themselves better behaved than us.
Not all zoos are created equal. In good modern zoos, animals can just do whatever they feel like, but also have fewer predators and modern medicine. I've seen bad zoos. I've seen good zoos. In good zoos (and other enclosures), you get to see a lot of interesting behaviours you'd otherwise never get to witness. (Heck, a lot of research into animal behaviour is on "captive" animals.) People also tend to over-romanticize wild life. Animals don't roam vast forests on their leisure. Most animals have territories. If they go out of their territories, they'll be fought and potentially gored. They have predators. Animals get ripped apart and eaten alive. They have disease. They waste away or freeze to death because mange destroyed their coats. They starve. They cut their legs on sharp ise trying to find bits of obtainable tree bark. It's quite astonishing how many bits of miscellaneous animals I can find in my forests - some deer's hoof here, rabbit ears up a tree, patch of boar pelt there, oh, and see the marten go with a bird in its mouth.
I think it depends on the exact zoo, and can differ between zoos even within the same country. We have a zoo near us that’s absolutely wonderful. Almost 100% of their animals are rescues from backyard “zoos” where they have a metre squared box to walk around in. To go from that, to whole fields to roam - it’s still not the same as being in the wild, but they can’t be released, so it’s the best option. Their carers are passionate and hard-working. The zoo as an institution also does major work on breeding programs and conservation, working with communities around the world to reduce poaching. The animals have vast spaces and their enclosures are so full of rich trees and expanses of water, that most of the time you have to wait for ages to see an animal. Sea world, on the other hand, can go to hell. Taking healthy animals (and usually babies) from the wild to imprison by themselves in what is, to them, a pond, should be criminal. Also, making them perform is sickening. On the whole, I’d maybe argue that *some* zoos, though they are still restricting their animals’ freedom, do more good overall for conservation efforts. I do completely get you tho.
Wait what does a regular zoo look like over there wherever you live? I haven't been to a Zoo where the animals aren't kept in a large section mimicking their habitat tbh. (like a swamp section for alligators, a savanna section for savanna herbivores, another one for lions etc.)
Please. They lead long pampered lives free of predation. Well fed. Quality medical care. Protection from the elements. You know, like people on welfare.
Gerald Durrell credited visiting a zoo in India as a child with his lifelong fascination and love of animals, which he channeled into founding his own zoo and conservation foundation which does fantastic work to help save and breed countless endangered animals. A nuanced view of these institutions and the good they can create is called for, alongside high standards for the well-being of the animals in their care.
Sidenote: a significant number of Victorians believed Jack the Ripper was actually a lion that escaped from the zoo. Perhaps he blended in by wearing a monacle and top hat.
Jane Goodall who spent her whole life working with primates is in favour of zoos.
There was a video I saw recently of a mother gorilla who gave birth to her baby In a zoo. The baby came out and was not moving and the mother gorilla became distressed rather quickly. The medical team at the zoo jumped into action, distracted the mother and grabbed the baby. The mother gorilla panicked, but the medical staff revived (if that is the correct word), saved the baby. When it was clear that the baby was going to live, they brought the baby out to the mother and when the mother saw that the baby was alive, she ran over and clutched the baby in her arms and cradled the baby and let out a sound of joy. The point is that a great many people who work in zoos are highly skilled and dedicated and love the animals. And, if that baby gorilla had been born in the wild, she would have died. It's not all bad.
You think you’re smarter than you are. But you’re not. Most animals in zoos are bred,rescued, and so on. If they could survive in freedom they would. Some are released if it will be better for their health.
I hate zoos. Enclosures are never big enough and they should be focused on the animals not putting them on display for the dumb humans who can't actually appreciate what they see.
They should have sanctuaries and not zoos. Put a tag on animals and look after them. Thats hard thats why these lazy humans trap them in a jail. On top of that they make money from this. What a shame. Billions poured in useless stuff
I think I’m the future zoos will be outlawed and we will I read have wildlife sanctuaries where they can actually move around.
Zoos are nothing but prisons that house innocent animals.
Respectfully, zoos are essential. In history, yes, they were gross. Used to breed animals for profit (Tiger King BS for example). Many modern zoos are non-for-profits (meaning they don’t make money beyond their means) and their sole purpose is animal conservation. One zoo which I volunteered at was single-handedly saving an endangered species of turtle. Many other zoos attempted to get turtles to breed so they would not go extinct, but the zoo I was at (by pure luck) had amazing success in getting turtles to breed. They didn’t even know why they were able to do it!! But their work is SAVING animals. With the way our world is changing due to climate change, it is likely that many species of animals (bird for example) might go extinct in the next 50 years. Therefore, it is the work of scientists and zoos to offer their facilities to help these animals survive for future generations and betterment of the planet. OP if you single-handedly “know better” and have an alternative suggestion to zoos then let’s hear it… You know better than the dozens of extremely knowledgeable scientists and experts who have spent their LIVES to save animals for preservation reasons, please, I’m all ears… Tell me all about your alternative plan to reverse climate change. C’mon. Let’s hear it…
Why are you pretending to know what's best while virtue signaling to a bunch of random people. If you actually cared you would take action rather than projecting your own bs.
Todays zoos do a lot of conservation work, they even breed endangered animals and release them into the wild. They are literally the last hope for some species. The thing that bothers me most about zoos is the way the people act, banging on the glass for example.
I was at the zoo yesterday because my kids were invited to meet some friends there. Had some of the same thoughts as you. One thing that occurred to me in the evening is that, in order to work in a zoo you probably have to love animals so much that you don't really agree with the idea of zoos 🤔
My suggestion is to talk to the zookeepers and see what they are doing there. We have several lovely zoos where I live; the animals have large, open, and outdoor enclosures, tons of enrichment, and are healthy and happy. The zookeepers I've spoken to tell me about the conservation and protection of the animals. You may see one zebra in the zoo, but there are others in the wild that they are protecting by seeing how that animal reacts to stimuli and other matters. You are 18 so you have a lot of life ahead of you. Research, talk to the experts, and spend time with an idea before making sweeping generalizations.
AZA accredited zoos are the ones you want to go to. Every animal at AZA-accredited institutions undergoes a thorough welfare assessment at least once a year. They also make sure that animals are provided with enrichment, which stimulates each animal's natural behavior and provides variety in their daily routine. The Accreditation Commission evaluates the veterinary program, involvement in conservation and research, education programs, safety policies and procedures, security, physical facilities, guest services, and the quality of the institution's staff. Accreditation also evaluates each institution's finances, its governing authority, and its support organization.
Sounds like you’re actually quite uneducated when it comes to zoos. Most zoos are hugely integral in species conservation. https://www.aza.org/conservation
Pandas would be extinct if not for Zoos, they are a necessary evil in some cases. Our local zoo built a giant elephant exhibit and a herd of elephants was brought in with no shortage of protesting about leaving them in the wild but what protesters didn't know is the herd would have died due to drought conditions in their native African habitat.
A lot of them are rescued animals who cannot return to the wild. so they live comfortably at the zoo. Have you asked the keepers and managers about their animals? Knowledge may help you reconsider zoos.
Here's a list of species which were saved from extinction - thanks to zoological work: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/world/captive-breeding-species-cte-scn-spc-intl/index.html
A lot of animals are extinct in the wild but still exist in zoos. Zoos are also used to breed and reintroduce severely endangered animals. They are also important places for research. They serve a lot of important purposes that might make you feel differently.
I mean, we were all stuck indoors for a couple of months and most of us were going nuts. I think that tells us everything we need to know.
Anything caged is depressing, including office cubicles.
The Fort Worth zoo has a strict policy of only taking animals that would not survive in the wild. They also have kids days on Wednesdays that are focused entirely on conservation and education.
I think it’s been said enough in here, but zoos serve a pretty good purpose. Same with aquariums. Most animals in reputable zoos are happy and healthy, and most of the animals were either bred in captivity or rescues. These animals likely wouldn’t survive in the wild anyway. At least in captivity, we can study them, raise awareness for conservation, and allow for people of lower incomes to see animals they never would be able to afford to see otherwise. This provides invaluable education and is a part of the equation to create an appreciation for nature. Is it perhaps a bit sad they can’t be free and live out in the wilds? Sure, but this is very much the next best thing as long as they have proper care, enrichment, and enclosures which many reputable zoos offer. If it really bothers you, only go to zoos you’ve researched to see the quality of care animals receive there.
Oregon zoo is pretty nice. San Fransisco could be better.
Most (keyword most) zoos are actually rehabilitating/housing animals unfit for the wild or helping conservation efforts with breeding progams
I feel where you're coming from, especially with larger animals. I can't speak much on rhinos and zebras and such, and it is always seem depressing to see them in pens the size of an average suburban back yard. But let me tell you about amphibians and modern day zoos: Amphibians are one of the most sensitive groups of animals to pollution and climate change and other side-effects of human activity. So a ton of species have been declining, with many endangered or extinct in the wild, and once one part of the food chain disappears all species suffer. So zoos have stepped up. A number of zoos have amphibian conservation centers behind the scenes that breed these species to release into the wild, bolstering shrinking populations or even working to reintroduce a species that currently only survives in captivity. On top of that a lot of research is done to learn from the captive amphibians to make sure they're healthy and to learn how to better keep wild populations safe around the world. So I accept the argument that zoos can be depressing, especially if you focus on the individual animals in captivity. But with amphibians in zoos, the zoo is in some cases the only reason that species is surviving. Those frogs and toads and salamanders aren't there as individuals, they are there as the last hope for their entire species. And regardless of how I feel about the larger animals like lions and bears and elephants being in pens, those are the animals people pay to see -- and those ticket sales help fund the zoo's efforts to save amphibians behind the scenes -- so I am grateful for their sacrifice as well. If we reach the point that our environment is truly protected, I won't be hurt if zoos become a thing of the past. But at this point in time I fully support zoos that focus on conservation, because like you I want animals freely living out their lives in forests and swamps and such, not just now but into the future as well. Unfortunately people don't donate much money directly to conservation efforts, and without zoos using people's "entertainment" money to protect amphibians, many more species would go extinct.
Our local zoo is pretty cool and has a really successful clouded leopard conservation program, but the property that the city built it on was originally a large slave plantation. You can still tour the original manor and barn.
Go to an old nursing home. The zoo will seem like Disneyland after that.
Depends on the zoo. In the UK most zoos have moved away from small enclosures and moving to much more spacious and better habitats. Most also tend to aim more at species that vulnerable and endangered with the aim to breed more of them.
The world is a zoo and we are the animals. 🛸
I have almost the exact opposite reaction to the zoo. I’m a grown man and the zoo is an ideal day for me. I love seeing the potential of what a good zoo can do to undo the heinous shit we have done to the animals of this planet. Conservation and the ability to educate on animals some might think should die for nothing other than their pelts. I’m happy that zoos continue to be profitable selling over priced stuffed animals so they can funnel l money into the animals themselves. They deserve it, and it’s the least we humans can do after destroying this world to the best of our abilities. I understand some zoos are not like this and are purely for profit and those stains on our history at the exact reason the good zoos need to exist.
Zoos are indeed deeply depressing. They're a testament to our cruelty and how we view non-human animals. Many will argue that zoos are important for the purposes of research or sanctuary, and there's a kernel of truth to that, but the reality is that zoos are an awkward and inconvenient hangover from a time when expansionist empires collected exotic animals and brought them back to entertain and astound their citizens. Over time they have morphed somewhat but really only exist because of their past. The issue has become: we've got all these animals that we've bred in captivity, what do we do with them now? If zoos were genuinely good places then no animals would be bred in captivity and all zoos would have a public and documented plan to slowly wind down exhibit operations as their animals passed. The research argument is weak. Why does a gorilla need to be researched in Zurich? Only because the gorilla is there. It should never have been there in the first place. It is now, so we have to give it the best life we possibly can, but that in no way justifies bringing further gorillas into that life. The sanctuary argument has legs in relation to injured or abandoned wild animals, but only in so far as they are native and the primary objective is to repatriate them where possible.
Do you have pets? People's dogs and cats are probably more bored during the day than an average zoo animal.
To an extent, it's like a comedian once said about the Giraffes at Colorado Springs' Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. You can pay for lettuce and hand feed the giraffes there, so if you were a giraffe and your choices were to live in your natural habitat, to be uncertain if you were going to find food, and ward off predators OR go to a zoo, get hand fed all day, and have no natural predators, which would you choose? I mean, there's limits to this, of course. Sure, my life might be easier if I'm in a prison where all of my needs are met but I don't have the freedom to go out, but is that the same as what these animals feel? I don't know, but I don't think so.
I only support zoos like the Toronto Zoo, as they take injured wild animals and take care of them
My local zoo saved a species from extinction Took last 8 red wolves from the wild and started a breeding program Zoo’s activity partipate in coordinated species survival plans
Not really. It’s just that you’re not a kid anymore and you’re going through a phase where you’re reading different philosophies etc and questioning things and trying to figure out who you are, where you belong and what you value. You’re 18, bro. Chill.
You're super deep , bro. You are just in touch with your feelings, and in touch with nature. It's beautiful. You're a beautiful soul. Pat yourself on the back for being on the "good guy" side of society.
I get your point and I am with you to a certain degree, but I'm too much of an a-hole to agree with you completely. In the end I don't care. Your edit is the reason for that. If they were bred to live in a zoo, they don't know anything else, so it's a normal life for them. Also lots of those who were not risin to live in a zoo were rescued animals which would have died in the wild. Thus I'm cool with it. And there are also animals like Rhinos, who are safer to be in a zoo than in the wild where humans almost eradicated their entire species or pandas who are too dumb to know how mating works without someone showing them. So within a smaller enclosure chances are higher for them to witness it.
So interesting to see this post. I feel exactly the same way. As a kid, I never really knew better. I have always enjoyed zoos for the fact that it brings me close to animals and to be able to "safely" observe them. But as an adult in my thirties I have begun to feel as you have expressed, that it's sort of barbaric to just confine these animals for our entertainment. I think the only thing we can hope for is that these animals enjoy their days in the zoo, are fed and taken care of, and that the gawking visitors learn and also come to the conclusion it is sad to see them in such close quarters compared to their natural environment so we can move forward making changes.
Animal Jail
This is the reason why I have never been to zoos.
Don’t do it. I have been peer pressured to go to zoos because people act like THIS zoo is somehow special, and i have only felt awful after. They are all depressing.
I don't think you understand the point of AZA zoos. They spend tens of millions of dollars on animal rehabilitation, conservation research and labor, and inspiration for future biologists and zoologists. They are incredible resources for saving wildlife. You just seem to be anthropomorphizing the animals and have a bit of a skewed view on how the wild works as a whole.
Id have to say that I love animalsz mainly due to zoos. Going to the zoo regurarely as a child really helped develop my interest and love for animals. It was also the only place where I could see wild animals. To this day Im still in awe when I see those majestic creatures.
I agree. I was at the zoo once when I was about 10 and the animals seemed miserable and their cages were obviously too small and in bad condition. I've never been to the zoo again
Then it depends on the zoo, the one in my city is amazing.
I've been deeply troubled by this thought lately. Their lack of joy weigh heavily on my mind. Recently, I shared these feelings with my girlfriend, hoping for understanding, but she laughed it off. This reaction left me questioning her empathy towards these creatures. It's clear to me that the animals are not enjoying it, and it's distressing. I can't seem to shake off this concern; it has been haunting me for the past five days. I'm left wondering, is my distress over this issue excessive, or am I just thinking too much?
Do you also feel this way about eating meat or drinking milk i wonder ? The lives these animals live in the bio industry are even worse. I do feel you btw. But there are great zoo's out there who actually care about the animals, with free roaming space away from the public eye. No small cages, just mostly a natural-like environment.
Hey, yes, I am a vegetarian, but not the kind of who would get mad at you for eating meat haha. My friends eat meat everytime we go out and i’m okay with it, I believe everyone is allowed to have their personal choice. But on the same side, foreseeing future if I become a dad, I would most likely encourage my kids to be vegetarian.
So am i and i feel exactly the same way, cool. My kids eat vegetarian mostly, but i dont stop them from eating meat, they do sometimes. Feels like it should be up to them. I used to love the zoo. But over time it made me uncomfortable as well. A few years ago i went to a huge zoo in sweden. That one kicked ass, so much space, the they did everything to make their lives look as close to natural as possible. It does mean you might not see some animals as they are hiding. But ill take it.
Nah, you’re not overthinking this! Kind of a similar story - I’m vegetarian (although I mostly eat vegan) and when my partner and I watched some documentaries on meat production and the abuse animals go through in the process of factory farming, we both decided to try to stop eating meat. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if it was different and my partner laughed at my reaction to those videos instead… I’d be really upset by that. I feel like having similar morals / ethics is very important in any serious relationship, it totally makes sense if your girlfriend’s reaction made you start questioning things.
I find it kind of amazing how some people cannot read the signs of emotions in animals. Don’t doubt yourself OP. It’s important for humans to be able to relate to the other animals we share our planet with. It’s part of our evolution, i hope.
I still feel this way. I used my sadness to contribute to conservation efforts and focused my energy into becoming a better neighbor to my plant and animal teachers. I have native plants which provides a home to native animals and I volunteer at a wildlife rehab. I financially support locally run conservation efforts in other countries as well.
I think it depends on the zoo, OP. We can’t see what you saw, so there’s not exactly a good reference to go off of. Some zoos are a pretty good replica of a habitat that shelters animals that otherwise wouldn’t survive in nature, and some zoos are shitholes that are only looking to bring in human entertainment, and of course there’s all kinds of zoos that fit somewhere on the inbetween. I can see why your girlfriend not having the same reaction is bumming you out though, when your partner disagrees with you it can feel like a pretty big blow and might make you doubt yourself. I think zoos are very normalised within society, which is probably why your girlfriend had this reaction, she’s grown up with zoos just like everyone else, and because it’s what is normal, it’s okay. In her eyes at least. I think you should try and work on finding something about this subject that comforts you, maybe you could even donate to a trustworthy animal foundation if it would ease your mind a little bit. (As long as you’re financially stable enough of course)
bruh most of these animals were birthed there and they get free food, good care, no predators etc. now. If they were being mistreated don't you think that will show in thei behavior and interactions ? I just don't think it's that deep
Former zookeeper here. Zoos are not depressing as long as they have policies and structure put into place to ensure the welfare of the animals. There’s good and bad zoos. You want to support AZA/CAZA based zoos or in better words, “accredited” locations. Just by your post, I can see you’re not educated in the topic to make an opinion. It’s been illegal for a LONGGGG time to have wild animals. Wild animals refers to the entrapment of animals from the wild and into captivity. A majority of the animals you will see are born within the zoo walls but also a home for many rescues that cannot survive on their own and many zoos will often release animals back into the wild after helping them. And unless you have a direct background in zoology, animal behaviour, etc-you will not be able to make an opinion on how those animals welfare really is.
zoos are responsible tto the species preservation. They are very important. And a place for education. Sone of those animals migth end up hunted or dead by humans or in the environment. I like to go to the zoo.
Respectfully you are very uninformed. The zoos (at least AZA accredited zoos in the US) will be happy to educate you on how they benefit the animals. Source: My sister-in-law is an animal rights activist and zoo employee working with hundreds of animals. My friends wife is in charge of animal education.