Okay, so I’m not far from the Fresno Zoo. Fresno Chaffee Zoo participates in wildlife re-introduction programs in order to bring species back from the brink (or from extinction in the wild, even). That’s important work.
Does the threat of extinction justify subjugation? Well, I guess that’s down to your personal moral outlook, I suppose. Personally, I think that it’s better to preserve life than not, and given what poor stewards of the planet we’re being, I’d suggest we have a duty to keep these populations going until we can get our shit together. But, again, it’s a question of personal convictions.
People don’t read the plaques at the zoo? So what. Imo, you can’t judge educational efficacy on that metric alone. I think that seeing these animals helps make them real to people, instead of just some thing you saw on TV once. Besides that, this doesn’t account for a number of things, like:
-How often did the polled attendees visit the zoo in the last year? If they visit frequently, reading the plaques probably is kind of a moot point
-How familiar are attendees with zoos in the first place? If an attendee is familiar with a zoo, it’s not really that much of a shock to say that they didn’t have their world view changed by the visit. It’s possible their world view has already been affected by previous zoo visits.
I’ll concede that the system can use some work, but I see that as cause for reform, not cause for burning the whole thing down.
I appreciate where the author of this article is coming from, but I think they’re being a bit too one-sided.
For example, they make the point that zoos don’t contribute enough to conservation, donating only around 5% of their spending, as if the millions of dollars given doesn’t justify their existence. But if zoos didn’t exist, that’s a big chunk of money that wouldn’t be going towards conservation at all.
They also talk about the education aspect, that visitors don’t necessarily read the information about the animals and instead go for the spectacle. But a child isn’t going to read those plaques regardless, but seeing animals up close might ignite an interest in conservation later in life.
And one thing that the article doesn’t really go into is the fact that humans are still actively hunting animals in the wild, and destroying habitats for profit. And while I think zoos are a bit of a band-aid fix when it comes to endangered species, I’d much rather see an animal in captivity surrounded by zookeepers that care about it rather than extinction.
In an ideal world, zoos wouldn’t exist. In a slightly less ideal world, only open-plain zoos would exist. But we are a very long way from that, and I personally believe that reputable zoos are a positive in the world we currently live in.
Hunting also needs to be looked at objectively. Many people hunt, and for many different reasons.
Poor people will hunt because it’s is free food. Some risk they’re lives to do it. Some places like Tanzania will kill poachers. We need to look into removing that incentive, as in, we need to reduce global poverty.
I hunt because one deer will be most of my meat for a year. The price to have someone else cut it up makes it cost the same as cheap grocery store ground beef, but it tastes better and is much more eco friendly than that cute would have been.
Rich people BS hunting like I imagine you’re referring to is BS, but they pay big money to do it. The money they spend on that one animal funds the preservation of many times more animals, and by having a legal process to do it, there is less incentive to do it illegally, where accurate counts of animals taken can’t be done.
The first example I can think of showing the success of this is the American Alligator. They were almost wiped out, but now they flourish because people want to hunt and/or eat them. I think it’s something like 10 are raised fire every one that is allowed to be hunted. I’ll admit, it’s a bit like strange logic at first, but there are success stories to show it works.
I love animals. I even take care of the spiders at my house the best I can. But I hunt ethically as possible, just one legal deer a year. That deer lived a better life than a feed lot cow, didn’t need to clear cut or pollute land to live, and it was appreciated for it’s sacrifice every day by me, and I do my best to not waste a scrap of that meat, because I had to do the hard part myself.
I’ve met unethical hunters, and I won’t associate with them. They’re trash like any other cruel person. But most are regular people.
Unrelated: How do you conserve a whole deer for an entire year? You freeze the crap out of it? lol
We drop them off at a beef farm for processing. They pack it up all nice like you’d get it from a butcher shop, mainly in pound size packaging. We get from 60 to 80 pounds typically. Then it goes in the freezer.
You can also donate them to the poor through the Game Commission I think. It’s our family’s primary source of meat though. I just empty my freezer by Thanksgiving and it have room for it all. I occasionally find some that’s from the last season and it’s still always been fine.
Here’s one pack of ground meat from last year I still have. We also got jerky sticks, sausage, and stew cubes and loins. They’re just wrapped in butchers paper.
Found a tenderloin piece hidden away too.
How can it be ethical to take a sentient being’s life against its will? If it lived a good life it is even worse to end it.
I don’t totally disagree with you. Many animals from bugs to mice and birds are killed in the process of farming and the delivery of those goods to market.
If I hunt a deer, I can tell you exactly what my environmental cost was, exactly one deer. It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s just getting food for my home. I’m very grateful to it, and appropriate the sacrifice I asked of it.
You don’t have to agree with me on that. If you don’t use any animal products, I appreciate your decision. But no supply chain is free of environmental cost, and I think it’s fair to ask you to keep that in mind too.
Because humans are powerful enough that we are a bit like gods, and we have to make these choices between which lives we keep and which lives we kill.
Is it ethical to allow the hunting of African game if that money funds the conservation of many more animals? We have to make that trade off. Ethics are subjective, and I’m firmly on the side of allowing hunting as are many other people.
In New Zealand, as with other isolated islands, there’s a unique population of indigenous birds that are now being massacred by introduced mammals. Is it ethical to hunt and trap and poison the introduced pests to save the indigenous birds. We have to make that choice.
A runaway trolley is going to kill 5 humans unless you switch it to another track where it will only kill 1 human. Is that ethical?
A politician could choose to lower the speed limit of a road to 10 km/h, saving lives but costing the economy, quality of life, and future election wins. Is that ethical?
Ethics are subjective, but we have to choose.
I see only humans as sentient so no question of ethics there. Though sentience by itself isn’t sufficient unless you have a very shallow sense of ethics. For example self-defense can involve taking a being’s life against it’s will. But that in no way suggests the action was unethical.
Hunting has no place in a modern society. When you can choose and choose to hunt and eat meat, you’re the problem.
I don’t totally disagree with you, if that means anything. I don’t get any personal satisfaction from it, but I don’t feel bad about it either. Animals eat animals.
People can choose to not eat animal products, and I can admire that. I try to progressively reduce my use of them too. But we’re both doing things to actively try to do something better for the world and ourselves, which is more than many will bother to do. Even if we don’t agree on some things, we’re both doing what we feel is making a better and informed choice. You don’t have to agree with me, but I don’t feel there’s either side that can claim a moral superiority based solely on what’s on our plates. I’m sure you could find someone who’d claim they’re “more vegan” then you or some other gatekeeping nonsense like that.
That’s only true if there are enough carnivores like wolves and bears around. If not: goodbye forests. Hunting is pest control.
You really need to go outside more. Modern society isnt some state of transcendance beyond nature.
Also zoos take in animals that are injured or otherwise unable to be rehabilitated to the wild, often as part of breeding programs, so it’s not like “we captured a wild X to breed it”.
Yet zoos also kill perfectly healthy creatures, however, because they are seen as “surplus”
So it’s not like they are being just held there while they are healing and then released once they are healed
This is bizarre. Why do European zoos refuse to use contraception as population control rather than… Well I hope that giraffe was the exception.
Odd but I think the US zoos are slightly more ethical on this one.
I think video documentaries provide the same if not better benefits without having to imprison animals. You can even show directly how their habitats are endangered (see Our Planet documentary series).
Not to a 7 year old.
Walking through a zoo, watching the animals interact with each other, and with guests, reading about habitats, and experiencing an animal you’ve never even heard of before is a magical experience. I just got back from taking my daughter to a zoo 3 hours away from our house because she’d heard about okapis and wanted to see one. A documentary got her interested in the animal but the zoo let her learn a lot more.
Here’s the thing. An animals environment can be completely fucked. Their environment is not going to get better anytime soon, and they are in the verge of extinction. Is it better to let them go extinct or put them into captivity? This is not a hypothetical, California Condors faced this issue as an example.
From the article
On the contrary, most people don’t read the educational plaques at zoos, and according to polls of zoo-goers, most go to spend time with friends or family — to enjoy themselves and be entertained, not to learn about animals and their needs. One study found the level of environmental concern reported by attendees before they entered the zoo was similar to those who were polled at the exits.
People donate and will want to protect things they can see and experience. Zoos are an experience that help the public want to protect animals.
From the article
On the contrary, most people don’t read the educational plaques at zoos, and according to polls of zoo-goers, most go to spend time with friends or family — to enjoy themselves and be entertained, not to learn about animals and their needs. One study found the level of environmental concern reported by attendees before they entered the zoo was similar to those who were polled at the exits.
People can’t even be expected to read stuff that pertains directly to their life and well being, can’t expect them to read recreationally. But the zoo doesn’t need attendees to read to give them money. That money goes into directly helping wildlife.
Ive never met anyone who is anti zoo that actually has any experience in animal conservation or wildlife rehabilitation.
I think of it as the armchair psychology of the biology world, given the near 1:1 comparisons between the two.
