Zoos: Good or Evil?
I clearly remember the fascination that I had the first time I visited the zoo with my family. Actually seeing the animals that I have only been reading in books was an unforgettable experience. As a little kid, zoo was a place of pure amusement and joy. As I grew up, however, I started to encounter numerous stories, pictures and videos involving animals in a zoo looking miserable, and began to hear more voices calling out, “zoos are evil.” I decided to research and explore on this topic, and I came up with two questions that would help guide me on this research: “what is humanity trying to achieve by having zoos all around the world?” and does this make zoos “good or evil?”
To have a greater understanding of zoos, knowing their history is vital. Zoos started out in Egypt 3000 years ago as a form of entertainment for the Pharaoh (Wemmer, 1995). The animals were captured for entertainment, hunt, or intimidation of enemies. This continued until the Age of Exploration, an era in which many European explorers came and brought back exotic specimens from around the world, especially from the tropical regions. This sparked the interest of many industries seeking fortune, and soon cities were booming with zoos, but the competition kept them small and inadequate for proper treatment of animals. It was only after World War II that modern zoological thinking started forming with educational departments researching and working to provide a more suitable environment for the animals (Wemmer, 1995).
Today, the zoos have grown massively in size and quality all around the globe, promising the world to aid in improvement of the wildlife. Their long history and growth in size allowed zoos to root themselves into many cultures around the world. They speak out that their goal as a zoo is to not only conserve and protect the wildlife, but also to educate and inspire people to take interest in wildlife. These goals all sound very considerate, but the question arises in whether a zoo is a necessary mean to achieve these goals.
I constantly questioned the answers that appeared as I researched- why do we have zoos in the first place? “Because of explorers.” Why do we keep those zoos? “To educate people about the wildlife and animals.” Why educate people? “To protect and conserve the wildlife.” Why is conservation and protection important? “Because human activities play a big part in extinction of many different species.”- And that was where I decided to not dig any deeper because I got what I needed. These series of questions revealed to me the ultimate goal of zoos- to conserve- and how successful they are in doing so (Mazzotti, 2014). Zoos showed many positive results in reviving numerous endangered species through captive breeding (breeding animals that would otherwise not survive in the wild): Guam rails, black-footed ferrets, California condors, Spix’s macaws, and the list goes on. Not only that, but also by exposing the beauty of these animals to the public, zoos exponentially gain more supporters of wildlife conservation.
There is no doubt that zoos are showing fair results in the best way possible. Constant research continues to improve the quality of care the animals receive. Zoo’s opponents did not rise for their results, however. One major group of anti-zoo community is the animal rights activists’ (Lin, 2014). Zoo’s functionality is not a concern for them, but the animals’ rights of freedom are what they are all about. Another group are people who do believe that zoos mistreat animals, and they come ready with plentiful stories that dehumanizes zoos’ treatment of animals.
Animal rights are about whether humans have the right to use animals for their own good. The major thing they emphasize animals’ sentience (ability to suffer) and use it against zoo’s confinement of animals (Doris, 2014). They voice that zoos try to justify their exploitations of animals by saying that “animals are not intelligent,” “they are not as important as people,” and that “they don’t have any duties,” which they say is an error in logic; one would not unjustly take away rights from an unintelligent, not as important to the society, no-duty infant or mentally disabled human. Other reasons for them to discredit zoos for its morality is the stress level of the animals in small enclosures, negative influence of zoos on children by teaching them that confinement of animals is acceptable, killing of surplus animals in some zoos, and et cetera.
Other groups of people who are anti-zoo are the people who have witnessed various incidents of harsh treatment of animals. One such video I have seen showed a circus elephant breaking out during its performance, stomping and murdering his trainers, rampaging across the street until he was finally put down after being shot multiple times by cops and civilians. This incident would not have taken place if the elephant has been treated well. Another video showed a monkey desperately trying to signal a woman to unlock the window so he could escape. The video was made to be funny, but the monkey looked miserable. When these videos make it on media, hundreds or thousands, if not million, views these videos, defaming zoos for their lack of care. And the problem is, there are not just several of these on the Internet.
Zoos are by no means perfect at their current state; many pitiful incidents and accidents occur, and human flaws are made. However, I do not believe that just because of those reasons, zoos should be viewed as evil. There are about 1500 zoos around the world, and it is inevitable that there will be some mistreated or unhappy animals; and as people tend to remember the bad over good, some tend to forget the positive effects that zoos have brought to this world so far, and generalize all zoos as “evil.” I personally would hate to see zoos go out of business because of animal rights reasons, but I hope the activists would try to work with the zoos to settle their differences and continue to benefit our world.
Citations
Lin, Doris. "10 Arguments For and 13 Against Zoos." About. 31 Mar. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
Lin, Doris. "What Do Activists Mean by 'Animal Rights'?" About. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
Wemmer, Christen M. The Ark Evolving. Front Royal: Conservation and Research Center National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institution, 1995.
Mazzotti, Frank. "The Value of Endangered Species: The Importance of Conserving Biological Diversity1." EDIS. SSWIS14, 1 Sept. 2002. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
