I'm not much of a zoo person but I've gone along with other people to a zoo and an aquarium this year and I don't like them. The good thing is that people get to know a little about animals but it's really hard to see animals caged up. Admitedly, a zoo is going to give the animals the best care possible for a long time and it's probably better than being in the care of an owner that looses interest and neglects the animals or is ignorant about them, but a zoo just seems like a rotten place to live.

My biggest peeve is with the indoor exhibits and the fact that those animals and fish, that would naturally be in sunlight,are made to live in artificial light so that people can see through the glass without getting reflections. It seems like there should be skylights above those animals and fish and that would give them natural light without causing reflections. Can you imagine never getting to see the sun?

The other thing is that some of the pens seem to be devoid of greenery and are oasises of concrete in the midst of forest. This probably makes them easier to clean but it's hard to see animals living in a pen where all the greenery is just out of reach.

I saw a beaver that kept trying to get out of his cage and get to some limbs that were lying just outside his reach.

The good thing is that some of the exhibits were what I would classify as livable, with enough room and grass and greenery and sunshine, but I wish that they could all be that way. It's no factory farm either, but at least on a factory farm you're not there very long.

It might be better if zoos had a policy that most zoo animals should be kept for just a short time and then released.

I normally don't like the idea or go to zoos either. A friend who found out I was going to San Diego wanted to treat me and my daughter to a trip to the zoo, so we went. The zoo's exhibits were outside, and the animals had vegetation and didn't seem agitated or otherwise uncomfortable. The San Diego Zoo is supposed to be one of the best zoos, and my daughter got to see animals she wouldn't otherwise get to see. Still, it is captivity, and I'm sure those animals would rather be in the wild. I want to check out the wild animal park next time I'm down there.

In my opinion, zoos are a necessary evil. At best, these creatures should be in their natural habitat, living outside of human encroachment, and going about evolving or becoming extinct without our intervention. On the other hand, at least there is a safe place for those creatures who cannot enjoy this circumstance to be cared for humanely. The problem is, has our species become any more humane or conservatory toward these animals' counterparts in the wild since zoos became common? I don't see that we have, but I really don't know. If the purpose is to educate and to make us concerned about these creatures, it should be demonstrable, right? I abhor the zooifecation of animals strictly for entertainment, which is unfortunately what a lot of them are: "look at the baby chimpanzee, children! Ooh, aaah! Now who wants to go to the reptile house?" I stopped going to zoos a couple of decades ago because of the distress I felt upon seeing the animals in unnatural surroundings, as you describe, tropical.

To sum up: zoos--at least they're not circuses.

heartbreakingly sad for me. take the kids but we all suffer when we're there. the apes, oh, how can anyone look at them and not die a little inside. the polar bears in the hot, hot sun. the birds in cages. ouch.

zoos bad, nature preserves good

i would prefer to see natural habitats put away for people to visit rather than then zoos

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Zoos are bad
This is an all too common but rather a stupid statement. It is exactly the same as saying all hotels are bad, all peanuts are bad or all apples are bad. There are bad hotels, bad peanuts and bad apples but they are not all bad. Not all zoos are bad.

I would be the first to admit that there are bad zoos. In my travels I have seen several. Bad zoos though tend to fall into two camps. Those which are bad through commercial 'penny pinching' and those which are bad through ignorance. Happily the picture is changing and fewer and fewer of these zoos now exist. Education is the key. Understanding existing problems and putting them right. Zoo closure is not usually the answer.

Ask any zoo keeper if they would prefer it if there were no zoos and they would say "yes, in a perfect world there would be no zoos." Unfortunately it is not perfect. There is greed and habitat destruction, poaching and unregulated hunting AND not everyone can afford to go on an expensive holiday to see animals in the wild.

A Zoo Note
No one would deny that in the beginning that zoos were primarily a place of entertainment. Entertainment is still important today but in the guise of EDUtainment...that is educating visitors in an entertaining way. It is doubtful that anyone ever visits a zoo to learn...though many teachers leading school parties may lean towards this ideal. If zoos can teach people then they can make a difference.

Then there is Conservation and Research but it goes beyond this. In many parts of the world the zoo is a safe venue. Zoos are non-political, non-religious, non pornographic. Zoos can be meeting places.

There is a truck stop on I-10 between Lake Charles and Baton Rouge that has a tiger living in a small cage. I bet he would think a zoo would be good thing. I wouldn't think a tiger in the wild would feel the same way. I believe all animals should be wild. Dogs, cats, fish...all of them. But would I say all the homes of these domesticated aanimals are bad? No. Some are and some aren't.

bill those are some good points ... a zoo i went to wheni was a little kid just blew my mind how much space the animals were given .. it was in toronto i think it was called the metro zoo and it was HUGE .. not sure if its still there or what the care is like

i really hate seeing whales in little tanks circling their whole lives that really disturbs me

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

zoos and prisons, Have you ever seen that back and forth pacing of zoo animals
from being locked in a small cage? so got dam sad. Ive seen that same pace in humans that have done hard time. We even have human zoos with 2.3 million.
critters on display. This one animal sets the world up to zoo.
much work to do! or its off to the zoo with all.
The African Pigmy, "Ota Benga."

Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches.
Weight, 103 pounds.
Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner.
Exhibited each afternoon during September.
— a sign outside the primate house at the Bronx Zoo, September 1906

Human zoos (also called "ethnological expositions" or "Negro Villages" were 19th and 20th century public exhibits of human beings, usually in a "natural" or "primitive" state. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western Civilization and non-European peoples. Ethnographic zoos were often predicated on unilinealism, scientific racism, and a version of Social Darwinism. A number of them placed indigenous people (particularly Africans) in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and human beings of European descent. For this reason, ethnographic zoos have since been criticized as highly degrading and racist.

riverhousebill,

The poor man was made to play with the monkeys half the day for the amusement of white visitors. He committed suicide, eventually, I believe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2009 01:39PM by Tamukha.

Ota Benga (c. 1883[1] – March 20, 1916) was a Congolese pygmy who was featured in a 1906 human zoo exhibit at New York City's Bronx Zoo. Benga came to the United States through the action of businessman and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner. Under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Verner negotiated Benga's release from slave traders in 1904 following his capture by the Force Publique—which had also attacked his village, killing Benga's wife and two children.

Benga performed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition later in 1904. After nearly two years of travel, including a return trip to Africa, Verner arranged for Benga to live at the Bronx Zoo. Benga roamed freely on the grounds and was encouraged to interact with patrons; he later came to be "exhibited" in the zoo's Monkey House as part of a display intended to promote the concepts of human evolution and scientific racism.

Public outcry eventually led to Benga's removal from the zoo, and he was released into the custody of African American clergy. He lived in a local orphanage until he was relocated in 1910 to Lynchburg, Virginia. There he was groomed for the American way of life, dressing in Western-style clothing and attending primary school. When the outbreak of World War I made a return to the Congo impossible, Benga became depressed. In 1916, he committed suicide with a stolen revolver.