Should Zoos be Abolished?

ThePlayDrive said:

I think zoos should be phased out and replaced by animal sanctuaries that people can tour like safaris. I think it's important for people to be exposed to animals, but I think it's just as, if not more, important for animals to be more free than they are in zoos. Zoos are really ****ed up to be honest.

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This.

I do think that certain species of animals, such as whales and dolphins that require large expanses of area to cover to cope and be happy should be banned. Sea World actually announced today that they are ending their killer whale breeding program and that the whales they currently have will be the last.

As for the rest of zoos, it's a touchy subject for me. But I do think circuses should be banned.

Zoo's are critical in the preservation of loads of animals in the world. If not for zoo's, animals like the elephant, rhino, etc. etc. etc. would become extinct. We are not even able to preserve the health and safety of bees, even though we know them to be critically important to our survival as the human race. But still we are not serious enough in protecting them from dangerous insecticides and other poisons we use on a daily basis (in some parts of the world). What do people think will happen if these superstars of pollination disappear? That other animals will take over? Or that plants will adapt? Maybe but by that time we could all be in real trouble for providing food for the masses.

Zoo's may not be the perfect place to house animals, but it still beats letting entire animal species go extinct.

DA60 said:

One. I don't give a **** about the 'educational' part of it. That is totally irrelevant. To suggest it is is to suggest that there are potential justifications in the name of 'education'. There are not. Right is right, wrong is wrong. Wrong is not justified in ANY WAY because it is educational...it's still wrong.

Two. I despise zoo's...all zoos (except those that take injured animals that would die without help and then nurse them back to health and release them if they are healthy BUT keep them only if they are too disabled to live free again - like a bird that lost one wing; those places I really like).
But those zoo's that capture healthy animals from the wild and force them into zoo's I despise.


The idea of taking a wild animal out of his/her natural surroundings and forcing him/her into captivity and feeling good about yourself because he/she has plenty of food and is safe is laughable.

But fine, let's ask the animals if they love it so much. Take them all back to where you found them and open the cages. If they run away, I guess the zoo was not for them. If they stay, then you can be reasonably sure they liked 'em.

And please save the examples of some 'amazing' zoo you know of. Even a wonderful cage is still a cage. And unless the animals learn to talk, there is NO WAY you can know (short of my example) whether they truly like it or not.


Me? If I had the choice of being in a comfy jail for the rest of my life or free - with all the danger/uncertainty that comes with it - I would take the latter in a heartbeat. Freedom means more to me then free room and board. And I suspect it does for the animals as well.


Oh...and those that disagree with me (which appears to be everybody)...you are ALL wrong on this and I am right on this.

And nothing, imo, you could possibly say could change my mind in the slightest.


Good day.

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Not trying to change your mind, but it's been pointed out that not all zoos use cages. Open-area yards attached to shelters are much the preferred way to go these days.

Just FYI. Have a wonderful day.

DA60 said:

One. I don't give a **** about the 'educational' part of it. That is totally irrelevant. To suggest it is is to suggest that there are potential justifications in the name of 'education'. There are not. Right is right, wrong is wrong. Wrong is not justified in ANY WAY because it is educational...it's still wrong.

Two. I despise zoo's...all zoos (except those that take injured animals that would die without help and then nurse them back to health and release them if they are healthy BUT keep them only if they are too disabled to live free again - like a bird that lost one wing; those places I really like).
But those zoo's that capture healthy animals from the wild and force them into zoo's I despise.


The idea of taking a wild animal out of his/her natural surroundings and forcing him/her into captivity and feeling good about yourself because he/she has plenty of food and is safe is laughable.

But fine, let's ask the animals if they love it so much. Take them all back to where you found them and open the cages. If they run away, I guess the zoo was not for them. If they stay, then you can be reasonably sure they liked 'em.

And please save the examples of some 'amazing' zoo you know of. Even a wonderful cage is still a cage. And unless the animals learn to talk, there is NO WAY you can know (short of my example) whether they truly like it or not.


Me? If I had the choice of being in a comfy jail for the rest of my life or free - with all the danger/uncertainty that comes with it - I would take the latter in a heartbeat. Freedom means more to me then free room and board. And I suspect it does for the animals as well.


Oh...and those that disagree with me (which appears to be everybody)...you are ALL wrong on this and I am right on this.

And nothing, imo, you could possibly say could change my mind in the slightest.


Good day.

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Not even the preservation of species? And I am not talking about catching endangered species in the wild to make it so that people goggle at them from being glass but taking the endangered species and breeding them in such a manner that there is no inbreeding and that the animal species survives even if (or should I say when if nothing changes) the animal is extinct in the wild?

Because it is down to the idiot humans that animals are going extinct (often). There are idiots who go around shooting elephants and rhino's for their horns. Even those in wild parks and even in enclosures for sick and orphaned rhino's are not safe from these idiots. They have to hide their location if they participate in a TV show to make the world take notice of the plight of rhino's. They have to protect their enclosures with machine guns during the night to make sure nobody kills the rhino's they have indoors or in paddocks. And for what? Because idiotic Asians and others think the keratin has magical powers. IDIOTS, ****ing idiots with the intelligence of an amoebae and then I am insulting the amoebae because it is more intelligent than these idiots.

Or people who love to shoot a lion so that they can hang the head on their walls. Sadly people think shooting gorilla's for their meat is acceptable. Or so that some rich moron can have a little chimp or orangutan in their houses for their children to play with. Moron's, these are great apes, our nearest animal cousins and they get shot for food or for being playthings for the rich and infamous?

And you may be right, education may not be the right reason for having zoos, but maybe so that people are reminded of the beauty of the natural world and that they have to give money and shame people who kill these magnificent animals in the wild. Teach children to care and realize that lions are not something you see on animal planet but that they are real and need our protection.

Zoo's may not be the greatest thing in the universe, far from it, but they are a necessary evil. They teach people to see animals are something worthy of admiration and protection.

DifferentDrummr said:

Not trying to change your mind, but it's been pointed out that not all zoos use cages. Open-area yards attached to shelters are much the preferred way to go these days.

Just FYI. Have a wonderful day.

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There are good zoo's out there, sure they still confine animals and do not allow them to live in total freedom but the zoo's of today are very much different from the zoo's of the old.

SeaWorld to phase out killer-whale shows, captivity

'Embattled amusement-park operator SeaWorld Entertainment said Thursday that the killer whales currently living at its facilities will be its last as it will stop breeding them immediately and phase out theatrical orca shows.

The move comes nearly three years after SeaWorld came under pressure for its treatment of killer whales and their trainers in the documentary Blackfish.

The company had already announced plans to end killer-whale shows at its San Diego park following regulatory scrutiny in California.'

SeaWorld to phase out killer-whale shows, captivity

The educational value of zoos is overstated. If you want to learn about animals then read a book, or watch a documentary. It's not like zoos have dramatically shifted the general public's views and behaviors toward the environment. The world is still experiencing a 6th mass extinction event due to humans. For this reason zoos are not really that much different from circuses, in that they provide entertainment value but their social impact is questionable. And as people have already said, a lot of zoos are in deplorable shape.

Zoos were originally menageries for flaunting exotic colonial acquisitions, they are luxury institutions of wealthy nations, and honestly if you scratch the surface they aren't that much different today. Zoo practices are pretty materialistic. Animals get captured in the name of preservation and shipped all over the world in the name of research, but zoos are usually for-profit so the motives are not entirely innocent. The zoo animal trade worldwide is HUGE. They're somewhat comparable to museums and the worldwide trade in priceless artifacts. Countries steal artifacts from their native locations and put them on display for profit in the name of "preserving" them.

Zoos actually have a very poor conservation record in general, with low reproductive success rates in endangered species. Conservation centers, which are not zoos and do not allow the public to enter them, have much higher success rates... but they are usually non-profit. Those are the places where real useful research is happening. Zoos have to constantly balance their research protocols with their commercial ventures and that's why I find them unethical.

DA60 said:

SeaWorld to phase out killer-whale shows, captivity

'Embattled amusement-park operator SeaWorld Entertainment said Thursday that the killer whales currently living at its facilities will be its last as it will stop breeding them immediately and phase out theatrical orca shows.

The move comes nearly three years after SeaWorld came under pressure for its treatment of killer whales and their trainers in the documentary Blackfish.

The company had already announced plans to end killer-whale shows at its San Diego park following regulatory scrutiny in California.'

SeaWorld to phase out killer-whale shows, captivity

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Great news, it is an evil empire IMHO, even before Blackfish I was seriously against the way seaworld did it's business.

I also think zoo's should alter their ways, not have as many animals on the smallest possible footprint but the other way around, fewer animals on a bigger plot. Like has happened in Emmen, they have made an adventure world in which there are also animals. No longer just simply walking by animals in enclosures but people safely driving or boating through enclosures where animals are free to roam and act naturally.

So far I have just seen a few video's of it but I am really liking how the new zoo looks like, more realistic worlds with fewer animals and oodles of space for them to live as naturally as possible.

IMHO, if you are going to keep baboons, you need to give them space and let them live in natural family groups.



But this is easy to achieve if you have a brand new zoo but in the future all animals should be kept as wild as possible in zoos.

Northern Light said:

The educational value of zoos is overstated. If you want to learn about animals then read a book, or watch a documentary. It's not like zoos have dramatically shifted the general public's views and behaviors toward the environment. The world is still experiencing a 6th mass extinction event due to humans. For this reason zoos are not really that much different from circuses, in that they provide entertainment value but their social impact is questionable. And as people have already said, a lot of zoos are in deplorable shape.

Zoos were originally menageries for flaunting exotic colonial acquisitions, they are luxury institutions of wealthy nations, and honestly if you scratch the surface they aren't that much different today. Zoo practices are pretty materialistic. Animals get captured in the name of preservation and shipped all over the world in the name of research, but zoos are usually for-profit so the motives are not entirely innocent. The zoo animal trade worldwide is HUGE. They're somewhat comparable to museums and the worldwide trade in priceless artifacts. Countries steal artifacts from their native locations and put them on display for profit in the name of "preserving" them.

Zoos actually have a very poor conservation record in general, with low reproductive success rates in endangered species. Conservation centers, which are not zoos and do not allow the public to enter them, have much higher success rates... but they are usually non-profit. Those are the places where real useful research is happening. Zoos have to constantly balance their research protocols with their commercial ventures and that's why I find them unethical.

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I am sorry, but how bad zoos sometimes are, no way are they nearly as bad as a circus where the animals are cajoled and tortured into doing tricks several times a day and not allowed to live in anything near a natural way.

Peter King said:

I am sorry, but how bad zoos sometimes are, no way are they nearly as bad as a circus where the animals are cajoled and tortured into doing tricks several times a day and not allowed to live in anything near a natural way.

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I only said that they are the same in terms of being entertainment value for the masses. The comparison ends there.

Though for the record many zoos and circuses are tied into the same global animal trade, it's just that their stated goals are different.

Zoo's are great. They should be preserved. Upgraded perhaps to suit X animals environment. Other than that, leave em.

Environmentalists can suck it if they don't like em.

Infinite Chaos said:

Given that in some instances some animals are likely to be wiped out in their natural habitat and may only exist in future in captivity then restructure over abolishment every day of the week for me. We're down to less than 100,000 African lions, rhinos, Indian Tigers and other such animals and not because of evolution but because we have destroyed their habitat or the chinese are paying for their slaughter to make medicines (which don't actually work anyway)

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Beat me to it. Some animals aren't extinct today solely because of zoos.