Saturday, July 02, 2016
The history of zoo construction is fraught and dominated by humans’ desire to ignore the consequences of our actions.
www.slate.com: In the weeks after Harambe, the lowland gorilla, was shot when a 3-year-old boy fell into his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, I began to notice peculiar news stories that otherwise wouldn’t have attracted my attention. A leopard in a Utah zoo slipped through the mesh that separated it from the public, forcing visitors to huddle in the gift shop until it was caught. A black bear cub briefly escaped its handlers while being moved between enclosures at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio (it was eventually sedated and returned). Georgian police killed a tiger that had, in its own turn, killed a man after escaping its enclosure. Just last week in Brazil, a jaguar exhibited in the Olympic torch ceremony broke free from its chains, moving freely until it too was shot after attacking a soldier. When animals and humans are close enough to one another, mishaps happen in both directions—humans get in, and animals get out. Invariably, both suffer.
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The construction of zoos has always been a challenge to human morality. The article points out a good aspect that through the development of modern zoo, it is usually human (the visitors) who benefits rather than the enclosed animals. The new designs might get people closer, clearer and safer to the animals, but as long as the enclosure is there, animals are confined. It's also important to consider that although some zoo constructors claim that zoos are shelters to endangered or saved animals, their final goal should be releasing these animals back to nature after periods of exhibition. However, the zoo environment is inherently different to the wild nature, and consequently makes the animals unable to return back to their natural habitats. Thus zoos offer a seemingly easy solution to help endangered species, and undermine popular concerns about our nature. Perserving wild animals definitely requires much more time and effort, and I believe it's better to build conservation and no-hunting zone in nature than simply construct some zoos for public attraction.
This article makes an incredibly good point. I've been taught since I was little that zoos help animals and that they existed to protect them from predators or excessive pollution, etc. For many years I believed that zoos were like luxury spas for the animals rather than the prisons that they are. Few enclosures have the necessary space comfortable for the animal they hold and several more nomadic-type animals could never adjust to being caged in a permanent cage. It is completely understandable how animals lash out when they do break free as for many of the ones who are exhibited humans are food, yet for many more they are driven crazy by the isolation and frustration of being unable to leave. We often forget that animals also can experience emotional and mental trauma. If cats get depression from being trapped indoors which results in wall-sitting (cats sitting with their face against a wall for hours on end) and lashing out, then why wouldn't a big cat, or any other animal of that sort, have the same response? These animals that are brought to zoos, whether in exotic exhibits or for rehabilitation, are damaged by the dependency and enclosure they are placed in to the point that even if given to the opportunity to leave, are not able to function in their natural habitats.
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