Safari parks in Britain,

[isitoknottohaveaname]

Is it ok to breed animals in zoos/safari parks, like lions,/pandas/ penguins etc which are now forced to live in vastly different environments that they've evolved to live in? Are we helping them survive extinction or are we keeping them here for our entrainment?

Wildly anthropomorphising. On the whole, for most species, their whole raison d'etre, is to search for food, and a mate, and breed. That’s it. Take all of that away from them and you end up with wild animals behaving in a completely unnatural way that probably stresses a huge number of them significantly.

@MandyMotherOfBrian

Wildly anthropomorphising. On the whole, for most species, their whole raison d'etre, is to search for food, and a mate, and breed. That’s it. Take all of that away from them and you end up with wild animals behaving in a completely unnatural way that probably stresses a huge number of them significantly.

Right. Additionally, most animals have strong territorial instincts. In a zoo environment, these have to be managed carefully to avoid conflict and depression, and sometimes it isn't possible to for an animal to carve out a territory at all - and that's entirely unnatural.

My point was that OP was anthropomorphising by saying the animals would prefer to be in the wild.

I was saying that if they could choose, they'd probably all choose safety, food and breeding.

How many of these animals have you observed in their natural environment?

As pp have said, animals in zoos have a longer life expectancy. Life is hard for a lot of animals in the wild, finding food and water, avoiding predators etc. They don't wander around the savannah enjoying the peace and beauty of their environment all their lives.

Yes, and the general public have absolutely no idea what actually goes on. There was a thread recently about how awful it was that the female Amur tiger had been killed during the breeding attempt in Knowsley, and shouldn’t someone do something about it. My point then was that the public only knew about it because she was such a high profile animal and it would have been obvious that she was no longer there. Unpredictable breeding scenarios and other forced mixing makes for other animal deaths that the public will never hear about.

Wasn't the one that paced back and forth an ex-circus animal (and hence used to a trailer)?

The site in Clifton is now closed. It was too cramped really but I hope that the housing that will now be built will be sensitive to the buildings and that the gardens will remain.

Death during breeding could have happened in the wild, it's quite common. What can't happen in captivity is poaching.

It depends on the animal.
Most of the animals that you see that are being bred etc.... they are small.
Things like insects, spiders, small reptiles, small birds etc... they can still be endangered and being captive bred. They don't need huge enclosures like big cats etc.
You can still visit them in a zoo

Yes, Misha. Would pace until his feet bled. The other bear, Nina, was PTS, and Misha was after.
I remember seeing them. They just paced back and forth. Was horrible to see. I was just a kid at the time and it really upset me.
Polar bears walk and stalk their prey for km at a time. Being kept in a small enclosure is madness.

@XenoBitch

Polar bears walk and stalk their prey for km at a time. Being kept in a small enclosure is madness.

And this relates back to territoriality. In the wild, animals can naturally maintain large territories. In a zoo, this isn't possible - leading to stress.

I am growing more and more uncomfortable with zoos.

Lots have a 'conservation' drum to bang... or a rescue one, or both - but when you dig deeper, you find that they are conserving animals to... sell/share with other zoos.

These are the species with zero chance of return to the wild and no effort made to do so, because there is no wild to return them to - or species that do not need wild numbers boosting in the first place.

Some are pretty prolific breeding programs... because they can breed 'em but they can't actually keep them alive all that long so theres a constant need for replacements.

Lots of animals are culled, when they don't fit a breeding program anywhere and zoos are out of room as a result of the need to keep breeding - giraffes spring to mind.

Some species live very well in captivity - sedentary species who lurk waiting for food to pass by, snakes for example, seahorses do quite well, herd dwelling herbivores are pretty safe stuff.

Some breeding programs and research programs are valuable - these tend to be small, boring, icky, un-pretty creatures that few will ever notice though.

Lots of places run under the guise of rescue, a dolphin facility I can think of as an example... has rescued (last I heard and had to sit through a 3 hour sales pitch lecture) 3 from the wild, in the entire time they've been running (decades).

All their other 'rescue' dolphins were 'rescued' by handing cash to a failing/closing down facility elsewhere. They do no actual research, they make big bucks flogging 'stay three weeks and learn to train dolphins'... to boost your CV or ego. They have a vague wafty hint at 'return to wild' schemes but to date have not actually done this, theres always a reason they can't...

They of course make a big deal about using human training methods - but this should be the base line for acceptable methods, not a special thing to trumpet about!

So the bottom line is most zoos in the UK (and they are by far the better ones on the whole!) are conserving animals for the benefit of the public and other zoos.

No animals should be stuck in horrible enclosures! But many zoo enclosures are lovely - I would be quite happy there! many safari parks enclosures are wonderful too.

They are not "born purely for humans to gawp at" but to protect their species and to protect the environment

Many zoo animals are probably better cared for than pets.

Very rarely are animals bred in captivity in the UK and then released.

However, there are loads of reasons for having animals in captivity.
Education is one. It’s possible to get people excited in a way you just aren’t when watching an animal on TV. This might motivate someone to take action they wouldn’t otherwise (eg they might decide to look for MSC certification on fish). Or they may donate which can then be put back into conservation in the wild.

Insurance policy against extinction- if we do lose the species in the wild we could start again if needed.

Skills. This one can’t be underestimated. Put different species in one place and the people looking after them build up a massive knowledge base. Then when something comes along which needs help, you have someone who can say “This has never been kept in captivity before but this works with X species which eats similar so let’s try… ok, that sort of works but this might work better so let’s try this which we do with that species.” Loads of zoos have close links to breeding facilities in the country the species come from. This is where animals tend to be released from.
There’s a reason that Western zoos are usually the ones to establish captive breeding facilities and maintain links, even when the facilities are eventually taken over by local organisations.
DH does this. He’s been involved in training staff overseas in one facility, establishing the initial captive breeding and release facilities in another, and involved in the ongoing running of several more. Will likely be establishing a new facility overseas for a species threatened with extinction but not yet in captivity this year. He can do this because he works in zoos and knows a lot about a lot of species (birds), and has a massive bank of ideas to try based on working with similar species.

Some of this would never be true of tigers but it is very true for loads of little species that most people haven’t heard of. The reality is that you need the big ticket animals because people wouldn’t pay to go and see loads of little brown birds or reptiles but these are the species which get maximum benefit from zoos.

Look up species like the Montserrat Mountain chicken, or the pink pigeon from Mauritius (which has mostly been bred in Mauritius for release but has had huge amounts of effort from UK zoos with staff support, funding etc).

Does that help for starters?

OP, you're coming at this clearly having done none of your own research and being deliberately difficult when people are giving you positive reasons. It would probably be better to take yourself off to Google for a couple of hours.

Obviously it would be better if all these animals thrived in the wild, but they don't and once they're extinct, you CANNOT get them back. Do you understand that? Once they're gone they're gone. And there's you saying "oh well they didn't work in the wild". It's not just about the immediate animals, an entire species is gone again.

If you're not a vegetarian, I suggest you take yourself off to Google what a black and white cow is as well.

Exactly!!

You mention penguins in your OP, but you clearly don't realise that penguins are found all the way from the Antarctic to the tropics. Most of the penguins you see in the UK are species used to a temperate habitat.