To believe that zoos are unethical and should be abolished?

[YourHonestOchreBeaker]

Keeping animals in cages for human entertainment seems cruel, no matter how ‘nice’ the enclosures are. AIBU to think that zoos have no place in a modern society?

I think that it's also really important to bring people into contact with these animals in order to get people to actually care about conservation. You can learn about them on screens etc, but it just does not affect people the same way as actually seeing the animal in real life.

Some are better than others but it was still pretty distressing at Chester zoo watching a lion endlessly pace up and down. And polar bears which belong in the North Pole sweating in a British summer?

I felt the same after visiting Chester. The poor Jaguar just pacing and the small elephant enclosure was shocking. These animals walk miles every day in the wild. They must be bored beyond belief stuck in an enclosure. Safari parks are a bit better as they have more space.

I think some animals are not suited to zoos. Big cats and elephants - probably not. Some animals are in breeding programmes to avert extinction though and we need thsss to continue. Plenty of “game” animals would be fine in a safari park as long as there are no predictors. So I would not close them but no polar bears, big cats or large mammals.

Tacking the poaching and the trade in rhino horn more effectively would be the actual solution here.

British zoos are not helping this problem. Well, they are a little - they donate a small fraction of the millions they make each year, to assist with anti-poaching projects - about £50k per year. I bet they make that in a day purely selling the pizza at £10 a pop.
Obviously rhino conservation charity's are very grateful - they have to be, otherwise they won't get the money at all.

@XenoBitch Fellow Brizzle girl here. The polar bears were Misha and Nina, put to sleep in 1992. Misha had been a circus bear in Russia before moving to Bristol zoo in 1979. As a child I would visit Bristol zoo. I loved the reptile house and aquarium and the meerkats, but the rest was depressing. I never liked seeing Misha pacing in his enclosure he seemed sad. I used to enjoy visiting Noah's Ark in Wraxall, but last time I was there they had a tiger in its cage, just pacing and pacing. He seemed so unhappy. They did at least provide trees for him to climb, but he seemed sad to me. The farm animals seem treated well there and I enjoyed seeing the capybaras and some very happy guinea pigs and goats,but I think tigers are too big to be kept in an enclosure . I haven't been to what was the Wild Place cribbs causeway since before covid, I did like the fact they had lots of space and their meerkat house is epic!

Yeah this.
I can see OP's point, but a lot of zoos do great conservation work and rehabilitation etc.

We can't control what happens in other countries.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26356099.amp

This put me off zoos.

Can you summarise what is in the link it won't open for me.

Are you tarring all zoos with the same brush?

Of course it would. But when you have a subspecies with only a few individuals left, and rhino horn is worth so much, that's really hard to implement completely. Breeding in zoos is another level of insurance.

Also, tackling the poaching only solves the poaching issue, and not the nature- is- brutal issue.

Zoos have to cull a number of healthy animals each year to keep numbers down. For example a zoo in Copenhagen euthanises 20 -30 animals per year. Zoos here in the UK do similar.

When Copenhagen Zoo put down a healthy male giraffe earlier this month, much of the world was horrified. But those in the know say it's quite normal - a fate that befalls thousands of zoo animals across Europe every year.
"This is not a thing that should go anywhere outside Denmark," says Copenhagen Zoo's Scientific Director Bengt Holst, responding to the barrage of critical news coverage. "We all know it's done every day."
Every day? It's not actually quite that often, but Holst says it's difficult to give a precise number.
"We do it when it's necessary," he says. "If I should take an average over 10 years - it could be probably something like 20, 30 [per year]." ( From BBC Article.)

We cannot send armed conservation rangers into other countries. The conservation of animals is largely down to the governments in the countries where they live. It’s not up to British zoo staff to do this.

I laughted when I read that zoos make £millions. Really? I think they have a role in conservation and rhinos are probably great in a field. If no one wanted rhino horn, they would not be killed so speak to the Chinese! South Africa does a reasonable conservation job on their rhinos and elephants. Other animals are worth conserving too.

I agree op.

I think the argument that they do conservation work etc is a bit hollow to be honest. To do that work doesn’t require tiny cages and human gawping.

controversial opinion here. But think, in the future, we will think this way about pet keeping too.

Usually animals like zebra and giraffe, to my understanding. They are usually fed to the carnivores.

When did you last visit a zoo? In the UK animals are not kept in tiny cages.

I would absolutely agree in a world where humans hadn’t already started putting animals in captivity, decimated their natural environment and developed a penchant for killing wild things in the name of sport or medicine. Alas we do not live in that world and so we have to take some steps to correct the balance. We have put in standards, welfare controls, limited exotic pet trades, fur trades, added in oversight and funding for managing endangered species. We strive to give animals in captivity the best life possible and promote education. The captive population wouldn’t survive release and would in some cases die out completely. What is a better alternative?

Living in a modern-day zoo or sanctuary may afford an animal a better quality of life than the one it had previously but that doesn't mean that zoos or sanctuaries are the answer. They may be necessary for now and some time to come.
But the real answer is to allow animals (not the ones currently in captivity who would be unlikely to survive in the wild) the space to live natural lives.
That can only be achieved with a massive reduction in the number of human beings on this planet.

As for @RampantIvy's point about animals no longer being kept in tiny cages, did you know that a hedgehog walks up to 2miles a night? If a hedgehog needs that much space, how much space do you think a big cat or bear needs? It might not look like a tiny cage to you but I'm pretty sure that is what it feels like to these animals.

I last visited a zoo in September. The animals were in small enclosures. I felt sad and uncomfortable.

And why are you only interested in zoos in the uk?

Which zoo did you visit?

Lincoln Park zoo, Chicago.

Before that it was London zoo maybe 5 years ago.

The cages and enclosures may be bigger in uk zoos. I’ll have to take your word for that as I won’t ever be going to a zoo again. But they are still cages and enclosures. They have to be limited in size so that visitors can see them. I think that’s wrong.

And I care about zoos outside the uk too.

@BitOutOfPractice Last time I went to Yorkshire Wildlife Park I walked 4 miles to see most of the animals.

Most of the lions in the park were rescued from tiny cages in Romania. The 4 new lions were rescued from war torn Ukraine.

What would you have suggested instead? Letting them straight out into the wild wasn't a sensible option.

Nobody is suggesting we let animals bred in captivity out into the wild. (Nor for that matter domesticated pets or farm animals.) But we need to stop putting animals in situations from which they need to be rescued.

We can't police what they do in other countries, sadly.

I can't police what happens in the UK either. What's your point?

Have you been to Twycross and seen the size of the tiny paddock it keeps kangaroos in?