to think that Zoos are outdated in this day and age

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I am fully prepared to be put right if I am wrong. It's just that we went as a family to Bristol Zoo yesterday. I was pretty apprehensive about it anyway, I went there as a kid and the main memory of the place was of a pathetic bear in a concrete pit, and a white lion in what I remember being a small cage.

The zoo all seemed well run, and very educational and seemed full of the best intentions. And to be honest I did find it enjoyable.

I did however feel rather uncomfortable towards the end, where I saw the gorillas, sealions, pygmy hippos and a gazelle type animal, the name of which escapes me. The enclosures seemed very small for the size of the animals. And, although I am not anthropomorphic about animals, there seemed something particularly sad about the gorillas, who were in a glass screened enclousre eating fruit aboit 8 feet away from flashing cameras and shrieking kids.

OK, so I understand that zoos undertake breeding programmes for endangered animals, and these are funded (probably) by visitors. However, I f elt deeply uncomfortable with the fact that these animals are kept mainly for the amusement of paying customers. And it seems a rather old fashioned idea to collect rare breeds, and continue breeding them in captivity. Obviously I do not know much about it at all, however personally the zoo was not an enjoyable experience for us (me, DP and DD all felt the same).

We went here today. Its not classed as a zoo, but a wild animal park. I was still questioning it, even though most of the animals have a large area to live in, it is a controlled environment.

I don't know enough about it to comment on it, but I do know I wasn't entirely comfortable with it.

I like zoos that are really committed to good keeping and conservation work. As children we visited Howletts and Port Lymne often and they do a lot of conservation work, including in the animals natural habitat.

Info here:

www.aspinallfoundation.org/aspinall

The zoos themselves have mainly large, naturalistic enclosures (although not visited for some years) so much so that you can't always see the animals, or at least, not close up, in a lot of cases.

In contrast, I visted Belfast Zoo last year with some friends and will never go back there. It was horrendous, truly disgusting and the reptiles (something I know quite a bit about) were inadequately kept IMO as well as most other species.

midori - as mentioned, I went to Howlett's today. I agree that some of the enclosures are large and you often don't see the animals because of this.

I was more bothered about some of the monkey/gorilla enclosures, where they were very definitely on display, a key enclosure had raised ringside seats which made me very uncomfortable. I have no doubt about the excellent work done by the Aspinall Foundation, and that the animals are very well kept and well cared for all things considered.

I suppose its the blatant voyeuristic nature of it that makes me uncomfortable, iyswim.

Zoos make me feel very sad. I know all the supposed plus points but I can't get away from the fact that these animals are not living anything like how they should live, and are therefore undoubtedly miserable, bored and confused. I won't even let my DD get a hamster, rabbit or guinea pig for the same reasons. We had 2 goldfish and I felt like such a bitch every time I looked at them, I was kind of happy for them when they died. Animals in captivitity = wrongness.

There are some really interesting posts on here - thanks Bombus and DomesticSlattern in particular.

I do realise that my reaction (and that of my family) was primarily one borne of an emotional response - I do not know anything of the zoos conservation programs (other than what I learnt at the actual zoo, which wasn't much tbh) so thanks for the info and the links - like I said in my first post I was fully prepared to be corrected in my ignorance.

It would be interesting if Bristol zoo ever moved out of the city - imagine that the land it occupies curretnly would be worth a fortune to a developer, being in Clifton, and extra acreage outsied the city would be a benefit I think.

I do thinj that some of the exhibits are arranged for teh benfit of teh paying customer as opposed to the animal though. We were all excited at the weekend when we first saw the gorillas - we were a long way away and the gorilla was on a hill. However when we went to teh enclosure bit, and saw that customers watched them as they ate, and were only a short distance away, well, I felt that that could have been avoided. There were signs up everywhere saying 'avoid making eye contact, as it makest he gorillas agressive'. So of course there were a bunch of young boys trying to attract the eye of the gorilla in order to turn it into King Kong. The zoo keepers must know that this would happen, and that to avoid that perhaps they should not have an enclosure which would enable this to happen.

Oh I don't know. More ramblings of someone who doesn't really know what they are talking about!

One thing I will say - I think that the zoo is very well run outside the limitations that I have mentioned above. I imagine that the welfare of the animals is of a high concern. I just think perhaps (as mentioned above) large animals should not belong in zoos at all, and I think that would be far more successful with smaller wildlife.

I went to Edinburgh Zoo yesterday. We all had a great time. The animals looked clean, healthy and well fed. They appear to do a lot of research and conservation as well.

I am quite happy for animals to be used as entertainment for people so long as they are not in distress.

Some of the creatures in the zoo are extinct in the wild. It is an unfortunate fact that we are going to need more zoos rather than less if we are going to keep some species going.

It was sad that the gorilla at London Zoo dies recently, I think the gorilla had diabetes. It is interesting because when i went to London Zoo last year, the gorillas were eating jelly!! I though that this was weird at the time, as this is not a natural food, and it looked odd to see animals eat it. Could this have cnotirbuted to diabetes?

IIRC Bristol Zoo tried to move Wendy (the elephant) years ago, to live out her days at Longleat (when they still had elephants). But the Longleat lot bullied her and she missed her keeper.

The first time I went to the Zoo after she died, they'd not completely cleared her enclosure yet. Her tyre was swinging in the breeze. It was all a bit much and I sobbed a bit

I think some zoos are better than others.
Definitely don't go to seaworld in florida - everyone raved on about it to me so we went and I was shocked. They still did dolphin and whale shows in small tanks. They also sold food that you could hand feed the sealions - my niece did it then 3 days came down with chickenpox (not implying she caught it from sealion - more worried what she passed on). There seemed to be a token bit about conservation which I'm sure they do but it wasn't very visual from my POV.
Animal kingdom was better - not brilliant but miles better than seaworld.
And do not get me started on chessington world of adventures - I wanted to open all the cages and shout 'run'!!

We've just got back from Bristol Zoo, and think you're right about the animals, at least the larger ones. One of the lions shows signs of real distress and is quite agitated. DD likes the lizards and the bats.

But, we mainly go for the playground, and the gardens. DS ran himself ragged in the new maze thing. There aren't many places where the kids can just run around in a relatively safe environment.

I'd actually be happier if they moved the animals!

May I at this point recommend the WWT and RSPB reserves?

Grimma: I went to the WWT in london last summer - it was fab! I love slimbridge - but they seem to be doing lots of work recently so will be better when its all finished.

Yes, Slimbridge is a bit of a building site at the moment! We go there whenever we visit Granny in Gloucester, but we live near Martin Mere so we're members - fantastic value. Brilliant places for kids, and although the collections are pinioned, there are masses of wild birds there by choice.