Since I'm not as sensitive as I was I've taken advantage of the fact by watching wildlife which I always loved but used to cry at hunting, killing & eating scenes or just switch off now I just feel physically sick. After watching quite a few I felt the need to question an opinion shared by many that zoos are cruel as I realised that sometimes zoos stop some animals from going extinct for reasons I will go on to explain later.
1stly, between Mongolia & China a group of scientists attempted to reintroduce Przewalski's horse (equus przewalski) into the wild & breed them. They were kept in small enclosures show-jumping ring size. They were also protected from wolves which are their natural predators & Bedouin who passed by every now & then with their horses. The Bedouin didn't want to eat them or anything but had stallions which are members of the modern horse family (equus caballus) which has 66 chromosomes while Przewalski's horses only have 64 so if a modern horse decided to mate with a Przewalski's horse the consequences could be dire. The scientists also found that Przewalski's horses were struggling to find enough food for themselves to live on.
2ndly, human beings so far have caused the extinction of 4 animals & have put others on the endangered species list. The animals I'm talking about that humans have caused the extinction of are Takhis, Tarpans, Dodos & Passenger pigeons. Although it's illegal people still poach elephants & rhinos for their tusks & horns respectively. The reason why they do this is because they get paid quite a bit for it & they live in poor countries where doing this is better paid than getting a job. Their government rake it in & live the high life while poor people have to struggle in order to stop themselves from starving. I think their government should do something about the quality of life for their people so they wouldn't have to do this. Rhino horns are seen as medicine there whereas if their government did something so up-to-date medicine was available this wouldn't be necessary. Chimpanzees, red-faced macaques & gorillas are slaughtered for the same reasons. Some chimpanzees are kept as pets. Deforestation has also destroyed the habitat of many animals.
Global warming has caused ice floes & icebergs to melt in the arctic which means penguins don't have as much of a safe haven against leopard seals who hide behind these or disguise themselves as boulders until penguins go off in search for food but this also affects the leopard seals who don't have as much of a safe haven against their predator which is the orca.
Some animals would die in nature or have become endangered for natural reasons. For example, a chimpanzee has a child but rejects it by not picking it up quickly enough. In the wild it would die of hypothermia. Marsupials have a pouch that is big enough for only 1 child. If that marsupial has twins when they get bigger the stronger child pushes out the weaker 1. In the wild that child would die. Albinos also have less chance of surviving in the wild because of their white colouring & red eyes due to lack of melanin in their system. This makes them stand out a mile so they're an easy target. Pandas are endangered because they're not very social & only breed for a short period every year. If they don't breed then, that's it for another year. Californian Condors became endangered until put on a breeding programme. There were only between 22-24 in the wild in the world.
Although zoos restrict animals freedom to some extent they also look after & offer the animals more protection than they would have in the wild so I think they're necessary to prevent some animals from going extinct.
What do you think?
1stly, between Mongolia & China a group of scientists attempted to reintroduce Przewalski's horse (equus przewalski) into the wild & breed them. They were kept in small enclosures show-jumping ring size. They were also protected from wolves which are their natural predators & Bedouin who passed by every now & then with their horses. The Bedouin didn't want to eat them or anything but had stallions which are members of the modern horse family (equus caballus) which has 66 chromosomes while Przewalski's horses only have 64 so if a modern horse decided to mate with a Przewalski's horse the consequences could be dire. The scientists also found that Przewalski's horses were struggling to find enough food for themselves to live on.
2ndly, human beings so far have caused the extinction of 4 animals & have put others on the endangered species list. The animals I'm talking about that humans have caused the extinction of are Takhis, Tarpans, Dodos & Passenger pigeons. Although it's illegal people still poach elephants & rhinos for their tusks & horns respectively. The reason why they do this is because they get paid quite a bit for it & they live in poor countries where doing this is better paid than getting a job. Their government rake it in & live the high life while poor people have to struggle in order to stop themselves from starving. I think their government should do something about the quality of life for their people so they wouldn't have to do this. Rhino horns are seen as medicine there whereas if their government did something so up-to-date medicine was available this wouldn't be necessary. Chimpanzees, red-faced macaques & gorillas are slaughtered for the same reasons. Some chimpanzees are kept as pets. Deforestation has also destroyed the habitat of many animals.
Global warming has caused ice floes & icebergs to melt in the arctic which means penguins don't have as much of a safe haven against leopard seals who hide behind these or disguise themselves as boulders until penguins go off in search for food but this also affects the leopard seals who don't have as much of a safe haven against their predator which is the orca.
Some animals would die in nature or have become endangered for natural reasons. For example, a chimpanzee has a child but rejects it by not picking it up quickly enough. In the wild it would die of hypothermia. Marsupials have a pouch that is big enough for only 1 child. If that marsupial has twins when they get bigger the stronger child pushes out the weaker 1. In the wild that child would die. Albinos also have less chance of surviving in the wild because of their white colouring & red eyes due to lack of melanin in their system. This makes them stand out a mile so they're an easy target. Pandas are endangered because they're not very social & only breed for a short period every year. If they don't breed then, that's it for another year. Californian Condors became endangered until put on a breeding programme. There were only between 22-24 in the wild in the world.
Although zoos restrict animals freedom to some extent they also look after & offer the animals more protection than they would have in the wild so I think they're necessary to prevent some animals from going extinct.
What do you think?
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I do think it's an interesting question, and very complicated. I'm with BB and Darth who say they've very much enjoyed going to zoos over the years. They give us, as children (and grown-ups) a great love and empathy for many kinds of animals, which is useful. And they've been greatly improved in the last 40 years, in that they're not merely in cages, but generally in open and very well thought-out enclosures, which hugely consider the needs of the particular animal. We've come a long way from the PT Barnum days of just taking an animal from the wild and exploiting it. A lot of zoos have animals that weren't born in the wild, and couldn't necessarily live there. They also have the opportunity to breed endangered species, in cooperation with other zoos, taking care to not interbreed, etc. It seems to me that now zoos seem to have much more of a mission to animal conservation, rather than just exhibition, and this is a good thing. Let's face it: when we're talking about how we feel about zoos, we're talking about the large animals. Lions, tigers, polar bears and pandas, elephants, leopards, giraffes, etc. No one gives a toss that a tarantula or a python are in a box. My point being, though, that if you can put those big animals, (and the small ones,) in an environment where they are well cared for, and you can make first-world people love them, especially from very young, you have a better chance of saving them from the poachers and the others who actually would exploit them, or the environmental factors that are killing them. The closer contact we have with them, the more we can empathize and care. That's my best argument for good zoos in the 21st C.