Readit NewsDead Comment
Dead Comment
Seems to me: Yes. And you are not alone, so actually, yah, it's working.
And why are you mentioning "eat them" there's nothing wrong with that. Destroy their homes is quite unrelated.
Please supply one single reason why this is not wrong:
Your post was flagged (not by me) so I can't go back for exact context, but I do agree with you, zoos are pretty messed up.
I feel like seeing wildlife, even in non-native habitats, may help encourage people to act to conserve that wildlife. Seeing a creature in real life is different than in a video.
Edit: I went back and looked at your replies to other people. I will have to think about this more.
On the other hand when they see conservation status "threatened" on the sign by the animal they wonder about it.
And there's nothing wrong with putting an animal is a zoo - you are correct, they don't behave the same. But that doesn't make it wrong. Animals are not trophies to be displayed in the wild and always to be some distant unknowable thing.
Instead animals and humans share the same planet and we should encounter them up close, and experience them, and zoo's are how you do it.
You are relegating animals to these "things" that no one ever sees or hears about - or cares about.
"Because they are animals" is not an argument. The singular fact that you state that humans aren't animals implies that you are lacking even the most basic knowledge in biology. Given that, I can understand that applying ethics on top of that is currently too much to ask.
After all, maybe a good documentary film, that actually deals with these topics, could help you with that. I can assure you that no zoo will.
In what way is my POV biased? What you describe is a purely egoistic attitude. Ask the question: Who does this serve?
Your answer might be: primarily the animals (this includes fish). But this is not true, as the only reason we would have to conserve any species in the first place is because we humans (almost) drove them to extinction by e.g. killing them for profit (e.g. leather, ivory, etc.), burning their habitat for animal feed (which happens when you eat land animal meat) or by overfishing (which happens when you eat fish). Either way, the reason is not valid because the root cause is driven by human behavior, which almost all people causing it could change it in an instant - but they choose not to. Why? Because their pleasure is more important than non-human animals' lives.
Hence, the answer is: the humans who pay for it. It only serves the entertainment of humans at the cost of the (non-human) animals.
Kids visiting a zoo for sure don't consciously think "its OK to capture animals for amusement", but they get subconsciously conditioned by the fact that it is portrayed as "normal".
My guess is that you never researched about how zoos work. If you did, I promise you will be shocked what happens behind the scenes in order to "give kids a view into a world beyond the one in which they live day-to-day".
However, this does not mean that "smaller" problems are somehow not worth mentioning/tackling. IMO zoos, just like TV shows for children in which cartoon animals are portrayed to live happy lives on farms, happy cows on products, etc. are all tiny little but VERY effective weapons for the industry to manipulate people into thinking that using animals for profit is actually good, because the animals are said to be so happy. The opposite is true.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14152756/
So many things I didn't appreciate
Not all zoos in the world combined will educate you like this 90 minute video does.