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Zoos are a hot button topic for people interested in animal rights, animal welfare, humane education, and conservation. I'm an open opponent of zoos and question their highly touted educational value and their significant contributions to conservation (please also see and links therein), but I also realize they aren't going to disappear any time in the near future. Thus, as long as zoos exist, their residents — every single individual — must have the very best life possible even if it means that zoo administrators can't do what they want to do to increase profit. Nonhuman animals (animals) are not objects who exist for our entertainment and enjoyment, nor should they be used for profit by being forced to live highly compromised lives with little to no freedom to make choices in cages of different shapes and sizes.
Conservation should not be a beauty contest
A recent TEDx talk called "Animal Welfare and the Future of Zoos," by Detroit Zoological Society Executive Director Ron Kagan, is well worth watching. The Detroit Zoo is recognized as the "greenest zoo" in the United States, and Kagan and his staff are well known for advocating for the animals who reside there. In his short talk, Kagan covers a lot of ground about the current state of zoos and where they need to head in the future. He notes, for example, that zoos must be compassionate and "demonstrate a fundamental commitment to being 'patient-centered' — ensuring a great quality of life for every single animal in a zoo," that "conservation should not be a beauty contest," and that zoos need to move away from using charismatic and beautiful animals to attract visitors because other animals, such as snails, also beautiful beings for whom the Detroit Zoo has a special exhibit, can be highly educational. Kagan also notes that killer whale shows are not good for the whales nor are they in any way educational, and he stresses that zoos must be centers for humane education for which his zoo has the Berman Academy for Humane Education. At the Detroit Zoo there also is an exhibit called "Science on a sphere" that clearly shows the effects of climate change on sea ice, and it's nice to see a zoo focus on what is happening to the homes of numerous other animals. Kagan also talks about the organizations with which his zoo works, including PETA.
Taking a victim-centered approach for captive animals
I highly recommend this brief TEDx talk because it raises a good number of issues about keeping animals in zoos. And, I hope in the future, zoos as we know them will be phased out and even Kagan's forward-looking views about zoos as compassionate patient-centered places will be surpassed so that no animal beings will have to live in these sorts of venues. Zoos have not proven to be vehicles for personal rewilding in the anthopocene, an epoch I hope will somehow rapidly morph into the much more humane "compassionocene." In the meanwhile, we can assume a victim-centered approach in which we must be committed to giving each and every individual the very best life she or he can have when they are forced to live in captivity. We are obliged to do so because we are their very lifeline, their oxygen, and we have chosen, absent their consent, to seriously compromise their lives and freedom in myriad known and unknown ways.
Marc Bekoff's latest books are Jasper's Story: Saving Moon Bears (with Jill Robinson), Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate Conservation, Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed, Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence, and The Jane Effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall (edited with Dale Peterson). (Homepage: marcbekoff.com; @MarcBekoff)
