I get all the problems for the animals and not suggesting that they should continue to endure those problems, but I hate to see the general public's access to nature further curtailed. The mainstream seems to love wild places and wild life as long as it's on Youtube yet they spend the entirety of their own lives in suburbs and retail landscapes with virtually no direct experience with nature. I wonder how many children's imaginations were broadened over the years by seeing these beautiful animals up close and because of that how many ended up in zoology or forestry or whatever.
I grew up with zoos and aquariums, and I have fond memories of them. But of course, I wasn't kept in one. And furthermore... Zoos and aquariums are not nature. They are exhibits in a kind of museum.
If we want people to see nature, we have to preserve actual nature and encourage people to visit it. Visiting a zoo is not visiting nature, and I personally worry that equivocating the two is dangerous.
I would not want people to get the impression that as long as we keep a few breeding pairs of every animal in our museums, there is no need to preserve places for them to live in actual nature.
> If we want people to see nature, we have to preserve actual nature and encourage people to visit it. Visiting a zoo is not visiting nature, and I personally worry that equivocating the two is dangerous.
I don’t find this compelling, and think that you are missing the point: visiting zoos is a way to inspire people to care about nature such that they will want to preserve it.
I was at a zoological society fundraiser where Joel Sartore, founder of the Nat Geo “Photo Ark” series, was the keynote speaker. In it he talks about the intrinsic good of nature and biodiversity. Because it is a good in and of itself, how can we protect it?
His argument was kids today aren’t connected to nature in the same way generations past have been connected to nature. With TV, video games, smart phones, etc., kids generally don’t spend as much time outside as they used to, and if they do, there is a higher chance it is in a more Urban area than years past.
Zoos, he argues, are one of the few remaining places a kid can see nature up close, and hopefully see the intrinsic good of nature to “give a shit” about it (his words). Once they do “give a shit,” they are more likely to want to protect it once they are grown up.
So zoos protect and preserve nature (an intrinsic good) and hopefully inspire younger generations to care about nature and grow up to want to protect it (instrumental good).
I found his argument compelling, and don’t think declaring that people should simply “preserve actual nature” would be very effective.
To each their own. My children seem just as inspired by today’s documentaries as I was by zoos, and my daughter has decided she wants to be a Veterinarian.
She seems quite aware that zoos are prisons for animals, and although she did like them when she was too young to understand all of the ramifications, today she is not interested in visiting our local zoo at all.
What you are repeating here is that zoos are a kind of propaganda for protecting nature, not that zoos protect nature.
Therefore, zoos are not an intrinsic good, they are one possible strategy for motivating people to actually protect nature.
Saying that zoos are good in this fashion is like saying that advertising is good because it may motivate people to do good. That’s fine, but it doesn’t make advertising an intrinsic good.
An intrinsic good is something internal to the thing itself. What you are actually arguing is that zoos are an extrinsic good, that the goodness of the zoo happens somewhere else, in the actual nature, and somewhen else, when the kids grow up.
What do you think about national parks? I've been to a few and .. I dunno. I find it weird we pay to get into a federal park. I feel like the money exchange encourages them to advertise passes, and draws in more people. These parks are often overcrowded with so many people filling up parking lots to see nature.
When you start building paths and roads and hiring rangers, you do make it safer for people to see these great areas, but you also put a system in place that's makes it not quite what it was.
I live on the outskirts between Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. While myself and locals access the (truly wild) back country regularly (it's generally why we live here), it's also really important that the 4+ million tourists from urban and suburban environments have visitor centers, boardwalks, signs, rangers, and guides. That middle ground is necessary for their safety as well as area around it. Yes, they will mess it up (or themselves) if allowed to roam freely - there's just too big of a gap between what they know and the real world. It would be great if that gap were less, but it's not, so I don't see a way around it. I'm just happy that so many have the desire and the opportunity to at least get that close.
I think that National Parks are necessary AND I think that wild, untamed and unexploited spaces are also necessary. The tradeoffs for building parks are challenging, but there is some logic behind them.
I also think you need "parkland" at all levels. here in Canada's GTA, we have areas managed by the the Toronto Recreation and Conservation Authority, and they try their best to preserve nature while managing access.
I belong to several MTB clubs that work with them, and they to put guardrails in place. We can't dig trails without studying the effect on the habitat first, trails are regularly closed for regeneration, they prohibit night riding to protect nocturnal behaviour, &c.
Can't speak for National Parks in the US, but in Canada they're quite well protected. Sure, Banff, Jasper and attractions along the highway are built up (it's kind of the point; have easily accessible attractions which bring in revenue to pay for real conservation).
But once you get into the backcountry, its pristine wilderness, with a good number of wild animals. We've certainly been more successful at protecting bears, wolves, mountain lions and numerous prey animals, than any other country on earth.
Had never heard of it. TIL. My favourites are in Alberta: Banff, Jasper, Elk Island (which has a large bison herd!). Also dreaming of visiting Nahanni National Park.
Of course not. But being able to see a giraffe in "nature" isn't something most people could ever do.
> I would not want people to get the impression that as long as we keep a few breeding pairs of every animal in our museums, there is no need to preserve places for them to live in actual nature.
Is anyone actually getting that impression? Seeing animals in zoos often is a catalyst for wanting to improve habitats in the wild. If you've never seen a giraffe, why would someone care about a giraffe habitat? It's abstract when it's "over in Africa" -- it's real when you can see the animal yourself and thus you're going to be more passionate about protecting those animals' habitats.
> I personally worry that equivocating the two is dangerous
I'm willing to bet a visit to SeaWorld has led to more kids wanting to be marine biologists and protect the oceans that any other experience. Nobody is suggesting that SeaWorld is the ocean. SeaWorld is a window into the wonderment that is out there in the real ocean. Look at the Monterey Aquarium -- they are significant drivers of marine preservation and education. Should the aquarium be closed, lest someone mistake the fact that they aren't actually viewing the animals in the real ocean?
Encourage through funding people to visit and be in nature - similar benefits of developing interconnection by traveling and doing exchanges around the world.
Aquariums won't go away any time soon, and I prefer them. Most fish don't care or can't tell their in captivity. I've seen a few were their otter exhibits seem questionable, but most have enough space. Very few aquariums have dolphins and whales and these animals really shouldn't be in such small spaces.
You can still see dolphins and whales, it just takes more effort. The ferry between the North and South island in New Zealand is often followed by bottle nose dolphins. There are tour groups in Seattle that take people into the sound to track down Orcas. You can even come across seals sometimes out of the rocks, if you cycle around coastal areas.
This is where technology like VR and AR can really take off. We shouldn't have to torture animals any longer to further our own species. We can create beautiful virtual worlds for games that are hyper realistic and fully interactive. We can push our selves to do the same and get rid of zoos. Why can't children go to museums and virtual field trips? Can you imagine something like Planet Earth but fully interactive in VR? We aren't that far off.
I really don't want to see VR and AR replacing real access to live animals. If zoos and parks aren't the answer, then VR/AR isn't either, or at least, I really don't want it to be; it'd feel something out of a scifi dystopia to me.
Look what happens when people visit a place because it looks good on youtube, Everest is a prime example. All those people going into the wild to see it firsthand will fuck it up, damage and pollute it. The very wildlife they wanted to see would be destroyed in time.
