
Can zoos be redesigned for a more ethical generation? - pmoriarty
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/design/zoos-animal-rights-welfare-eifel-cincinatti-giant-panda-zootopia-design-a8504341.html
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DoofusOfDeath
I'm more interested in the story's _headline_ : "Can zoos be redesigned for a
more ethical generation?"

I'd be interested to hear precisely what the headline's author meant by "more
ethical", and his/her reason for believing that the current generation _is_
more ethical.

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cambalache
Came exactly to make this point.Whig history applied to ethics I guess. Same
old navel gazing.

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DoofusOfDeath
Thanks for introducing the term "Whig history" to me!

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sandworm101
Some animals can be kept in captivity well. Dolphins no, but tigers, bears,
zebra and the like can do very well. Work with animals in the wild. Learn the
misery that is thier "natural" life before making some high-minded judgement
about fences. See how many ticks live on a wild lion's face, what starvation
means. Zoos are hard, very expensive, but can be ethical. They can give some
animals a good life and by doing so fill a social purpose.

Be afraid of a world without zoos. Look at what happens to people who never
see animals. Talk to anyone who grew up without dogs. They have all sorts of
misconceptions. Zoo animals represent the wild. They manifest our nebulous
ideas about wildlife and wild spaces. Without them our kids will too easily
dismiss wild nature. To demonstate to kids that wild animals have the right to
exist we need to first show them how they actually exist. Nothing does that so
well as seeing the wild in the flesh.

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Someone1234
You're arguing that a lion that sits in such a small cage it cannot run, has
nothing to hunt, and little to do, is better off because they might get ticks
out in the wild? Really? And if you want to talk about starvation, then let's
talk about the source of Lions struggling out in the world, like human
encroachment on their hunting grounds, farming, deforestation, etc.

A theoretical zoo paradise could work, but such a zoo would look more like a
wildlife refuge than what we're typically used it. And members of the public
may even have to put up with wild predators actually killed their food, and
not seeing some of the wildlife very often.

Most zoos have small enclosures for economic reasons, not because it is what
the animals themselves need.

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marcoperaza
> _You 're arguing that a lion that sits in such a small cage it cannot run,
> has nothing to hunt, and little to do, is better off because they might get
> ticks out in the wild? Really? And if you want to talk about starvation,
> then let's talk about the source of Lions struggling out in the world, like
> human encroachment on their hunting grounds, farming, deforestation, etc._

Do you know what happens to male lions in the wild? A stronger male lion takes
their mate, kills their children, and then kills them. And this is just the
ones lucky enough to survive _that long_. Male lions are kicked out of their
pride as soon as they reach adolescence. Most don’t even make it to adulthood
or survive long enough to mate. And if you’ve never seen an animal kill
another animal, they don’t exactly prioritize a quick and painless death. Life
as a wild lion is nasty, brutish, and short. It’s incredible, the the romantic
notions that people dream up for themselves.

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coldtea
Isn't that, like, their natural way of being?

Wtf is being proposed here, to keep lions at capture to avoid the parts of
their lifestyle we don't like or consider too savage?

That which you described is what MAKES a lion.

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marcoperaza
It _is_ their natural way of being, but that doesn’t make it inherently
morally superior to captivity by humans. The way humans live in the wild is
pretty different than in civilization too.

As an aside: I personally don’t think it actually matters whether captivity is
better than nature, but I’m pointing out _arguendo_ that it probably isn’t. I
think it is fine, short of wanton cruelty, for us humans to use animals for
our own ends.

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coldtea
> _It is their natural way of being, but that doesn’t make it inherently
> morally superior to captivity by humans._

Of course it does.

> _The way humans live in the wild is pretty different than in civilization
> too._

The civilisation is human's wild. We built this, it was not imposed upon us.

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marcoperaza
That’s the naturalistic fallacy. You need to do more than appeal to nature to
make that argument. You have to give a reason why that nature, or at least
nature in general, is superior.

Also, by the logic you're using, you can just as well say that possibly living
in captivity is the lion's new nature. After all, humans are part of nature
and our capturing of animals then is too.

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coldtea
> _That’s the naturalistic fallacy. You need to do more than appeal to nature
> to make that argument. You have to give a reason why that nature, or at
> least nature in general, is superior._

It's a sad day when you need to give a reason why captivity is worst than
letting lions live free.

In the end, even genocide is not good or bad objectively. It depends on a
value judgement, which from a rational perspective it's still a leap of faith
or "fallacy".

Either you acknowledge the value of freedom for animals or you don't.

But to avoid the "naturalistic fallacy" let's perform an empirical, scientific
experiment: let's keep you captive in a cage for several years, and see how
you fare, and whether you find it alright afterwards. We'll also have a
control group and everything of course, lest we mess up the experiment.

> _Also, by the logic you 're using, you can just as well say that possibly
> living in captivity is the lion's new nature. After all, humans are part of
> nature and our capturing of animals then is too._

In the lion's case, it's a nature imposed on them, so there's a difference.
Just because we're all parts of nature doesn't mean we enjoy or thrive under
everything that happens in nature: we wouldn't enjoy being eaten by lions or
being kept captive in cages by higher sentient animals (e.g. aliens).

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marcoperaza
I am a person, not a lion. Pretty different. A lion doesn’t even understand
what freedom is. Freedom as we understand it is a very high level abstraction
of a messy world that involves all sorts of limits on what we can do.

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qubax
Can we just get rid of zoos altogether? Wild animals shouldn't be caged or
confined just for our amusement. This goes for all wild animals. I don't think
we should be allowed to keep wild animals as pets as it is inhumane.

I'd make an exception for research institutions, but with the rise of drone,
camera, etc technology, we could and should be studying animals in the wild.

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pmoriarty
_" Wild animals shouldn't be caged or confined just for our amusement."_

What about for our education?

The zoo is the closest a lot of people even come to the natural world and to
appreciating and connecting with animals beyond common cats and dogs.

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rblion
More natural history museums with stuffed animals that died in captivity, by
accident, by natural causes. The kids get to see the animal up close, learn
about behavior/history, connect the animal to the 'bigger picture' of the
biosphere/ecosystem.

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vermooten
yes, by closing them down and returning the animals to where they belong

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coldtea
Though we should also heavily protect those places where they belong.

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coldtea
No.

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devoply
Why don't we pay humans to act like certain animals in zoos?

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blackoil
Check out the reality shows. May not be accurate representation of humans or
worse maybe it is.

