What does allying with the hunting lobby cost?
As
@overread more comprehensively elucidates, the base of conservation support is “animal lovers”, many of whom are appalled by trophy hunting. And, whilst there are instances of hunting providing the impetus/funds to protect threatened species, there are also cases where low-level, well-regulated hunting has been unsustainable. See WildCRU’s recent work on lions, for example.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, any zoo that sent animals to hunting ranches would face a major backlash. However good the reasons, they don’t make it into the soundbite (“Zoo Kills Giraffe and
Dissects it in Front of Vistors!?”
).
And I fully agree that preserving habitat is the best possible solution because you can preserve an entire ecosystem instead of one soecies. However for a variety of reasons it's often a non-starter in many areas of the globe. And for many species--particularly birds--the biggest threat is not habitat loss but either introduced predators or trapping for the local pet trade.
Example of how it’s a non-starter? And reason we shouldn’t cut our losses and work elsewhere?
Actually, habitat alteration is the greatest threat to birds (
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ertebrates/links/573d7d6e08ae9f741b2f5f5f.pdf). More importantly, though, your avian focus reflects our “institutional vertebratism”, itself an impediment to conserving biodiversity, which is overwhelmingly invertebrate. Habitat conservation is an imperfect means of shifting the balance, but is the only viable method (at least in more diverse/less wealthy countries).
Guides at zoos will still treat zoos as essentially a holding pen for biodiversity until animals can go back to their natural habitats. And while that may be the case for large and adaptable megafauna like tigers, there's a lot of smaller animals--things like frogs and pikas--which are very sensitive to changes in their habitats. A lot of New Zealand's native species will likely never again live anywhere except small areas carefully policed for predators.
Adaptability is not size-dependent.
Ex situ conservation would be most effective if it focused on smaller taxa (eg. amphibians) which can be kept in viable numbers at low expense. Sadly, I think most zoos have embraced the conservation narrative more effectively than conservation itself.
However the fact that we cannot necessarily reintroduce them to the wild in the foreseeable future does not mean that there is no reason to conserve them. And I feel like "we're preserving these animals so they can be reintroduced to the wild" argument devalues animals for which the only future may be ex situ conservation.
It comes down to values and what you believe in conserving. You’re arguing we should attempt to distil nature into units and maintain those artificially. I contend that the only conservation-based justification for doing so is aesthetic – we want to see certain species – which is a poor use of resources and relies on a static (pattern-based) view of nature.
I take a process-based approach. I believe your opinion is tantamount to preserving the frame and discarding the film reel. I believe we should take a holistic view, protect ecosystems, their functions, and services, rather than focus on any one component. And I believe that, given limited resources, this is the best way to ensure the most species persist. This is also why I get frustrated with the conservation standpoint of zoos (and ZooChatters), which tends to be single-species.
As an aside, I recognize this is academic to some degree. Conservation goes where the money is. However, I think it’s important to at least try shifting public perceptions about what’s at stake and what we should value.
One of the things that bugs me about a lot of conservation organizations is that they make it seem like conservation is and should be selfless activity. We try to conserve because A. we like seeing a wide variety of animals and plants, B. we like knowing that they're there, and C. we know that there is a lot we can learn from them that we haven't yet. It's a sensible position but it's not a selfless one.
As my previous post indicated, there has been extensive academic debate over traditional biocentric motives for conservation versus the more recent anthropocentric view. Given the length of this post, I’ll direct anyone interested to some lively papers [1,2] and rebuttals [3,4].
[1]
Conservation in the Anthropocene -- Beyond Solitude and Fragility
[2]
What Is Conservation Science?
[3]
The “New Conservation”
[4]
http://klamathconservation.org/docs/blogdocs/doaketal2013.pdf
The consensus is something of a compromise: human value is a useful justification for conservation action, but we should not disregard intrinsic worth.
Durrell used this phrase - or one with the same sentiment - a few times in his books, his films, and in interviews. It stems from the fact that his zoo was designed to breed endangered species and put them back into the wild. Originally he only wanted endangered species in his zoo. And his dream was for a time when there was no need for his zoo to exist because there were no more endangered or threatened species.
I suspect that his words have been bandied about in a slightly different context by many since then, but the sentiment is the same. It's not because zoo people wish to deny anyone the experiences they've had.
Hix
Durrell is a personal hero, but I do wish (zoo) people would stop using this grating platitude. The assumption is that either conservation is the only possible benefit a zoo can have, or there is something inherently wrong with keeping animals in captivity. No-one really believes the former, whilst the latter raises deep, unanswered, and (to my mind) unfounded ethical issues. I therefore suggest a clunkier alternative: in a perfect world, zoo animals would have measurably better welfare than their wild conspecifics. Or perhaps that’s an uncomfortably obtainable goal?
EDIT: Having just discovered the new thread Zygodactyl began on this topic, I’ve reposted the relevant parts of my response there:
The purpose of conservation and the giant chip on my shoulder.
