Sometimes zoos are best for endangered species. Safety populations in zoos are vital for ensuring the species will not go extinct.
What species would you ban from zoos?
- Thread starter redpanda756
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Sometimes zoos are best for endangered species. Safety populations in zoos are vital for ensuring the species will not go extinct.
Mr.Ivory
Well-Known Member
That means the most beloved animals such as Elephants and Tigers would also be banned as both species are endangered.
Bengal Tiger
Well-Known Member
I think most people would think in reverse. ONLY endangered animals should be held in zoos..
Birdsage
Well-Known Member
Do you not know that the conservation and preservation of endangered species is one of the missions of the AZA and and its member zoos?
Don’t forget that “Extinct in the Wild” is an IUCN conservation status that exists solely because the only living specimens exist in captivity or otherwise non-naturally-occurring populations. What’s more, several species now only exist due to the work of zoos and similar institutions.
Correct. Some here have suggested banning Least Concern species as they hold less conservation importance. While there are valid reasons why accredited, conservation-focused zoos keep some Least Concern species (see here),
Many species have been phased out of Australasian zoos in recent years, especially primates and felids. Almost all of these species have been either lest concern, vulnerable or near threatened with an endangered or critically endangered status used as justification for continuing to maintain the species we do.
An exception is made when a species is enabling and brings in the crowds e.g. African lion and Snow leopard.
Bengal Tiger
Well-Known Member
Personally I believe that while threatened species should be prioritized by zoos, captive populations of species which are least concern should still exist, just so that there is a population in case something goes wrong for the species (I believe this has happened, and captive populations saved a few species),, knowing humans, yes there is almost a need for this.
Lesser-concern species can also have an important educational value or serve as funding-collectors for more endangered species either as close relatives (e.g. the Southern white rhino's in Zurich as replacements for the more agressive black rhino's), or as umbrella species to protect the larger area and the many (often smaller and less known) endangered species. Besides, lesser-concern species can also be threatened on a local scale, a good example of this are the different species of vulture in Europe.
Lafone
Well-Known Member
Can you be specific on the approach.
In this new world there are no longer any endangered species in zoos - either to act as education and fund raisers nor to act to protect populations or for study breeding or potential rewilding. No fund raising or funds generated by zoos, no partner populations. No in person education - either people see animals in the wild or they rely on media sources for their viewing. Children’s view of wild animals comes from the disney channel. Or seeing animals in person if they are from wealthy families.
All of that contribution to the protection of species is gone.
What instead?
How would the condition be introduced where all these animals would now be ‘protected from people in the wild’. What’s the strategy. Who manages it coordinates and funds it.
Asking as it’s ok to make these sort of statements but they don’t mean very much if you don’t say how things would be made to be different. Where’s the so what if you like.
I think zoos make an important contribution to wildlife conservation on many fronts so naturally I have a more pro zoo stance. However many anti zoo / zoo reduction / zoo phasing out arguments say ‘this is bad’ but they don’t give an alternative. So how does the end goal get achieved when zoos no longer factor at all.
Birdsage
Well-Known Member
Here’s what I’d want a hard ban on:
Hybrids, white big cats, and the like (though, they are sort of banned already in the AZA)
Mosquitoes (although eliminating them would be quite difficult without harming the actual exhibit-animals)
Anyone who wants to ban animals because they are too common/ too endangered/too cetaceous/etc. (I do, on the other hand, understand the soft phase-out recommendations proposed by the AZA and such associations, although in some cases it seems to me that it would be less counterintuitive to build their numbers instead)
While I am not a fan of domestic animals and personally would like to see their numbers in zoos reduced, I do understand where the pro-domestic people are coming from. However, livestock conservancies, farms, and petting zoos are where I think those belong.
Hybrids, white big cats, and the like (though, they are sort of banned already in the AZA)
Mosquitoes (although eliminating them would be quite difficult without harming the actual exhibit-animals)
Anyone who wants to ban animals because they are too common/ too endangered/too cetaceous/etc. (I do, on the other hand, understand the soft phase-out recommendations proposed by the AZA and such associations, although in some cases it seems to me that it would be less counterintuitive to build their numbers instead)
While I am not a fan of domestic animals and personally would like to see their numbers in zoos reduced, I do understand where the pro-domestic people are coming from. However, livestock conservancies, farms, and petting zoos are where I think those belong.
Bengal Tiger
Well-Known Member
I think more zoos should have rarebreeds, that would be very interesting.
Why would you want to ban mosquitoes from zoos? I think they'd make fascinating exhibit animals if you had a way to keep them.
There's an African mosquito enclosure at London Zoo.
Haliaeetus
Well-Known Member
We go outside of the common debates (about cetaceans, apes...) but it would be difficult to justify the captive raising (even for educational purposes) of some species, that are vectors of serious diseases for humans and animals : tsetse flies, some mosquitoes, ticks...
There's the same issue for the species that can damage the crops and natural vegetation : some weevils and longhorn beetles, potato beetles...
Their keeping may be interesting for the ecological and scientific research, but there are huge risks in the case of escaping (harder to prevent in comparison of vertebrates, and more directly harmful).
Obviously all of them they aren't popular zoo animals, but I keep in mind this question (as I thought to it in my speculative zoo projects, when I tried to introduce many strange and unusual species).
There's the same issue for the species that can damage the crops and natural vegetation : some weevils and longhorn beetles, potato beetles...
Their keeping may be interesting for the ecological and scientific research, but there are huge risks in the case of escaping (harder to prevent in comparison of vertebrates, and more directly harmful).
Obviously all of them they aren't popular zoo animals, but I keep in mind this question (as I thought to it in my speculative zoo projects, when I tried to introduce many strange and unusual species).
Because of various flaviviruses like WNV as well as other mosquito-borne diseases that can make zoo animals sick or even kill them?
That's a problem with wild animals, not zoo animals.
It's very much a problem for zoo animals, as clearly indicated by the various infected birds dying because of it in zoos all over the world.
I agree. I meant that there's no reason to ban mosquitoes as a zoo animal (as @Birdsage said) because captive mosquitoes are not the ones causing the problems - the wild ones are.
I think the point is more so that a potential escape could have very bad consequences on zoo animals.