Animal Rights
Well-Known Member
The latest issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine has interesting information on hybridisation in Scottish Wild Cats.
Zoologischer Garten Magdeburg Magdeburg Zoo director defends tiger killing
- Thread starter Peter Dickinson
- Start date
This thread is now more-or-less impossible to follow with all the full articles that have been dropped into it when links would do, but I feel duty bound to point out that no (or nearly no) current taxonomists would use this definition of a species - it's very much been discredited.
Taxonomy is like any other science and general opinion within the science changes over time - as it does in medicine, genetics, particle physics, astronomy or chemistry - or any other science you care to mention.
You;ve clearly never worked in science - nothing is ever certain in science and theories are always open to being amended as new evidence arises. 'Certainties' are the domain of religion.
I simply don't agree - from a 'back-up' perspective, a fund- and awareness-raising perspective and an educational perspective.
I'd be inclined to agree - but if no-one suitable wants to take them I'd rather them euthanased than ,made to live in substandard conditions.
WWF is not the be-all and end-all of conservation opinion (and, for me, are rather too keen on their particular flagship species (plural) ).
Do you believe tigers are sentient? I'd like to see you evidence if so.
Do you not think the captive tigers are what gets people to donate to zoo conservation causes, either directly or indirectly by visiting and spending money in the zoo?
I would say it draws attention to it via the millions of zoo visitors each year.
Animal Rights
Well-Known Member
You;ve clearly never worked in science - nothing is ever certain in science and theories are always open to being amended as new evidence arises. 'Certainties' are the domain of religion.
("Science is of two types, physics and stamp collecting"- Ernest Rutherford. Zoo conservation is mostly dogmatic stamp collecting justified by creation of acronyms bordering on the religious dogma you have mentioned. Certainties or exactness in physics, chemistry and mathematics are totally different in nature from exactness in biology. Is it not obvious in terms of complexity of these subjects? Edward Wilson's autobiography 'Naturalist' examines this at some length. Also the works of Carl Sagan.)
I simply don't agree - from a 'back-up' perspective, a fund- and awareness-raising perspective and an educational perspective.
(A friend of mine in USA has made a film called 'The Tiger Next Door' that is being promoted by Zoocheck Canada. A link here : The Tiger Next Door, a documentary film about tigers and other wild animals in private captivity in the USA )
Do you really believe these captive Tigers have a conservation importance and if the zoo community should wash its hands off them since they are in the hands of private dealers who exchange these animals with zoos or obtain Tigers from zoos? Detailed examination in Alan Green's book 'ANIMAL UNDERWORLD'. Can put you in touch with Camilla Calamendrei the filmmaker if you are keen.)
I'd be inclined to agree - but if no-one suitable wants to take them I'd rather them euthanased than ,made to live in substandard conditions.
(This is a rational argument but does this not beg the question, why breed the animals if there is no one to take care of them?)
WWF is not the be-all and end-all of conservation opinion (and, for me, are rather too keen on their particular flagship species (plural).
Of course not and I have never claimed this. I was responding to the statement that there are WWF guidelines in Kifaru's post. I also said, no matter who makes the guidelines(Including WAZA) one ought to examine them.
Do you believe tigers are sentient? I'd like to see you evidence if so.
(Have you read any of Billy Arjan Singh's books? Or 'Khairi The Beloved Tigress' by Saroj Raj Chaudhuri? Please read these accounts and see if they are sentient or not.)
Do you not think the captive tigers are what gets people to donate to zoo conservation causes, either directly or indirectly by visiting and spending money in the zoo?
(There is an element of truth in this. Even London Zoo says hybrid Tigers can have educational impact. I cannot say I disagree completely having seen Tigers in the wild only twice and having seen them in circuses and zoos hundreds and thousands of times. But those wild sightings were simply incomparable to any sighting in captivity. Please read Alan Rabinowitz's description of big cat sighting in the wild compared to zoo sightings.
Here : Meet Dr. Alan Rabinowitz
"As a kid, when I stuttered so badly, I always asked my father to bring me to the Bronx Zoo, to the big cat house. They had one old jaguar and several tigers. At that time in my childhood, I felt very broken inside, very hurt. And the zoo animals looked very hurt, too. The old zoo cages were just concrete and bars, and I thought, what did this huge animal do to get there? When I met that jaguar in the forest just before I left Belize, I felt like my life had come full circle, from those early days of a broken animal in the zoo and a broken me, to me in the wild and the animal in the wild, and both of us strong and free.")
This issue you have raised was dealt by me in my Masters project when I interviewed Miranda Stevenson of BIAZA and Daniel Turner of Born Free Foundation who gave me differing perspectives on the subject. OK, if I accept your view that captive Tigers encourage people to donate to conservation, please also keep in mind that there are charities and individuals who are donating much more than zoos to conservation by not keeping Tigers or any animals. Captive breeding has given rise to the surplus problem, is it not? And thus all these ethical issues follow suit. If you don’t have the captive animal, you don’t have this problem and are therefore better placed to tackle field issues.
Please read something here that has come up recently on the Liger issue in Taiwan(hybridisation) :
"So should we be concerned about the morality of breeding these hybrid felines? Luke Hunter, a wild cat biologist and executive director of Panthera, an organization devoted to conserving wild cats, said that perhaps we should be directing our energy elsewhere.
"The focus on cats in captivity is mostly a distraction," said Hunter. "Ligers really don't matter so much, but their wild progenitors really do, and we're losing them."
This is Panthera's statement on the subject. Maybe these guys know as much of science as you do?
Link : Why 'Liger' Hybrid Offspring of Lions and Tigers Are So Controversial
I am inviting you and anyone else on this forum to come and spend time with me in India. Stay with me and I will arrange for you to visit two Tiger Reserves. See the issues on the ground and where the conflicts lie between humans and Tigers in a country of one billion people. Visit some Indian zoos and see the Tigers and in what conditions they are kept. Compare the conditions to zoos in the West. And then come to an informed decision as to whether captive breeding Tigers is in the best interests of the species and if that is where our priorities should lie and if money should continue to pour into breeding these big cats in zoos.
For a change, have a pro zoo article by Colin Tudge in today's Daily Mail :
Just 3,500 tigers in the wild and only 20 years to save them | Mail Online
Have a good day Maguari.
("Science is of two types, physics and stamp collecting"- Ernest Rutherford. Zoo conservation is mostly dogmatic stamp collecting justified by creation of acronyms bordering on the religious dogma you have mentioned. Certainties or exactness in physics, chemistry and mathematics are totally different in nature from exactness in biology. Is it not obvious in terms of complexity of these subjects? Edward Wilson's autobiography 'Naturalist' examines this at some length. Also the works of Carl Sagan.)
I simply don't agree - from a 'back-up' perspective, a fund- and awareness-raising perspective and an educational perspective.
(A friend of mine in USA has made a film called 'The Tiger Next Door' that is being promoted by Zoocheck Canada. A link here : The Tiger Next Door, a documentary film about tigers and other wild animals in private captivity in the USA )
Do you really believe these captive Tigers have a conservation importance and if the zoo community should wash its hands off them since they are in the hands of private dealers who exchange these animals with zoos or obtain Tigers from zoos? Detailed examination in Alan Green's book 'ANIMAL UNDERWORLD'. Can put you in touch with Camilla Calamendrei the filmmaker if you are keen.)
I'd be inclined to agree - but if no-one suitable wants to take them I'd rather them euthanased than ,made to live in substandard conditions.
(This is a rational argument but does this not beg the question, why breed the animals if there is no one to take care of them?)
WWF is not the be-all and end-all of conservation opinion (and, for me, are rather too keen on their particular flagship species (plural).
Of course not and I have never claimed this. I was responding to the statement that there are WWF guidelines in Kifaru's post. I also said, no matter who makes the guidelines(Including WAZA) one ought to examine them.
Do you believe tigers are sentient? I'd like to see you evidence if so.
(Have you read any of Billy Arjan Singh's books? Or 'Khairi The Beloved Tigress' by Saroj Raj Chaudhuri? Please read these accounts and see if they are sentient or not.)
Do you not think the captive tigers are what gets people to donate to zoo conservation causes, either directly or indirectly by visiting and spending money in the zoo?
(There is an element of truth in this. Even London Zoo says hybrid Tigers can have educational impact. I cannot say I disagree completely having seen Tigers in the wild only twice and having seen them in circuses and zoos hundreds and thousands of times. But those wild sightings were simply incomparable to any sighting in captivity. Please read Alan Rabinowitz's description of big cat sighting in the wild compared to zoo sightings.
Here : Meet Dr. Alan Rabinowitz
"As a kid, when I stuttered so badly, I always asked my father to bring me to the Bronx Zoo, to the big cat house. They had one old jaguar and several tigers. At that time in my childhood, I felt very broken inside, very hurt. And the zoo animals looked very hurt, too. The old zoo cages were just concrete and bars, and I thought, what did this huge animal do to get there? When I met that jaguar in the forest just before I left Belize, I felt like my life had come full circle, from those early days of a broken animal in the zoo and a broken me, to me in the wild and the animal in the wild, and both of us strong and free.")
This issue you have raised was dealt by me in my Masters project when I interviewed Miranda Stevenson of BIAZA and Daniel Turner of Born Free Foundation who gave me differing perspectives on the subject. OK, if I accept your view that captive Tigers encourage people to donate to conservation, please also keep in mind that there are charities and individuals who are donating much more than zoos to conservation by not keeping Tigers or any animals. Captive breeding has given rise to the surplus problem, is it not? And thus all these ethical issues follow suit. If you don’t have the captive animal, you don’t have this problem and are therefore better placed to tackle field issues.
Please read something here that has come up recently on the Liger issue in Taiwan(hybridisation) :
"So should we be concerned about the morality of breeding these hybrid felines? Luke Hunter, a wild cat biologist and executive director of Panthera, an organization devoted to conserving wild cats, said that perhaps we should be directing our energy elsewhere.
"The focus on cats in captivity is mostly a distraction," said Hunter. "Ligers really don't matter so much, but their wild progenitors really do, and we're losing them."
This is Panthera's statement on the subject. Maybe these guys know as much of science as you do?
Link : Why 'Liger' Hybrid Offspring of Lions and Tigers Are So Controversial
I am inviting you and anyone else on this forum to come and spend time with me in India. Stay with me and I will arrange for you to visit two Tiger Reserves. See the issues on the ground and where the conflicts lie between humans and Tigers in a country of one billion people. Visit some Indian zoos and see the Tigers and in what conditions they are kept. Compare the conditions to zoos in the West. And then come to an informed decision as to whether captive breeding Tigers is in the best interests of the species and if that is where our priorities should lie and if money should continue to pour into breeding these big cats in zoos.
For a change, have a pro zoo article by Colin Tudge in today's Daily Mail :
Just 3,500 tigers in the wild and only 20 years to save them | Mail Online
Have a good day Maguari.
I don't see how bilogy is different from the other sciences, sorry, except that biology is perhaps more likely to provoke an emotional reaction to developments. This does not affect how it operates..
I never said they did, and this is nothing to do with the discussion, which is zoo breeding programmes, not private holders.
I have not read these. Could you summarise their findings? Are they scientific works or his personal experiences of tigers? The use of the word 'beloved' makes me distrust them as a source of scientific opinion.
And what of those who cannot travel to see them in the wild? And that's not I suspect, a recent zoo visit!
Assuming the zoo breeding programme resources were reallaocted directly to field conservation, which wouldn;t happen as the income and personal just wouldn;t be there any more.
Ligers are a different case altogether to tiger subspecies, though.
While I would love to visit India, I don't quite fancy the indoctrination process! In situ and Ex situ are not enemies but partners - something you seem to find hard to accept.
You too.
Can we please get back on topic!!! 
This thread is quickly losing its relevance to Zoo Magdeburg alltogether. Goodness me, I have tried by posting on the tiger programme and what has happened since. The past is done and completely over-discussed.
This thread is quickly losing its relevance to Zoo Magdeburg alltogether. Goodness me, I have tried by posting on the tiger programme and what has happened since. The past is done and completely over-discussed.
omegawolfmoon
Member
What I don't understand about all this breed-and-cull is why the zoos even allow animals to breed if they're just going to kill the babies later on? Why not sterilize the adults or keep them in separate enclosures and allow them together only for authorized breeding?
Toddy
Well-Known Member
The short answer: Because it is a vital part of the animals natural lifecycle to breed and raise young and it is hugely important for their behaviour and welfare in zoos to be allowed to do these things.
omegawolfmoon
Member
So the resulting young are cannon fodder?
Toddy
Well-Known Member
Only if you kill them by taking them down to a shooting range and setting up a machine gun.
The young animals in zoos have (for the most part) the best possible way of growing up. A zoo is a protected environment that provides them with everything they need.
Basically they have a good life and then are put down in a humane way.
The young animals in zoos have (for the most part) the best possible way of growing up. A zoo is a protected environment that provides them with everything they need.
Basically they have a good life and then are put down in a humane way.
omegawolfmoon
Member
It's the fact that they are put down at all that bothers me and many others. They shouldn't be brought into the world and then disposed of when they are no longer convenient.
omegawolfmoon
Member
That would be for the best.
Animal Rights
Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by omegawolfmoon View Post
What I don't understand about all this breed-and-cull is why the zoos even allow animals to breed if they're just going to kill the babies later on? Why not sterilize the adults or keep them in separate enclosures and allow them together only for authorized breeding?
(The short answer: Because it is a vital part of the animals natural lifecycle to breed and raise young and it is hugely important for their behaviour and welfare in zoos to be allowed to do these things.)
[This is unlikely. Billy Arjan Singh again : "The so called utility of animals in zoos for scientific experimentation is extremely limited, as free ranging animals have different modalities to ones in confinement. For instance, the tiger in captivity is supposed to produce young every one and a half to two years, but they have no other function except procreation, and the hidden androus presence of the male is an inducement to accelerated breeding ; whereas the wild tigress has to find a mate by Natural Selection as well as search for free running prey, and look after cubs, and thereby breeding is considerably restricted. Apart from cruel biological tests, captive experimentation has a very limited similitude or application to wild conditions."] As the only man who successfully reintroduced a hybrid tiger to the wild, he knew a thing or two about them, although critics very often said he knew no science.
Regarding Magdeburg Zoo, a couple of my friends went there last month and obtained photos and notes that could be useful if they did this kind of thing again(Which is unlikely given their legal defeat). One more friend will visit Magdeburg Zoo and try and talk to the director and the staff next month. So there will be information on the zoo's tigers and other animals and some historical background to what had happened. All this can be used to deal with them and other zoos in the case of a new culling incident.
I concur that people have to agree to disagree on this topic but I am encouraged by the fact that at the last 'Compassionate Conservation' conference there were two zoo directors who exchanged notes with animal rights/animal welfare representatives.(Ron Kagan of Detroit Zoo and Ron Swaisgood of san Diego Zoo) Read about the conference here : Compassionate Conservation It is good to note that there are individuals in the zoo community who are honest and upfront. Those who defend culling of healthy animals in the name of science ought to remember that science without ethics is dangerous.
What I don't understand about all this breed-and-cull is why the zoos even allow animals to breed if they're just going to kill the babies later on? Why not sterilize the adults or keep them in separate enclosures and allow them together only for authorized breeding?
(The short answer: Because it is a vital part of the animals natural lifecycle to breed and raise young and it is hugely important for their behaviour and welfare in zoos to be allowed to do these things.)
[This is unlikely. Billy Arjan Singh again : "The so called utility of animals in zoos for scientific experimentation is extremely limited, as free ranging animals have different modalities to ones in confinement. For instance, the tiger in captivity is supposed to produce young every one and a half to two years, but they have no other function except procreation, and the hidden androus presence of the male is an inducement to accelerated breeding ; whereas the wild tigress has to find a mate by Natural Selection as well as search for free running prey, and look after cubs, and thereby breeding is considerably restricted. Apart from cruel biological tests, captive experimentation has a very limited similitude or application to wild conditions."] As the only man who successfully reintroduced a hybrid tiger to the wild, he knew a thing or two about them, although critics very often said he knew no science.
Regarding Magdeburg Zoo, a couple of my friends went there last month and obtained photos and notes that could be useful if they did this kind of thing again(Which is unlikely given their legal defeat). One more friend will visit Magdeburg Zoo and try and talk to the director and the staff next month. So there will be information on the zoo's tigers and other animals and some historical background to what had happened. All this can be used to deal with them and other zoos in the case of a new culling incident.
I concur that people have to agree to disagree on this topic but I am encouraged by the fact that at the last 'Compassionate Conservation' conference there were two zoo directors who exchanged notes with animal rights/animal welfare representatives.(Ron Kagan of Detroit Zoo and Ron Swaisgood of san Diego Zoo) Read about the conference here : Compassionate Conservation It is good to note that there are individuals in the zoo community who are honest and upfront. Those who defend culling of healthy animals in the name of science ought to remember that science without ethics is dangerous.
I'm a zoo enthousiast, but I don't shy away from a good discussion specially when I feel they actually have a valid point that's worth discussing. The fact that the judge is upholding the sentence suggests me to believe that they had a valid point in this discussion. I tried to defend that point here, but gave up because everyone in the zoological world is dismissing this point as "uneducated".
The whole "if you'd know the complete story you'd agree with the zoo director" attitude on this forum has not only stunned me, it also disappointed me.
On a side note though; In my opinion "Animal Rights" is making himself totally rediculous with his references to the second world war. I'm not going to spend a minute responding to his messages.
The whole "if you'd know the complete story you'd agree with the zoo director" attitude on this forum has not only stunned me, it also disappointed me.
On a side note though; In my opinion "Animal Rights" is making himself totally rediculous with his references to the second world war. I'm not going to spend a minute responding to his messages.
Peter Dickinson
Well-Known Member
jwer - It is all a bit of a mix up in my humble opinion. Yes, the judge should uphold the law and if the law is broken then there must be reprimand. At the same time I strongly that the action taken by the zoo director and his staff was the correct one. The rest of the 'good' zoo community believe this also. So the law needs to be changed. Laws are repealed often enough. It may be the law but the law is wrong.
Zoo News Digest: If The Law Is Wrong Then It Is Time To Change It
Zoo News Digest: If The Law Is Wrong Then It Is Time To Change It
Wether the law is wrong is whole different matter the green-winged activists don't agree on (and neither do I). The fact that they broke the law was a valid point by them, so they did what they could to get their opinion of "right". It's what a decent green-winger would do, in my opinion. Defending their rights by forcing the authorities to uphold the law (or treaties, or whatever is concluded in the public domain) and trying to change the law towards their idea's. You can't bash them for it because you have a different opinion.