okay, now we're talkin!!!
michael. i'm going to respond to this as if it was written exclusively for me, since i'm the only one here arguing that taronga shouldn't keep elephants.
firstly, i just want to point out that you accuse me of being presumptuous
yet then made an array of different assumptions about me. most of which are wrong.
i've visited eight different south asian countries alone - more of less just to see wildlife. many of these countries i have visited numerous times. for example i'm planning on heading back to malaysia in a couple of weeks so that i can ferry over to sumatra and visit way kambas and see the rhino there. i'd like to do more but suffice to say i'm a firm believer in eco-tourism and i'm a strong supporter of it.
likewise absolutely none of the factual information you have included in your last post was new to me, bar the comment about the lack of concrete in the barn. my assumption that the barn was concrete was based on the fact zoopro (who works within the zoo grounds) said it was concrete and that it certainly looks like concrete to me. also as far as i'm aware zoopro is also the only regular contributer to the australian forum who works within the industry and he certainly knows exactly who i am and how to contact me.
so don't accuse me of being an armchair critic or tell me i'm hiding or that i need to get out more. and since you yourself claim to not be in the industry, you're just as much a self-proclaimed expert as i am.
likewise, just because i'm laying on taronga don't assume that my "beloved melbourne zoo" isn't on my radar also. for the record, i frequently criticise both zoos, especially regarding elephants and the fact that most zoos generally get away with only having to deflect the occasional poorly constructed and flawed argument from their critics with poorly constructed and flawed arguments of their own, forms the motivation behind my willingness to try and deliver a more educated blow in their direction whenever i can.
i'm proud of the fact that when the melbourne zoo was forced to release a response to the allegations of cruelty that surfaced in The Age newspaper some time ago, they failed to deliver any form of excuse regarding their treatment of an long isolated gorilla that was unfairly treated. because a close friend of mine wrote that article and it was i that made that allegation public (unfortunately the whole thing got lost in a bunch of other, less warranted and dubious allegations, but thats another story).
so don't assume for a second that i'm so shallow as to form the inspirations of my arguments on something as insignificant as sydney/melbourne rivalry (i've lived in both cities however and for the record, melbourne is way better than sydney).
as for the rest of your arguments, well, much is specific issues such as the fact that dubbo has african elephants (to that i say then why get more asians when you have nowhere suitable to house them) that i have argued, believe me, a thousand times before. in addition you based many others around what a fantastic job the zoo's keepers are doing. i don't disagree, but i don't much care. my issue is that due to the limitations of space at both zoos, the long-term well being of the animals and functionality of the breeding program is going to be compromised. it represented a gross underestimation of public opinion on the zoos part and a massive (and expensive) step backward at a time when zoos have an awful lot of catching up to do to secure their future.
i think the fact that the issue of moving melbourne's elephants to werribee has already arisen just a couple of years after their import and construction of a multi million dollar taxpayer funded exhibit, confirms this. those that have been kind enough to listen to my arguments for all these years will know that long before those elephants even set foot on australian soil i said that the debate over elephants in zoos here wont die until those animals are moved out of melbourne.
you make many points about the elephants value in education. personally i think education is rather overrated unless spurs action. much of generation X and certainly all of generation Y have grown up knowing that animals are endangered with extinction and that we a facing a global environmental collapse. in that time the situation has gone from bad to near catastrophic. i think that fact fact pretty much speaks for itself regarding the overall value in education curbing our looming fate. however due to that being a monster of a debate, i will save that for another time and another thread.
i actually agree with you that zoos are not necessarily up for the task of being major contributers to practical, active conservation initiatives. i suppose thats why it irritates me so much that they pretend they can. if anything zoos are installing a false sense of security to their visitors thanks to there conservation message as one leaves a zoo experience usually rather thankful that their local zoological board is taking care of things on our behalf.
so what can zoos contribute then? well, they can act as a genetic bank for storing species suffering from habitat loss and fragmentation in the wild. i agree, reintroduction of exotic species is costly and overrated when you consider that in many cases there is still no shortage of threats facing animals such as orangutans in the wild - and that includes a particular wild orangutan that speaks with a western australian accent. but ultimately, i suppose this is what they are guarding against. this is the single biggest role of the modern zoo and most realistic way to justify their existence. as a genetic bank of taxa from around the world, that can be called into use, should conservationists fail in their mission to adequately protect the species in the wild but eventually secure a safe habitat for their recolonisation. or more likely, to contribute their genetics to a dwindling and fragmented, but otherwise protected, population.
only problem with that is that zoos, and australian zoos in particular, are absolutely $#!@house at conserving their animals.
competition and high turnover of directors with their own personal tastes in animals ("i want pandas!".... "well i want impala because i grew up in south africa") coupled with a trend to massively over-capitalise on multi million dollar exhibits that hold 3 species means that for the vast majority of species comprising our collections, sustainability is no closer than it was 30 years ago.
and i don't see how thats going to change so long as they all continue to hold a different species of langur or accidently forget to pair up their last remaining pair of pygmy hippos for a decade or build elephant exhibits that have reached capacity after a couple of births.
