Should we close our zoos

I'm not touching the question of culling and deaths in zoos. I've gotten into that argument before and said things I'm ashamed of.

I don't think it's wise to make concrete judgements about whether or not the mere concept of a zoo is inherently ethical. The Dallas World Aquarium, the San Diego Zoo, and SeaWorld, for example, are very different facilities with different circumstances and goals. There is no catch-all solution to these different situations.

I also think we should remember zoos are sensitive to economic climate, and the current climate is still seen as negative.
 
garyjp said:
we can only estimate the wild population so adding a few more even if its male heavy can not be a major problem.
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This can cause major problems in many species.

Plus reintroduction projects usually have a half way house (Rescue centres are full now) so where do you put these animals?

Its a noble idea but not feasible at the moment for every zoo species. It is also mostly only fast breeding animals,short lived animals (which usually go hand in hand, dear and antelope species that this is the case for, as they are harder to manage with other methods.

Were only talking about this because one giraffe was culled and we where told about it.
 
Yeah you can't just drop animals into the wild.

Even with proper reintroduction programs there is often many of the early generations lost because of a lack of suitable skills and environmental experience; and the last thing you want is to add animals that will compete with the native ones and have your captive bred one beat a wild one in a fight only to have your captive one then starve due to lack of skills.

Many animals are also highly territorial so where there is limited environment there is also limited capacity and both males and females can compete heavily for territory.

5000 is honestly a small number if they are also including all the smaller mammals - consider how many mice or rats will have as babies and how many might be surplus in the system. Very quickly you can get up to those 5K numbers without many of the larger animals being a part of the process.
 
garyjp said:
the fact that i think 5000 animals were put to sleep in european zoos due to lack of space
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The fact that you think? Can you track it down to the origin? Because, for start, I heard of nobody who actually gathers such statistics from all zoos across Europe. So it is somebody's out-of-the-blue-sky guess, in the best case. I wouldn't like to discuss urban legend.

And I think it is weird number, because:
- Animals in zoos include domestic animals otherwise raised for food, rodents otherwise raised as feed animals, and small animals where single individual can produce more than 5000 young in one year.
- Europe has over 2600 zoos: ZootierlisteHomepage
 
overread said:
5000 is honestly a small number if they are also including all the smaller mammals - consider how many mice or rats will have as babies and how many might be surplus in the system.
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For our forum's younger members, and for several BBC employees: One pair of pet mice in one year can grow to over 15000.

Here is a source (I admit I did not check it):
Math Forum - Ask Dr. Math
http://life.familyeducation.com/pest-infestation/home-maintenance/47844.html

Waiting for the origin of this number of 5000 animals!
 
Jurek7 said:
The fact that you think? Can you track it down to the origin? Because, for start, I heard of nobody who actually gathers such statistics from all zoos across Europe. So it is somebody's out-of-the-blue-sky guess, in the best case. I wouldn't like to discuss urban legend.
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it comes from Dr Lesley Dickie, executive director of EAZA, e.g. from this article (relating to the giraffe at Copenhagen) Marius The Giraffe Was Not Alone: Zoos in Europe Kill 5,000 Healthy Animals Annually
Dr Lesley Dickie, executive director of EAZA, told BBC Radio 4’s The Report that between 3,000 and 5,000 healthy animals are put down every year across Europe.

“That’s our estimate for all animals management euthanised in the zoo, be it tadpoles up until a giraffe,” she said.

Among those killed were 22 healthy zebras, four hippos and two Arabian Oryx were also put down. The Oryx were killed at Edinburgh and London zoos in 2000 and 2001.

She added that “less than a few hundred” larger animals such as giraffes, zebras, lions and bears were included in the total.
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There's obviously a bit of a journalist's-jump in there between saying "every year" and then using examples of animals killed 15 years ago...
 
Wouldn't a significant number of young animals born in the wild fail to survive due to predators, competitors, human intervention, and the stresses of limited habitat?

Zoo populations and breeding programs seem to mimic that...

Conservation is about species...not individuals. That said, zoos exist on the whims of public perceptions.

Even the perceptions of people that try to pet Bison in Yellowstone.
 
Another thought is that zoos deal with very limited numbers of many animals but must provide not only feed and shelter but also medial care. I suspect many of those "waste" animals move from being simply culled stock to contributing to medical studies. How else will you learn how to operate upon a giraffe to save its life if you've never operated upon one before. There have to be samples and individuals to dissect to educate new generations of vets and to also increase our understanding of the physical nature of these animals to better medicate and care for them.



That said that they boldly say that its 5000 including tadpoles sounds stupid; or like the newspaper article has seriously miss-represented the value (eg it is talking about euthanasia - which I suspect drastically lowers the value - it could be lower still if we remove any individuals removed due to health concerns and possibly some other criteria too).


In the end the article is purely trying to show zoos as being evil because of disposal of a waste product; however its a rather deaf argument when every other breeding scheme on the planet also suffers from the same "disposable" problem - even when significant efforts are put into rehoming.
 
Thanks, Chlidonias.

3000-5000 animals (which mutated into 5000) still seems odd, if it includes also small animals.

Coming to it, EAZA zoos should loan surplus animals to non-EAZA zoos, as long as the individual animal will have good conditions. It should be easy to design an appropriate agreement. Public does not distinguish between EAZA and non-EAZA zoos, and the latter have the same role of introducing people to animals.
 
Jurek7 said:
Thanks, Chlidonias.

3000-5000 animals (which mutated into 5000) still seems odd, if it includes also small animals.

Coming to it, EAZA zoos should loan surplus animals to non-EAZA zoos, as long as the individual animal will have good conditions. It should be easy to design an appropriate agreement. Public does not distinguish between EAZA and non-EAZA zoos, and the latter have the same role of introducing people to animals.
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The number is for all healthy animals put down for management reasons,
so mice, rats, chickens etc. used as food don't count.

EAZA zoos do sometimes exchange beween non EAZA zoos.
If a zoos wants to become EAZA it even needs animals from the
EAZA breeding programs. But mostly the animals given to non EAZA
zoos are surplus animals that can't find a place within EAZA zoos.
 
overread said:
Hunters likely wouldn't pay to shoot a confined zoo-raised animal. They'd at least want a "hunt" not just a killing - although some would if it were an impressive animal to kill. Which is the other factor - many hunters want a trophy so the animal has to be impressive; the weak sick malformed poor choice for a cull isn't the one the game trophy hunter [ergo most with the big money] wants to shoot - he wants the prize that is your best.
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Eh, canned hunts exist, though they are controversial even among the hunting community.
 
Mr. Zootycoon said:
The number is for all healthy animals put down for management reasons,
so mice, rats, chickens etc. used as food don't count.
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So can we discount Marius the giraffe and all other animals that are culled for management purposes which are then fed to other animals in the zoo?
 
I think part of the problem here is the overall concept of the 'wild'.......

Many people appear to have the opinion that there are vast areas of wild habitat remaining where all wild animals should be.......rather than in zoos

However, with some exceptions, most 'wild' environments are now severely depleted, fragmented, and in many cases managed.........

The remaining habitat continues to suffer from increasing and continual pressure from all directions....

Dumping a load of surplus animals into the 'wild' is not the solution - exactly where would this be?

Are you really suggesting zoos ship all surplus male Southern African antelopes to Kruger (for example) and just dump them there..........thereby putting pressure on the remaining 'wild' population which is also managed and subject to culling (unless they are very few individuals in the wild, in which case, there are unlikely to be surplus in zoos anyway).

This point is often missed by anti-zoo people who really should be putting their efforts into preserving the remaining 'wild' environments, or at least gaining an understanding of what the 'wild' actually represents, in the modern world.....we are not living in the 1800s!!!
 
I think it's preferable to transfer animals between facilities whenever possible. That obviously doesn't work in every instance.
 
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