Should zoos keep elephants and orcas?

Agalychnis

Agalychnis

Active Member
I've seen several websites discussing how cetaceans (especially orcas) and elephants don't thrive in captivity, often with a quite emotional text and emotional (as well as sometimes slightly photoshopped) images of animals looking sad.

This huge focus on how saddening and cruel it is to keep orcas, elephants, dolphins, great apes and big cats in captivity has made me wonder if these animals really suffer as much in captivity as HSUS and PETA tells us? It seems as if any animal lover out there is automatically opposed to the keeping of orcas in SeaWorld, for instance. And it seems not only the nutty PETA-type ones are opposed to SeaWorld's practice.

Therefore, I've been wondering if it really is as cruel as the animal activists say to keep elephants and orcas? Are there species that simply shouldn't be kept in captivity?
 
I don't think one can really deny that some species do better in captivity than others. It very much has to do with the needs of different species, and how well a captive environment can meet those needs. Elephants and orcas are rather difficult because they're both highly social, very intelligent, very large, and active animals. It's hard to create a space that gives them lots of room to move and lots of enrichment, though when it comes to elephants in zoos, there has been a lot of improvement the past few years.

I say you should do a bit of research, try to avoid biased stuff from both sides, and form your own opinion. Learn about the animals themselves, and not just in the context of captivity, then decide for your own if you think these animals are good candidates for captivity.
 
Elephants and orcas - never together.
Elephants or orcas is a different question, or rather two different questions. My personal answers are: elephants yes, because I believe that their requirements are well understood and can be met if the zoo is prepared to make enough investment; but orcas no, because I don't think that anyone knows what is required for a long term self-sustaining breeding group, let alone how to provide those requirements.

Alan
 
What Gentle Lemur said.

It is not just meeting the emotional needs of orcas, I do not think it is feasibly possible to build an enclosure big enough for them. I also think most dolphin/porpoise enclosures are too small, though I do think it is theoretically possible to make one of appropriate size. This may require use of an existing bay or lagoon, as I believe some places already do.

I am a staunch lover and supporter of zoos and have visited several dozen of all sizes. However, if I am brutally honest, I would say well over half the zoo exhibits I have seen are too small.
 
is it possible to build an appropriately sized enclosure for a family pod of orcas? yes, we build skyscrapers 100s of meters high, sports arenas of gigantic proportions etc, so it would be possible, though not easy or inexpensive, to build a large enough enclosure... say 100m deep and a few acres in area? (not to say whether it would be efficient, or feasible cost wise... just 'possible'. They build giant stadiums for the olympics and world cup that never get used again so some body may decide to invest that amount of money in an orca tank, some saudi oil sheik may love orcas!) a lot of facilities that currently house orcas parhaps shouldn't, or perhaps they do an excellent job, but that's neither here nor there my point is that it is possible and so the keeping of them in captivity shouldn't be dismissed off-hand just because some wrong things were done up till now.
elephants i think it's much more clear cut that they should be kept, they've been in captivity for hundreds of years and our understanding of them only gets better with time.
 
Yes we could theoretically build the enclosure itself (would have to be a very rich person not expecting to make the money back). However, the difficulty is not in the outer enclosure so much as the filtration requirements of maintaining millions of gallons of water at the appropriate levels of salinity and waste removal. Although I am not an expert so maybe with air breathing mammals like orcas it is not as critical as it is with fish?
 
Don't really see a problem with either in captivity. It's all how they house/treat the animals. Don't people kill animals for fun?(ie hunting/slaughter houses...you don't need meat to survive). This really is the lunatic fringe that's against these animals in captivity. It's of course wrong to keep these animals alone since they're social creatures.
 
Arizona Docent said:
Yes we could theoretically build the enclosure itself (would have to be a very rich person not expecting to make the money back). However, the difficulty is not in the outer enclosure so much as the filtration requirements of maintaining millions of gallons of water at the appropriate levels of salinity and waste removal. Although I am not an expert so maybe with air breathing mammals like orcas it is not as critical as it is with fish?
Click to expand...

Even with that taken into account, yeah, filtering and water and cleaning the tank would still be ridiculously expensive.

On that note, the world's largest swimming pool is 66 million gallons. (like, you can go sailing on it) Pumps seawater from the nearby beach. Imagine having something like that as an epic orca tank! Though the pool cost two billion dollars to make. I was trying to find how much it costs to maintain, but to no avail.

Edit: According to this site, upkeep for this pool costs four million dollars a year. Don't know how well that might translate to filtering costs if this were a cetacean enclosure.
 
To answer the actual question asked (though probably mistakenly), I can't think of a single facility with the resources to keep both elephants and orcas.
:rolleyes:
 
Ituri said:
To answer the actual question asked (though probably mistakenly), I can't think of a single facility with the resources to keep both elephants and orcas.
:rolleyes:
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Some of the larger marine parks could probably build elephant exhibits if they wanted to, but you know, it doesn't fit the marine theme.
 
I'm opposed to keeping Orcas in captivity unless they're non releasable/injured etc. they're too big and expensive. it's irresponsible to breed them since they can't be returned to the wild. They should be phased out of aquariums. As for elephants, I think zoos that do keep them should have as many as possible ton simulate the social lives of Wild elephants. Each zoo should keep a minimum of 6 or 7. Female calves should never be sent away from their mothers herd.
 
Yeah. The same with apes, especially with chimpanzees-they are too smart to be kept behind bars in the zoo prisons.So all apes should be phased out from zoos as soon as possible. Also bears and pigs, and giraffes,rhinos and hippos-they are too big and too expensive to be kept in"captivity".So also all species of seals and penguins are very expensive, if they aren't too big, so it costs too much money to keep in zoos-so all these species should be phased out,too. But maybe no animal should be kept in zoos, because it is impossbvle to release them back to the wild in most cases of mammals and birds.
 
Chimpangeek said:
I'm opposed to keeping Orcas in captivity unless they're non releasable/injured etc. they're too big and expensive. it's irresponsible to breed them since they can't be returned to the wild. They should be phased out of aquariums. As for elephants, I think zoos that do keep them should have as many as possible ton simulate the social lives of Wild elephants. Each zoo should keep a minimum of 6 or 7. Female calves should never be sent away from their mothers herd.
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I agree, female elephants should not be separated from their mothers. More zoos need to focus on keeping bulls if they have smaller spaces so the cows can be kept with their female calves.
 
elefante said:
I agree, female elephants should not be separated from their mothers. More zoos need to focus on keeping bulls if they have smaller spaces so the cows can be kept with their female calves.
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You will have cases that when daughters get old enough to lead a herd themselves they will start challenging their mother for the leadership. In these cases you do want to split the herd and separate some of the daughters of their mother. Which is something that happens in the wild as well.
 
Should zoos.....?

This is starting to read so much like an animal liberation thread, that I am, for the first time, considering leaving Zoochat.
 
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