The Role of VR in the Zoo World

I have long suspected that VR could vastly change the world by killing zoos and decreasing interactions with nature and other humans. A future like Ready Player One is my worst nightmare and disturbingly possible.

However, I would rater zoos die than "tech up" the way this article means it.
 
The articles that VR will kill both zoos and nature are popping up since at least 20 years. That is how long I can remember that newspapers announced "animal-free zoo is coming next year using VR". So far nothing happened.

In position of a zoo I would stay clear of VR, because the whole selling point of a zoo is that people can see a real thing, not a simulation.

The problem is of course that real animals and nature are becoming inaccessible to an everyman. It is easy to see a future where masses of city people cannot go to a zoo, because it is banned by activists, cannot visit a forest, for nature protection reasons and poor transport connections, and cannot travel to see nature abroad because it is too expensive. Then people will be forced to substitutes like films or VR.
 
Everyone talking about whether zoos will introduce VR for humans to see virtual animals. No one talking about the real story: zoos using VR glasses to let the animals imagine they're still out in the wild ;)
 
I think that zoos will live on for a good long while. Seeing a animal in VR/AR doesn't give the same feeling/appreciation for animals as seeing one does. Also, it will take a while to make a lot of species anatomically accurate, as they most likely can't reskin a ton of animals, as well as there being over thousands of species displayed in captivity, and a game can't simply replace that amount very easily. So ABCs will most likely be made first, and if lucky we get more animals that aren't that known. I don't fear that in the course of our lives zoos will disappear because of this because it takes way too long to make something good that will be able to fully replace a zoo visit.
The only fear I have regarding VR/AR zoo simulations replacing zoos is the loss of recognizing certain species, as in, forgetting to give them appreciation via this method. Because, why would we make 100 species of lemurs (according to wikipedia). I also think that zoo visits can be seen as theme parks, it's a nice day away from home, the stress and whatever you got going on for issues. And I definitely do not think that a VR/AR experience can replace that.
 
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