Zoos Are Bad Deal for Animals
BCR | August 1, 2007 53 Views 0 Likes 0 Ratings
Gellman: Zoos Are Bad Deal for Animals
Why it’s time to reconsider the whole notion of putting wild animals in zoos.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Marc Gellman
Special to Newsweek
Updated: 1:35 p.m. ET Aug 1, 2007
Aug. 1, 2007 – On July 14, Jeff Tierney, a zookeeper at the
But I am still thinking about Jeff and Berani.
My grandpa, Leo Gellman, was a zookeeper at the
We capture and display some of them so that people would feel something for them and protect the wild animals that were not in cages. I asked grandpa if he thought the deal was fair. He thought and said, "It’s a good deal for us, and not such a good deal for them." I still think grandpa was right.
The zoo deal needs to be reconsidered. I just finished watching the Discovery Channel’s "Planet Earth" in all its high-definition spectacularness. It does more to show animals in their natural environment, behaving as they really behave in the wild than any zoo ever could. True, you cannot smell them, and true, there is an unforgettable size and savor to elephant dung, but in these new breathtaking images, we humans can see animals without imprisoning them.
Now I can already hear the pro-zoo defenders objecting that if we can eat animals, we can certainly trap and display them. But animals do not have the rights of people. The philosopher Peter Singer would call this pro-human arrogance "species-ism"-just another form of bigotry.
The tigers I saw spent all day pacing in their cages, and it was clear that they were not happy cats. The attack on Jeff Tierney ought to remind us that these are wild animals that we foolishly expect to behave like house pets so that we can ogle them. They were not built to be displayed. They were built, I would say created, to run free and be wild in the few wild parts that remain here on planet earth. We changed that for the tiger we named Berani, and his attack was not just an attack on the man bringing horsemeat for lunch. This was an attack on everything we do to wild animals for our convenience, for our expansion and for our enjoyment. The deal my Grandpa Lepa explained to me is a hard deal for the animals, and I am not sure how much longer we ought to defend it.
The animals in zoos do not behave like their wild cousins. They mostly mope around, and some of them, like the bears I remember, have even learned to sit up and beg for treats. Look, I don’t want to appear to be a zoo Scrooge here, but the enjoyment of kids at the zoo, an enjoyment that once included me every weekend, is not a reason to imprison animals. Do zoos increase environmental consciousness and thus help to protect the habitats of other wild animals? I don’t think so. As far as I can tell, the people deforesting the Amazon or killing elephants in
I am of course pleased that the zoos of today are not the cement and steel prisons I remember from the old
I have no desire to lead an anti-zoo crusade, but a part of me sees zoos as an act of human domination over wild animals. There is a cute little polar bear cub in the
The zoo recently announced that the little show in which Knut frolics with a zookeeper would be stopped because Knut was becoming too big and too aggressive. In time the crowds will go away, but Knut will still be there in his cage, his wildness, his very essence, now a public-relations liability.
We must learn to know Knut as just a polar bear without a name and Berani as just a tiger yearning to be free. William Blake understood all this. He wrote what I precisely and passionately believe:
The Tiger
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
(c) 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20074337/site/newsweek/
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Wendy Wendy-Eleni
November 9, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Hmm, I was looking up information for a friend who is about to go to a zoo – why on earth would you, as a sanctuary for big cats, *not* want to lead an anti-zoo crusade? I can tell you that the Knoxville Zoo does *not* provide habitat for elephants – nothing but fake boulders and concrete, with one or two pathetic trees. And big cats suffer enormously in zoos, sometimes going from zoo to canned hunt — don't you know this? How could you say zoos are bad for animals, but then not want to do anything about it? It seems strange. My opinion of your sanctuary just plummeted.