[guildenstern]

Except we have zoos now and we treat animals very poorly, consider the billions upon billions of animals we slaughter every single year who’ve been forced to live in torturous conditions — zoos haven’t saved them.

Perhaps zoos aren’t the solution, maybe if we stopped the wholesale destruction of animals in our every day lives that compassion would spread to wild animals and we wouldn’t need zoos to remind people that animals aren’t just tools for us to abuse.

[eganist]

> Except we have zoos now and we treat animals very poorly, consider the billions upon billions of animals we slaughter every single year who’ve been forced to live in torturous conditions — zoos haven’t saved them.

There's a false equivalence here. Zoos--and other tools like them which grant exposure--bring awareness to a challenge or a problem. Without them, awareness would be fleeting if not entirely absent from the western world as a direct consequence of the fact that far too many species housed in zoos just do not exist in the same regions of the world as developed economies right now.

In other word, zoos beget awareness, which drive people like yourself to protect and care for the many forms of life with which we share this planet.

I suspect there would be a much harder time convincing people in the developed world to pay e.g. Africa or the Pacific Islands a visit without an initial exposure to their simulated wilds in a well-maintained zoo.

[guildenstern]

Zoos have nothing to do with my beliefs around animal welfare and that assumption shows your blinkered view of this problem.

The fundamental problem is that humans view animals as tools, torture and murder for our benefit is normalised from birth and zoos are just an extension of that.

You can argue that zoos play a part in giving some humans some compassion towards some animals but what use is that when their next stop after the lion enclosure is the hotdog cart.

We shouldn’t need zoos. There’s lots of non-invasive ways to learn about animals, and if our shared fundamental belief was that we should do everything we can to show animals compassion and respect, then at no point would anyone need to say “unless these kids see a caged tiger they’re not going to consider the consequences of deforestation”.

[eganist]

> Zoos have nothing to do with my beliefs around animal welfare and that assumption shows your blinkered view of this problem.

I apologize for making you feel that way.

> The fundamental problem is that humans view animals as tools, torture and murder for our benefit is normalised from birth and zoos are just an extension of that.

I'd encourage you to visit the Smithsonian National Zoo (a choice local to me, admittedly) to shift the perspective that led you to draw this generalization.

> You can argue that zoos play a part in giving some humans some compassion towards some animals but what use is that when their next stop after the lion enclosure is the hotdog cart.

I can argue it quite successfully given the number of conservation and anti-endangerment efforts well-maintained zoos seek to fund and manage. See e.g. the Smithsonian's efforts with Giant Panda breeding.

> We shouldn’t need zoos. There’s lots of non-invasive ways to learn about animals, and if our shared fundamental belief was that we should do everything we can to show animals compassion and respect, then at no point would anyone need to say “unless these kids see a caged tiger they’re not going to consider the consequences of deforestation”.

Regarding non-invasive ways, there really aren't. Life is driven to experience the world through sensation. As best as we know, humanity is the first species to substantially experience the world through reading, writing, speaking (well, others likely have a claim to this), and general indirect exposure. Billions of years of evolution went into honing the senses, whereas only a few hundred thousand went into honing our capacity to perceive and imagine in any amount of detail.

If you want people to care, you've got to stimulate the senses. We can't bring everyone to the wilds, so the closest we can do to achieve this is to bring the wilds to them.

---

All of that aside, I'll acknowledge that there are tons of poorly maintained zoos, but the ones driven by academia or through public funding are the ones with this public interest at heart and likewise the ones I'd prefer to keep.

[guildenstern]

You’re ignoring my point. Every single day the average person will actively benefit from the direct, quantifiable harm of individuals animals — your lunch, your dinner, there’s probably at least one animal’s suffering associated with it. Every year tens of billions of animals are slaughtered after spending their lives in inhumane conditions.

How many whales are there on earth? How many lions? 50,000 at most. You could put a bullet in the head of every lion on earth tomorrow and it would be a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of millions of farm animals that would be killed _on that same day_. And the lions at least wouldn’t have spent their lives packed 10 to a square foot in a barn dying to sickness.

There are some incredible, highly regarded documentaries (planet earth, blue planet) that do far more for educating people about animals than viewing that animal in a cage ever can. If zoos actually created any sort of compassion in visitors for animals then we wouldn’t be having this argument — all they create is fascination in a select few species we’ve deemed to be interesting enough, and what use is that to the animals being tortured on a scale millions of times greater.

Exotic animals are just a tool used to support an entire species cognitive dissonance.

[eganist]

> How many whales are there on earth? How many lions? 50,000 at most. You could put a bullet in the head of every lion on earth tomorrow and it would be a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of millions of farm animals that would be killed _on that same day_. And the lions at least wouldn’t have spent their lives packed 10 to a square foot in a barn dying to sickness.

I can't really keep repeatedly refuting generalizations like this. Please re-read the emphasis I've been placing on the sorts of facilities I'm defending.

> There are some incredible, highly regarded documentaries (planet earth, blue planet) that do far more for educating people about animals than viewing that animal in a cage ever can. If zoos actually created any sort of compassion in visitors for animals then we wouldn’t be having this argument — all they create is fascination in a select few species we’ve deemed to be interesting enough, and what use is that to the animals being tortured on a scale millions of times greater.

They've done much more than what you've described. Please re-read my post.

Here's a great start since I'm principally focusing on one facility which can be a model for others, in case you need a particular reference: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/conservation

If you can, I'd encourage you to read it with an open mind.

[guildenstern]

> Please re-read the emphasis I've been placing on the sorts of facilities I'm defending.

Please reread my comment, I am talking about farms (specifically chicken farms where 10% of chickens will die before they reach 1 month old because they are often packed 50,000 to a barn and not cared for), not zoos. I am not arguing that some zoos don’t do fantastic conservation work, I am arguing that it’s comparatively meaningless when you look at the wholescale abuse of animals perpetrated by the absolute majority of humans on this planet.