Are zoos immoral?
True. In some situations (perhaps most) there is an assessment of which things such as safety and continued existence are of more or less benefit than roaming free.
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Most animals born in captivity would not survive being released into the wild.They wouldn’t be aware of predators.Some zoos are going to great lengths to breed and save endangered animals, certain amphibians and reptiles are extinct in their natural habitat and zoos now serves as arks to preserve them till (hopefully) they can be restored.
Zoos did start out immoral, capturing animals so people could look at them in a cage.Many stolen from their mothers and some didn’t adapt to captivity and died.
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funeralxempire
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A lot of the animals are endangered and if they can keep them alive by breeding them in zoos they will hopefully never be extinct.
What good for the wild population will semi-domesticated tigers, selected on the basis on how well they thrive in zoos contribute?
One of the issues with that approach is that once you start keeping wild animals in a tame state is that it's likely that you will end up slowly selecting them for the same traits that other domesticated animals are selected for.
If the most shy, aggressive and territorial ones are the ones least likely to be allowed to breed and the most tame, social and non-territorial ones are the ones that thrive and become most likely to breed you're effectively just conducting the Russian domesticated fox experiment in slow motion.
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A lot of the animals are endangered and if they can keep them alive by breeding them in zoos they will hopefully never be extinct.
What good for the wild population will semi-domesticated tigers, selected on the basis on how well they thrive in zoos contribute?
One of the issues with that approach is that once you start keeping wild animals in a tame state is that it's likely that you will end up slowly selecting them for the same traits that other domesticated animals are selected for.
If the most shy, aggressive and territorial ones are the ones least likely to be allowed to breed and the most tame, social and non-territorial ones are the ones that thrive and become most likely to breed you're effectively just conducting the Russian domesticated fox experiment in slow motion.
I don't know what the answer is it would be nice if they could live in the wild, its sad that their habitats are being destroyed.
funeralxempire
Veteran
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Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 30,634
Location: Right over your left shoulder
A lot of the animals are endangered and if they can keep them alive by breeding them in zoos they will hopefully never be extinct.
What good for the wild population will semi-domesticated tigers, selected on the basis on how well they thrive in zoos contribute?
One of the issues with that approach is that once you start keeping wild animals in a tame state is that it's likely that you will end up slowly selecting them for the same traits that other domesticated animals are selected for.
If the most shy, aggressive and territorial ones are the ones least likely to be allowed to breed and the most tame, social and non-territorial ones are the ones that thrive and become most likely to breed you're effectively just conducting the Russian domesticated fox experiment in slow motion.
I don't know what the answer is it would be nice if they could live in the wild, its sad that their habitats are being destroyed.
I agree. I understand why we keep them and the good intentions behind it but I feel that the real answer is to remove humans from more of the tiger's (or whatever other animal) habitat, not to remove the tigers so we can expand our habitat. Relative to our impact on extinction rates all zoos can do is shuffle around the deck chairs on our sinking ocean liner. That's not to say there aren't success stories, but often as the time line extends the success story doesn't hold up as well because unless we allow the species in question to have enough habitat to survive they won't succeed even with our help.
If all we can accomplish is creating a few feral colonies of these quasi-domesticated survivors (by the time we get our s**t together that might be all we have to work with) than I struggle to imagine it's worth the effort no matter how devastating it would be to lose all of these species. If it's really that devastating we might need to make a big enough effort to not allow them to get to that point instead of half-assing it at the last minute once we realize it's too late.
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The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
They have a name for Nazis that were only Nazis because of economic anxiety or similar issues. They're called Nazis.
I agree with you funeral, there are way too many humans.
As humans, we do make mistakes, but can keep learning. There have been some significant results in returning human raised creatures to the wild. Condors come to mind. There are others as well. We work pretty hard in Florida to keep the panthers from going extinct.
There is probably value in keeping the material in animals alive. More value, I think, in keeping plants alive and I believe the more progressive zoos (San Diego Zoo) already do that.
But I would prefer to be like the musicians on the Titanic, contributing what I can for as long as I can.
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The river is the melody
And sky is the refrain - Gordon Lightfoot