• Question: do you feel that it is fair to keep animals in zoo's/ aquariums? why/why not?;)

    Asked by frankieallsop to Jo, Kevin, Louise, Valeria on 20 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by charlyjoy.
    • Photo: Kevin Mahon

      Kevin Mahon answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      Reeeally difficult question!

      As a standard rule of thumb, I don’t think we should keep wild animals in captivity for amusement and entertainment. However, the mdern zoo does much more than this – they help with educating the public, scientific reserach, captive breeding programmes, reintroduce species into the wild and house individuals that have no natural populations left in the wild. And this work is mostly funded by ticket/merchandise sales, so its a necessary evil!

      There are of course some bad zoos with poor standards that don’t do any of these wonderful things and still manage to survive – I tihnk these serve no purpose, much like circuses with animals.

      The WAZA (World association of zoos & aquariums) is a really great group that most zoos are a part of now – thye promote research, breeding programmes and high standards of captivity. They also try and use the science out there to advise zoos on how to look after animals and provide necessary resources.

      So I am for zoos that do the above mentioned work, but against those that simply house animals! Complicated, but great of you to ask!

    • Photo: Joanna Cruden

      Joanna Cruden answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      There are lots of different views about this and I can only give you mine which is that I really think it depends on the animal, if it has only known captivity and the cage/enclosure is enriched and species specific then it may be acceptable but only for certain species, animals like whales, dolphins, chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants and the like should be left in the wild where they belong, at worst kept in a safari park. When I see Chimps in zoos it makes me feel very sad but there are worse places they can be and some rescued animals cannot go back into the wild, for example the poor dancing bears, they are better off in a zoo being cared for than made to dance.

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