131–140 of 185 posts
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What's the good reason for not extending it to cow, dog, cat etc...? Where do you draw the line?
That's a fair question. Just think about how many cats and dogs are stuck inside small apartments most of their lives.
I get all the problems for the animals and not suggesting that they should continue to endure those problems, but I hate to see the general public's access to nature further curtailed. The mainstream seems to love wild places and wild life as long as it's on Youtube yet they spend the entirety of their own lives in suburbs and retail landscapes with virtually no direct experience with nature. I wonder how many childr…
I grew up with zoos and aquariums, and I have fond memories of them. But of course, I wasn't kept in one. And furthermore... Zoos and aquariums are not nature. They are exhibits in a kind of museum. If we want people to see nature, we have to preserve actual nature and encourage people to visit it. Visiting a zoo is not visiting nature, and I personally worry that equivocating the two is dangerous. I would not want p…
I don’t find this compelling, and think that you are missing the point: visiting zoos is a way to inspire people to care about nature such that they will want to preserve it.
I was at a zoological society fundraiser where Joel Sartore, founder of the Nat Geo “Photo Ark” series, was the keynote speaker. In it he talks about the intrinsic good of nature and biodiversity. Because it is a good in and of itself, how can we protect it?
His argument was kids today aren’t connected to nature in the same way generations past have been connected to nature. With TV, video games, smart phones, etc., kids generally don’t spend as much time outside as they used to, and if they do, there is a higher chance it is in a more Urban area than years past.
Zoos, he argues, are one of the few remaining places a kid can see nature up close, and hopefully see the intrinsic good of nature to “give a shit” about it (his words). Once they do “give a shit,” they are more likely to want to protect it once they are grown up.
So zoos protect and preserve nature (an intrinsic good) and hopefully inspire younger generations to care about nature and grow up to want to protect it (instrumental good).
I found his argument compelling, and don’t think declaring that people should simply “preserve actual nature” would be very effective.
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Yeah, to his opponents it's grandstanding overreach. To me it seems like a codifying into law a statement about where society already is - much like marijuana laws, society was already there, but now it's acknowledging that, though in this instance it's banning and that was allowing. I'm not saying everything he's doing matches that, but in this instance, it would seem to be the case.
Getting political, but this is classic Liberal Party. It's smart politics. It allows the party to claim the mantle of progressiveness even though it wasn't really them that did any of the work. See also: Gay Marriage legalization. The Liberals passed a bill legalizing it, but only after the courts of two provinces were set to make it legal anyway.
Same with this bill. To downplay it because companies have already been adjusting to this expected reality quite petty, and they deserve full credit for the legislation of it.
Some wild animals, especially high-functioning ones -- are meant to be seen in the wild.
If they are in imminent danger, of course -- building city-like habitats to protect them (whatever a 'city' would mean in their context) -- is more than appropriate.
We could also invest into building teams of people whose show-business is around building relationships with animals in the wild, in such a way that they can periodically visit the team and not be spooked by onlookers.
It takes years, dangerous, and would not always work -- but much more humane than keeping these creatures in forced captivity.
"Monday's vote notably impacts Marineland, the Niagara Falls amusement park and zoo that is considered the last Canadian park committed to keeping cetaceans in captivity." Wow, so they passed a national law that essentially targets just a single park? How often does that happen anywhere? (I know the back story but I never knew Marineland was the only place... not saying this is wrong or right, just surprised)
It doesn't target them, it targets all Canadian wildlife institutions. The legislation has been in the works for a while, this is really codifying something federally that provinces and environmentalists have been trying to do for a while.
Just because a lot of the ground work was already done before the bill was signed into law over the last decade doesn't mean this is targeted at the last remaining holdout (who is mostly grandfathered in to be clear, they can't bread or capture but can keep what they have).
Yes, it painful for me to look at animals in narrow cages where they slowly go mad whith monotony. (next - by the Thanos voice) But in general I can't understand the logic. In the wild, the animal has hard life. It will sooner or later be injured, sick, starving, and even eaten alive. But these sufferings are considered as normal because they are "natural". In the well-maintained zoo, the animals eat, sleep, and a bi…
Putting a wild animal in a cage isn't "boredom", its torture.
> Now biological evolution is complete because it is displaced by the evolution of civilization
That's not a true statement.
>Why do animals have to suffer in wild nature now?
Because animals ARE wild/ARE Nature. You can't remove nature from nature.
>allowing animals to live in the wild will be considered a crime (like living children unattended).
This is... absurd... Animals are not pets, animals ARE wild, they are dangerous. They are also required for life on this planet to continue. The ecosystem depends on animals at all levels of the energy/food web for it to exist and continue and screwing with this on that level would largely ensure the collapse of the worlds ecosystems.
Do they not still allow quite a lot of whale hunting?
So how do people now see whales or dolphins?
I get all the problems for the animals and not suggesting that they should continue to endure those problems, but I hate to see the general public's access to nature further curtailed. The mainstream seems to love wild places and wild life as long as it's on Youtube yet they spend the entirety of their own lives in suburbs and retail landscapes with virtually no direct experience with nature. I wonder how many childr…
I grew up with zoos and aquariums, and I have fond memories of them. But of course, I wasn't kept in one. And furthermore... Zoos and aquariums are not nature. They are exhibits in a kind of museum. If we want people to see nature, we have to preserve actual nature and encourage people to visit it. Visiting a zoo is not visiting nature, and I personally worry that equivocating the two is dangerous. I would not want p…
Of course not. But being able to see a giraffe in "nature" isn't something most people could ever do.
> I would not want people to get the impression that as long as we keep a few breeding pairs of every animal in our museums, there is no need to preserve places for them to live in actual nature.
Is anyone actually getting that impression? Seeing animals in zoos often is a catalyst for wanting to improve habitats in the wild. If you've never seen a giraffe, why would someone care about a giraffe habitat? It's abstract when it's "over in Africa" -- it's real when you can see the animal yourself and thus you're going to be more passionate about protecting those animals' habitats.
> I personally worry that equivocating the two is dangerous
I'm willing to bet a visit to SeaWorld has led to more kids wanting to be marine biologists and protect the oceans that any other experience. Nobody is suggesting that SeaWorld is the ocean. SeaWorld is a window into the wonderment that is out there in the real ocean. Look at the Monterey Aquarium -- they are significant drivers of marine preservation and education. Should the aquarium be closed, lest someone mistake the fact that they aren't actually viewing the animals in the real ocean?
Is there evidence all these creatures dislike captivity and would prefer fending for themselves in the wild? Genuinely curious. Not that it means anything, but dolphins have always seemed happy in captivity so long as they are being cared for appropriately.
We need to stop assuming as people we're able to tell the emotions of non-humans without specific training/experience.