I haven't been to a zoo in ages. Did the animals seem happy enough? The last ones I went to were overseas, and I found them pretty depressing tbh, but I hope the ones in NZ have better standards.

[–] Dave 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I guess zoos are a bit of a catch 22. You go to the zoo and see some chimpanzees. These are smart and resourceful animals, but in a zoo they just sit around doing nothing. There's a pretty big area for them but once they have explored it I guess there isn't much left to do. They don't have to collect food as it just shows up.

However, the alternative is that they live somewhere where they fight for limited food, and lose a certain number of their brothers to lions or crocodiles, or just have their habitat cut down by humans. Is that better? I don't know.

For sure there are worse zoos. Plus zoos are an essential part of protecting some animals from extinction, through zoo breeding programmes.

So I guess I'd say that NZ zoos generally have a pretty good standard, as far as zoos go.

Edit: oh and yes, snow leopards! The Wellington zoo got them I think around the start of the year.

[–] liv 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is that better? I don’t know.

"I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees"

[–] Dave 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well that raises the question of what about my dog? He spends almost all day sleeping, because food is just given to him. I know dogs don't really have a "wild" as they are human creations, but if there was a proper "wild" then he'd be dead because he's an old dog who has trouble with stairs let alone catching food. But he would have loved chasing things and sniffing things and getting to potter around a forest peeing on things, doing whatever he liked. When he was young he worked out how to escape a 6 foot fence by taking a running jump up a compost heap, a giant leap, and scurrying over the fence.

So I feel like no dogs get to live the life they would if there was a "wild" for them.

Plus of course almost all endangered species would be gone and many close behind if there were no captive animals at all.

Is it better to have captive endangered species or none at all? Would it be better for dogs if they didn't exist?

[–] liv 2 points 11 months ago

I think that's a bit different. Dogs are social animals and have been domesticated for so long they can even read human facial expressions, so in a sense your life is your dog's natural state. Most dogs I've met are fairly happy.

I'm not anti-zoo, for pragmatic reasons, but if I could somehow cause planet-wide changes to human nature I'd rather they were replaced with ecological conservation.