I’m an extremely conflicted person over animal rights.
I
claim to be pro-animal activism yet I wear leather Doc Marten boots. I’m
against battery farms yet I eat meat both at home and at college, a lot of the
time I have no idea of its origins. I want to save the whales yet I have
neither the money nor the marine biological expertise to do so. However, one
subject that seems to crop up, in conversation, on the news and social media,
is whether animals should be held for our close up scrutiny. So, I decided to
explore the matter further.
Animals have, for a long time, been the source of our
research on humans; they are increasingly important for our knowledge and
education, both for science and to teach younger generations. The biology of an
ape, for example, can pretty much give us the fundamentals of our own anatomy,
which we would be clueless about without holding their sort in captivity. It’s
a common argument for pro-captivity that we need animals for research, however
this excuse cannot be used for zoos and aquariums that create no scientific
benefits, and is established purely for the public, and not of conservation, like some zoos do. In
my opinion, research on animals should be done at the expense of humans, not of
the animals itself; this means no pain, no separation of animal family, or
movement of habitat or in any way harms the animal’s natural life. Research can
be easily achieved via observation ( and when I say this, I mean in an animal’s
natural habitat) rather than probing, tubes or capture.
However painful to say, one fact remains true, our economy
benefits from having zoos. It is evident that they generate money and a flowing
economical movement (here are some details: https://www.aza.org/Pressroom/NationalEconomicImpact/)
of said money throughout local areas that have zoos. Although it costs to buy
animals and to keep them in captivity, the inflow of cash generated tops this
through: park tickets; gift shops; adoption of animals; cost for feeding animals
and days for the lucky few that get to spend the day as a “zoo keeper”. It may
be controversial, but yes, animals mean money and captivity and shows are the
way to get it.
The biggest topic, that means that even I could be classed
as pro-captivity, is conservation. There are many “zoos” that improve the lives
of animals that are endangered or injured. For example I recently visited the
Yorkshire Wildlife Park and was extremely disheartened to hear of where the
lions had come from - a ridiculously poor, under-facilitated and filthy zoo in
Bulgaria. These lions had cramped cages (not enclosures, actual cages) with
hard floors that caused injury and so little food that caused malnourishment
throughout the pride. Yorkshire Wildlife Park fundraised and eventually bought
these lions, and, after extreme veterinary care, gave them a better life. (It
could also be argued that these animals should never have been in such extreme
captivity in the first place, but that’s a different argument.) Through
conservation animals have been: halted from extinct and saved from injuries.
Many of the injuries are caused by our mistakes, such as the paralysed otter in
Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which I was fortunate to visit instead of SeaWorld
on my trip to Florida, that had been hit by a speeding car. Other animals, in
this establishment, that we as humans have maimed and seriously disfigured,
include the famous ‘Winter’ the dolphin, who has a prosthetic tale after having
her own trapped in a crabbing net. Furthermore, on Clearwater in particular
(which happens to be a NON PROFIT ORGANISATION) they have a research and rehab
programme for turtles that suffer from a tumorous kind of cancer on their faces
that would create loss of eyesight and eventually kill them in the ocean. This
programme helps to cure or provide respite for these turtles without harming
them in any way.
However, I now move to the dark side of captivity. Animals
that are kept in zoos and aquariums that do not meet the needs and experiences
they would achieve in their natural habitat and are their purely for public
entertainment, are, in my very strong opinion, wrong. They should not exist -
it’s immoral in every way, shape or form to capture an animal and remove it
from its origin and force it to a live a life that is purely unnatural, and
then even more to force it to “do tricks”.
My favourite argument
to win, hands down, in debates with people at college or at home that aren’t
educated on the subject is the SeaWorld argument. SeaWorld pretty much does
what every zoo does: captures animals; breeds them and pushes them to perform
in shows. So what makes it such a bad and controversial place? To start,
artificial insemination. There is a vast difference in putting a male and
female animal in close quarters and seeing if romance blossoms and artificially
inseminating an animal which is in fact forced breeding. Not only this, but
breeding the genes of a whale notorious for human murder is plain wrong( there
is evidence of this here -http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/biotechnology_1.shtml)
- surely the first rule of breeding
animals is not to breed those with a history of violence towards people or other
animals? It seems SeaWorld didn’t get the memo.
Furthermore, the lies surrounding SeaWorld create a
treacherous web. These include lying
about the age that whales live to in the wild verses in captivity (which of
course, is pro captivity - this is false), stating that whales are “happy” to
be at SeaWorld, when there is no scientific method yet to measure an animals “happiness”-
it is a matter of simply using common sense and looking at the animals (which
if SeaWorld did, they would observe the lifeless floating of orca in tiny
tanks- does this signify happiness? I also don’t see how animal can be happy in
1/14000th of the living space it would naturally have. Fact) , and
also the series of untruths surrounding Tilikum the orca, who is solely
responsible for the death of Keltie Byrne, Daniel Dukes and Dawn Brancheau,
which shows aggression that can only be caused by one thing. Captivity. I try
to avoid promotion, but for more information, watch Blackfish on Netflix. It
explains everything in the detail that I would love to go in to, but don’t have
the writing space. However, yes, it’s true, beware of emotional manipulation-
many of the scenes are heart-wrenching enough to force one against SeaWorld,
but just keep to the facts rather than the structure of scenes.
A couple of years ago I visited Amsterdam with my dad, and
as Amsterdam isn’t the most parent and child friendly place in the world, we
visited the zoo. It was a great day out but, as I was younger and hadn’t really
got to grips with how brutal captive life can be, it really opened my eyes.
Every animal in Amsterdam Zoo seemed, and there really is no other word for it,
bored. Utterly bored senseless. And because of this sheer boredom, it was easy
to see the agitation and psychosis it was causing. There was this one bear, a
giant grizzly bear all on its own, in an enclosure about the size of your
average garage, surrounded by fencing and a stream. This bear was just walking
around in circles - one continuous cycle - ignoring the food with darting eyes
and the oddest sound coming from its mouth. I didn’t like it at all. It scared
me.
I’m not saying that all methods of keeping animals are
wrong. Controlled environments for research purposes are, in my opinion,
perfectly acceptable, as it gives us the knowledge and intelligence without
painfully disrupting an animal’s life. However, as a paying customer, I don’t see the
attraction of seeing a miserable animal close up; I would much rather pay to
have it taken back to its habitat or stop more from being captured at all. But
that’s just me, and it’s not only me that can stop this immorality from
happening: it’s everyone.
For those who want to read more here are some links that may answer any possible questions!!
http://us.whales.org/wdc-in-action/captivity
http://www.captiveanimals.org/news/2010/03/10-facts-about-zoos
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/oceans/blackfish-movie-when-whales-turn-killers-20130724
For those who want to read more here are some links that may answer any possible questions!!
http://us.whales.org/wdc-in-action/captivity
http://www.captiveanimals.org/news/2010/03/10-facts-about-zoos
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/oceans/blackfish-movie-when-whales-turn-killers-20130724
