On a Plan for Incremental Abolition?
That’s Charles on the beach on Christmas morning, shortly after sunrise. I managed to get wiped out by a wave as I was coaxing him into the water (unsuccessfully). Now that would’ve been a great photo. Violet had no interest in the water, choosing instead to search for dead fish and munch on their carcasses. Nice.
And now back to our regularly scheduled deconstructing and kvetching.
When I read "Tiger Escapes S.F. Zoo Cage and Kills 1" by Louise Chu this morning, my first thought was: Why do zoo people insist on keeping animals who continue to maul people? Frankly, this tells me that the zoo people don’t have the best interests of people in mind when planning whom to buy or breed next for their menageries.
This seems like a no-brainer in terms of abolition: Remove big cats from zoos. Not because it’s utterly wrong to keep them, but because they’re killing people! Why? Because they’re wild cats whose needs cannot possibly be adequately met in a zoo! I don’t ever expect a zoo person to sincerely consider the needs of the animals, but I do expect him to consider the needs of people. The zoos are for people, anyway, so why would you continue to have exhibits that maim or kill your customers? Isn’t that irresponsible?
In February of this year, I wrote about other maulings by big cats and raised the topic of incremental abolition. Isn’t there enough evidence of the kind that zoo people might find compelling that zoos don’t make good homes for wild cats? Zoos as an industry aren’t going anywhere any time soon. The whole concept isn’t going to get banned, but why not work on the most egregious cases and dismantle zoos one animal at a time? Marine mammals, for instance, who are accustomed to traveling thousands of miles, cannot possible have a satisfactory life in a tank. I don’t care how big it is. If it were a mile long, that still would be woefully inadequate. And big cats, who continue to express their discontent by making their ingenious escapes and maiming people, clearly need to be somewhere else.
Here’s my Gray Matter: Is this like when Americans were convinced that "red meat" was bad for them and now nine billion chickens are tortured and slaughtered a year because we eat less red meat? We vegans don’t tell non-vegans to give up one animal at a time, as that just causes them to eat more of the remains of whomever remains. Instead, we say: Go one day a week without eating animals, and increase to two days, etc…, right? So why would we campaign for getting big cats out of zoos? Isn’t their suffering going to be replaced with the suffering, perhaps qualitatively different, of other animals?
Working to ban Greyhound racing is different, as it’s not going to be replaced with any other animal racing. But is it a good idea to work for the banning of certain animals from zoos? I’d rather (and I do) spend time educating at the consumer level to get people to boycott zoos, as that hits the entire industry and sends a message I’m comfortable with (i.e., no matter what, zoos are not okay).
This does seem like a great time to suggest that big cats be removed from zoo collections and sent to sanctuaries (where they can continue to maul people. Anyone getting the message? Three hundred pound predators aren’t that easily controlled. Maybe we should throw in the towel and stop trying.). I’m just worried about after-effects on other animals, whose numbers–and misery–will likely increase in the absence of the cats.
Anyone have any thoughts? Is it worth it to campaign for the removal of certain animals (elephants, whales, big cats) from zoos?
Given that the same message is being working on re: polarbears, elephants, primates and ceteceans i don't think the edge or the wedge is thin enough to really get in because a general abolition approach is apparent and stops the generally uncommitted middle-ground people from getting involved.
Oh, and the numbers of tigers in the US are higher than in the wild–around 20,000. Because they breed in captivity the are the 'chickens' of captive charismatic megafauna. Sadly enough.
I think the question would be: does working to ban big cats from zoos advance the cause of animal rights? Either legally, or through educating people in a way that creates public support for future legislative changes? I do not see this sort of campaign as pushing these two things forward — it does not provide legal precendent (that animal interests matter) that could be used to challenge or create future laws, nor does it providing a clear message to the public concerning what it means to respect animals. In looking at one of these campaigns, the average person would not make connections between why big cats should be banned from zoos and why animal agriculture, vivisection, clothing industries, etc, are unjust.
Greyhound racing is, like you mentioned, better, because it targets a particular industry rather than a particular, and replacable, aspect of an industry. But, similar worries still remain with these sorts of campaigns. They do not strike at the root of the problem that is forcing animals to live inside of these industries.
I agree with Francione that the time is too soon to be putting time and money into legislative changes or single issue campaigns.
I agree, Joey. You wouldn't catch me giving a dime to promote such legislation. But what about some kind of voluntary situation where zoo people stop breeding, stop buying and send their big cats to sanctuaries, thus phasing them out of zoos, as appears to be happening with elephants? That didn't happen without pressure from non-zoo people, so I suppose my question is whether it's worth it to for any Animal Person readers to be the people who would apply such pressure. This just screams "opportunity," but it's probably unwise to follow that path.
I suspect you will find this does not happen with elephants. Less places keep them now, but those that do keep more of them. The zoos clearly plan to be keeping elephants indefintiely and I expect there will be further importations.
Emily,
I know that fewer zoos keep elephants and a handful have plans to phase them out, but I believe the expansions of the zoos that currently keep them are in response to those who say they aren't being adequately cared for because they are used to walking dozens of miles a day (in addition to climbing and swimming and digging). I believe the expansions are for the elephants already in the zoos. I have e-mailed the folks who study the elephant situation for a living, and should have the answer shortly.
It is an issue I am currently working on. Change is occuring at the ends of the continuum–most zoos are making only small incremental changes at the urging of AZA. The main limiting factor will be whether further importations are allowed beacuse the breeding population is not self-sustaining and without heroic effort is unlikely to be as the population of females in both species passes beyond the reproductive age range.
p.s. one thing I learned about elephant experts is that you need to sample attitudes across multiple 'camps'. It is widely said of them that the only thing two elephant keepers can agree on is that a third one is doing it all wrong LOL. And those who study the species in the wild are very different from any of them and likely to hold abolitionist views due to having seen how the animals is in nature.
I say leave this sort of thing to welfarists. There are plenty of them around!
I suppose it doesn't take much time to sign a petition or send an email, for some people. But overall I don't think it chips away at the property paradigm. It just says, there are certain animals that we cannot manage, so lets stick to the ones we can.
And to be honest I don't see this getting anywhere. Big cats are too big a draw, in spite of small pockets of protesters. Elephants are so overwhelmingly difficult to keep anyway that it's a relief for zoos not to have to deal with them. Cats, less so. Good question, though!