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This poster will aim to illuminate the ethical status of zoos. Zoos, especially in North American countries, have long been and remain a topic of heated debate, and not without reason: animals kept in zoos are living beings, who might be thought to have rights; zoos are institutions that both make money and contribute to the economy; zoos, like any other exhibition, impurity natural settings and impact the current climate change crisis; and zoos, not unlike any other organization dedicated to beautiful things, are loved. Thus, there seems to be a kind of ethical puzzle surrounding zoos, a tension at the heart of their moral or ethical status. This poster will attempt to illuminate a few pieces of that puzzle by investigating a number of its key elements, namely: the history of zoos, the environmental harms and benefits, or "pros" and "cons" of zoos, the kind of zoo that is comparatively, yet still questionably, more ethical, the enduring presence of animal exploitation in zoos more generally, and the psychological power or utility of such exploitation. By the end of these investigations, it is our hope that readers will stand more ready to judge the ethical status of zoos.

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Environmental Impact of Zoos: Pros and Cons 

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Environmental Impact of Zoos: Pros and Cons 

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Pros:
Zoos...

Can prevent some species from going extinct and providing a habitat for them to reproduce to hopefully be able to repopulate later in the wild

Provide a place for the general public to learn about wildlife and conservation practices

Can be a place of rehabilitation for sick or injured animals

Can help provide research to prevent future disease within the wild

Can be an economic bonus for surrounding businesses

Can be a learning tool for college students looking to further their education or career in wildlife sciences, careers that can positively impact the environment

Cons:

The loss of major predators within a habitat leads to an increase in game populations

With an increase in game populations comes with a decrease in plant and tree populations leading to less biodiversity

A decrease in biodiversity can lead to deforestation leading to a higher concentration of carbon within an area leading to climate change

Overcrowded zoos can lead to unhealthy animals that are on display

Increased amount of carbon emissions from people who travel to the zoos whether it be from a few towns over or say a bigger destination from another state or country

Surplus animal killing

Disruption of the natural circle of life when having to outsource food for animals

The false sense of security given to the public for zoos that rescue animals that were being negatively affected by humans in the first place

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After having investigated these key, controversial elements of zoos, we might stand more ready to understand the ethical reality of such institutions. Based on our study of the environmental impact of zoos, we might conclude that while attempts are made to reduce any harms committed by zoos, and while zoos continue on certain conservation efforts that are crucial to the maintenance of many endangered species, those laudable attempts could be achieved in other, state-sponsored, less commercial, more academic ways, without zoos, and those ways could perhaps more effectively avoid the environmental damage that zoos cause. These alternative efforts - be they research-based or state-subsidized conservation organizations or sanctuaries - could also more effectively avoid animal exploitation. As our study of the history of zoos revealed, exploitation, or seeing animals as other, lesser creatures, as objects of study, has long characterized the public zoo. And as our more precise investigation into that phenomenon revealed, there are ethical and moral issue with this mindset, for it reduces the dignity of the animal life below human enjoyment or curiosity. While indeed, our considerations of the psychological power of zoos revealed that there may be some extant ethical benefits to maintaining zoos, like the morally generous attachment to non-human lives(or at least the cute and cuddly ones among them), it seems possible that that attachment could come to be in other ways. Thus, zoos seem to be rife with ethical problems unable to be overturned by their few ethical benefits. This seems to remain true even according to our comparative understanding of the "more" ethical, adoptive zoo, for those zoos too depend on and prop up more unethical zoos, and need not be open to the public from a moral perspective. In light of all of these findings, we suggest that zoos are ethically fraught institutions, at least when taken as a whole.

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Zoos are not a new concept.  The oldest known zoological collection is from 3500 BCE, located in Egypt, and there are many other ancient menageries from other civilizations, such as the Romans, Babylonians, Chinese, and Aztecs.  The oldest zoo that still exists today is called the Tiergarten Schӧnbrunn, located in the city of Vienna, Austria, and the first ever aquarium was established as part of the London Zoo in 1853.  However, these historical zoos differ from our modern idea of zoos in that they mainly served to symbolize the power and wealth of their owners, presenting high society with strange and novel creatures from across the world.  Around the early 19th century, the focus of zoos shifted from displays of wealth and power to public places where people could go to see and learn about animals.  The aforementioned London Zoo was the first public zoo, established in 1828 as a place for scientific study and opened to the public in 1847. Despite this, however, zoos did not consider conservation or the proper treatment of their animals to be a high priority.  One of the first American zoos was part of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, which horrifically mistreated its animals, abusing elephants in order to train them to perform routines, and keeping beluga whales in a 576 square foot tank in a basement, among other things.  Other zoos also commonly neglected or abused their animals, and it wasn’t until ecology became an issue in the public eye in the 1970s that zoos ceased having their animals trained to perform routines and began to focus more on conservation.  Modern zoos ostensibly try to help preserve species whose habitats are being destroyed, through breeding endangered animals in captivity and later releasing them back into the wild.  Advocates for the benefits of zoos believe that this can make a difference in wildlife conservation, as well as educate the public and get people more invested in conservation efforts, but critics and many animal rights activists believe that zoos are immoral establishments that simply serve to entertain the public at the cost of the animals’ well-being and quality of life.

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While animal exploitation is objectionable, it also might have certain - though morally questionable - uses. We might consider, for example, that zoos allow us to become emotionally attached to animals. And that attachment, we might further consider, could lead us to a more open, more elevated relationship to nature and the environment all around. Consider the panda bear as an example: the panda, especially the baby panda, has become both an object of public adoration and love throughout the world, and a symbol of environmental duties and the need for preservation efforts. Yet this example raises with it its own issues, for what we love, it seems, what is capable of conjuring our devotion, is the cute and cuddly thing; it is the undeniably adorable creature that allows us to take up our moral duties. This is problematic because it is in tension with morality itself. Morality demands that we recognize and take up our duties no matter our own feelings, and care for the city or the world as a whole; it demands that we put aside the self or our own for the greater good, difficult as that may be. But the attachment to the cute thing, the thing that we love, is a selfish, easy kind of moral doorway, for we love the baby panda and similarly cute animals because it brings us joy to look at it. In short, the psychological power of our attachment to animals in zoos creates a tension with the kind of generous, self-sacrificial morality upon which environmentally ethical lives, at least purely conceived, depend. We might, upon realizing that no one in the political world can be perfect or devoid of selfishness entirely, reconcile ourselves with this necessary tension and accept this use of animals in zoos, concluding that such a use is actually a smart manipulation of the human psyche towards moral ends. This conclusion would have to further confront the intrinsically reprehensible objectification of animals into things that we, as human.beings can adore. While this may be possible if animals are more or less unaware of that adoration, or if such an objection can be outweighed it seems unwise to dismiss that objection entirely, especially if, through documentaries, pets, hikes, and movies, attachment to animals can be bred elsewhere.

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Animal Exploitation in Zoos: Forever a "Limited Landscape"

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Animal Exploitation in Zoos: Forever a "Limited Landscape"

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In his Culture of Nature, Alexander Wilson described the concept of the limited landscape. To Wilson, our interaction with nature will always be limited because society has altered nature so much or so far that it is now unable to fully turn back. There will always be some distance, some impurity, or some artificiality when humans interact with nature. Or so Wilson thinks. When we turn to look at zoos, Wilson’s conception of the limited landscape can be seen very easily, for zoos alter natural settings. More than that, it can be seen deeply: zoos alter the human landscape by making our interactions with animals more artificial and impure. Zoos, as institutions, showcase animals, behind bars or cages, so as to remove the fear or respect for their natural power and strength. In doing so, they take away our ability to fully understand our relationship to them, and merely reinforce the notion of our own superiority. Zoos also showcase these animals in their “natural setting, ” but that setting is a recreation, even if an accurate one. One might wonder: how might it feel, to these animals, to have lives lead impurely or unnaturally? How might it feel to be deprived of interactions with other species, to never learn to hunt or eat or make a home in the same way as they otherwise would? For animals taken from the wildnerness, the answer seems to be one of devastation, for a starkly different way of life, the loss of what is known and loved, and imprisonment are rarely received well. For animals bred in captivity, the answer seems to be a tragic one: such animals do not even know how it feels, for they have never known their truly naturally environment. While that environment might be plagued by destruction, and made unavailable to them, a life in a zoo strips away the kind of life certain wild animals have evolved to lead, and, some might argue, rob them of their teleological, best. Such a life might even rob them of their happiest end if, as by the account of many studies(e.g. Chicago Zoological Society), increased or overzealous exposure to crowds can be stressful and overwhelming to animals, hence the need for indoor, unexposed parts of each animal's habitat. While of course, because of our communication barrier, there will always be limits to what we can know about the emotional reality of animals, that result of their placement in zoos, at least overcrowded or badly managed zoos, has been widely supported, as, by reason alone, has the conclusion that the right of these animals to liberty and dignity, as living beings, has been denied. Thus, the theft of these animals' "natural" lives and environments, if avoidable, and their subsequent imprisonment in zoos, objectionable in its own intrinsic right, even if those objections can be silenced by necessity or minimized by other goods zoos provide. So too is the kind of distance and subordination that animal exploitation in zoos creates between human beings and animals. For humans, as Wilson rightly teaches us, now, more than ever, both need nature to be "taught" to them, and to have it taught to them in a comfortable way: not only do they need to go out and see imprisoned animals for a few hours to understand some limited sense of who they are, but they need to it in a beautifully manicured zoo, complete with a hot dog stand. When considering the ethical status of zoos, these instrinsic and consequential objections are not to be dismissed.

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An inherent part of our premise for this poster is that zoos are morally questionable generally. Still, we might consider: could there be some zoos that are better than others? If so, what would define a good zoo? The care of the animals is of course the first thing that comes to mind, as it is the most direct and visible impact. While this should be a top priority and a marker for the quality or ethical standing of a zoo, a bigger question comes along, and that is the sourcing of the animals - put another way, the origins and acquisition of the wild animals held in zoos. If, for example, a wild animal is taken from its natural habitat, it might be dangerous or harmful to the animal. This possibility has been widely studied and supported in scholarly research;  The Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge has an article, for example, called, “The Dangers of Imprinting” where they explain how a wild bird can be unable to reintegrate into its original habitat if they start to identify with humans and imprint on them, as they would in zoos. Similar things can happen, they go on to explain with mammals through habituation, even if there is a greater chance of reintegration(Cedar Run). While the subject of this article is the rehabilitation of animals, many zoo animals find themselves in a similar situation. BBC Earth concurs with this assessment and concludes that even in the ideal circumstances of a zoo, life in a zoo may leave such an animal unable to live in the wild. While this varies based upon the species and amount of time they’ve been in captivity, there are still certainly animals that cannot be returned to the wild safely, and this poses a danger to the purity of the species and their health, both physical and mental(BBC).  Thus, zoos that take animals from the wild, to entertain or to make money, seem to be ethically unstable at best. Zoos like this will most likely continue to exist, however, so it may be more realistic, rather than suggesting their illegality, to either focus on the reasonably comfortable life provided for animals in some zoos, at least in a physical sense, or to find a way to minimize their ethical problems. Some do just that: a minority of zoos, rather than taking animals from the wild, adopt animals from other zoos. If those animals adopted had already been deemed unfit for release, then these zoos seem more ethical. Yet this carries with it its own issues, for those zoos too depend on zoos that harm animals in the way described above. So too, at least if they are public zoos, display animals, and in doing so, possibly overwhelm them with crowds and exploit them. In light of all of that, it would seem that the ethical zoo would adopt animals that have already been deemed unfit for release, keep them in humane conditions, and ideally help to raise money for conservation, but as a whole, it seems that it is impossible for zoos as an organization to be entirely ethical.