Loving to death comes to mind here for people and zoos! What's your take on middle of the road options, zoo like sanctuaries and such? A couple examples that I have in mind are bird sanctuaries where injured wild birds are brought to recover, or stay for the rest of their life if their injury is severe (i.e permanently damaged wing). The one I know of is like a zoo, in that people can and do come to look at the birds (eagles, owls) etc, but all the birds are rescue animals.
The other that I know of but have never visited is a bear research facility, popular with visitors, so also kind of like a zoo, but all the bears are trouble bears from parks, aggressive bears, bears that were breaking into cabins, bears that would otherwise be shot are brought there instead. I heard they do things like test if bear proof containers are really bear proof or not and study hibernation. These seem like potentially fruitful examples of compromises on the zoo question.
Ah, good question! Re: sanctuaries, I honestly think you can only take them on a case-by-case basis, because they all vary so much and many are functionally equivalent to zoos, but they slap the 'sanctuary' label onto them.
Can you share the sanctuaries you're referencing here? I'm curious what those ones are. There's not much I can glean from the descriptions; however, I am always wary of sanctuaries that have regular visiting hours (very stressful for animals, and a number of other reasons).
Re: the bear research facility, I struggle to think of a way that the bears might have a somewhat 'good' life especially when every single bear would likely require their own individual 'enclosure' separate from the other bears, and if it's popular with visitors, what kind of enclosures would they have set up to allow people to see the bears? Also what other kinds of research do they do -- do they force the bears to engage in experiments? It sounds questionable, but can't say for sure. It's nice that they save the aggressive bears but do they also work on educating people as to why the bears become aggressive in the first place? Questions abound!
The Portland zoo is the only actual zoo that I've seen and while it seemed to be quite thoughtfully laid out and designed what I saw corresponded with the observations that you shared: It was the big carnivorous mammals, that did not seem happy at all, with some exhibiting obvious signs of boredom even with some fairly spacious set ups, whereas the herbivores and reptiles generally seemed content, and unlike the carnivores they have something to gain, no predators.
We need fewer zoos (actually let's get rid of them altogether) and more efforts at animal protection such as this in my home province, and as seen on TV:
Sometimes it's not possible to return an orphaned bear to nature. In that case every effort should be made to ensure the bear has adequate shelter, provisions and above all, love from those tasked with its protection.
Loving to death comes to mind here for people and zoos! What's your take on middle of the road options, zoo like sanctuaries and such? A couple examples that I have in mind are bird sanctuaries where injured wild birds are brought to recover, or stay for the rest of their life if their injury is severe (i.e permanently damaged wing). The one I know of is like a zoo, in that people can and do come to look at the birds (eagles, owls) etc, but all the birds are rescue animals.
The other that I know of but have never visited is a bear research facility, popular with visitors, so also kind of like a zoo, but all the bears are trouble bears from parks, aggressive bears, bears that were breaking into cabins, bears that would otherwise be shot are brought there instead. I heard they do things like test if bear proof containers are really bear proof or not and study hibernation. These seem like potentially fruitful examples of compromises on the zoo question.
Ah, good question! Re: sanctuaries, I honestly think you can only take them on a case-by-case basis, because they all vary so much and many are functionally equivalent to zoos, but they slap the 'sanctuary' label onto them.
Can you share the sanctuaries you're referencing here? I'm curious what those ones are. There's not much I can glean from the descriptions; however, I am always wary of sanctuaries that have regular visiting hours (very stressful for animals, and a number of other reasons).
Re: the bear research facility, I struggle to think of a way that the bears might have a somewhat 'good' life especially when every single bear would likely require their own individual 'enclosure' separate from the other bears, and if it's popular with visitors, what kind of enclosures would they have set up to allow people to see the bears? Also what other kinds of research do they do -- do they force the bears to engage in experiments? It sounds questionable, but can't say for sure. It's nice that they save the aggressive bears but do they also work on educating people as to why the bears become aggressive in the first place? Questions abound!
This is the bird center https://bluemountainwildlife.org/ and this is the bear center https://bearcenter.wsu.edu/about/ (It doesn't seem a very in depth description).
The Portland zoo is the only actual zoo that I've seen and while it seemed to be quite thoughtfully laid out and designed what I saw corresponded with the observations that you shared: It was the big carnivorous mammals, that did not seem happy at all, with some exhibiting obvious signs of boredom even with some fairly spacious set ups, whereas the herbivores and reptiles generally seemed content, and unlike the carnivores they have something to gain, no predators.
We need fewer zoos (actually let's get rid of them altogether) and more efforts at animal protection such as this in my home province, and as seen on TV:
https://www.wildlifeshelter.com/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6976974/
Sometimes it's not possible to return an orphaned bear to nature. In that case every effort should be made to ensure the bear has adequate shelter, provisions and above all, love from those tasked with its protection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D5lo3P-COQ