Once you see wild animals in their natural environment, to see them in captivity becomes something unbearable and painfully unnatural.
Captivity: imprisoned, confined, enslaved
The main reason why wild animals are kept in captivity is not for you to see what they look like in real life. Animals are kept in captivity to get a profit out of it. To invest in an animal once, and earn for long periods of time out of displaying it; giving them minimal animal care in most cases.
"(I am) too far removed from the animals; they´re the last thing I worry about with all the other problems." - former director of the Atlanta Zoo.
To give the visitors the opportunity to "see and experience" wild animals is just a lame and gimp excuse. One that, unfortunately has worked and most of us don´t ever question, instead buy into it asking no further.
The truth is that you would never see what a wild creature is really like, or how it really behaves if they are imprisoned.
The idea that we can understand what a polar bear, a gorilla, a killer wale, a dolphin or a lion are like behind bars or in a glass tank is paradoxical. I am sure an illustration book or a documentary can get closer to the truth than zoos, shows or circus ever are.
Animals in captivity are often prevented from doing most of the things that are natural and essential to them, like running, roaming, flying, climbing, foraging, choosing a partner and being with others of their own kind.
An animal feeds of its environment and it exists because of it.
The african concept Mandela and many other african thinkers have talked about for decades helps us understand the necessary link that ought to be kept between the living being and its habitat.
Ubuntu (a zulu word that entails a whole way of perceiving and experiencing life) looks at a living creature and its constant exchange with its community. "The belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all beings".
In the words of Mbiti:"I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am"
I believe that when you take a wild creature away from its context, its existence automatically becomes purposeless. Their beauty is closely linked to their ecosystem, the interaction with other species and the natural survival game they engage when free.
Zoos, circus, parks, aquariums alike sea world have settled all around us. We have allowed them into our world.
Now, is there something we can still do about it?
It´s a business in its simplest form.
As long as there is a demand for it, they will remain open.
There is big money in the captive dolphin entertainment industry for instance. Without this financial weight Taiji would not be able to sustain the massacre that goes on weekly there. It´s known that they make about $32,000 for each living dolphin it captures. Can you imagine?
All it takes is for us to stop and think: HOW?
How did a polar bear got to a zoo in Argentina?
How do those animals travel all around the world to be finally jailed for a show?
How do they deal with the weather?
How does a wild tiger do inside a 10 square meters cage when it´s used to having a space between 7 and 40 square miles as a home?
What happens inside zoos, aquariums, circus?
Do they tell us about the stress disorders, excessive and obsessive grooming until they bleed, chewing, self-mutilation, rocking, swaying, pacing in regimented circles, head tossing, neck-stretching, air biting that goes on inside?
ZOO goers take their kids to see animals even if that means admiring them behind huge security fences, cages or water tanks. If you look at a zoo for what they´re really like, then it becomes clear they operate no different to suffering camps, animal cells.
Imagine taking your kids to a place where somalians, japanese, egyptians, Yupik and Pemones are separated from their families and their land and displayed behind bars for you to see what people from other latitudes look like? What people from different tribes and areas of the globe are like, behave like.
Suddenly the whole idea turns into a grotesque picture of barbaric behavior.
It doesn´t feel very didactic, does it?
So taking your children to an imprisonment camp for a day of joy seems slightly contradictory.
That is just to mention the obscene idea of zoos as didactic venues where "we can all learn". I believe circuses and the whole of the entertainment industry based on animals, expose the most cowardly and weakling way there is to making a profit; holding a deal in which only one of the parts agrees. The other one is forced into, and has no say nor profit out of it apart from losing all that guarantees its well being.
By understanding how devastating and unfair that arrangement is, we can then take action. We can chose NOT TO be a part of it by boycotting zoos, animal circuses, aquariums, and any other entertainment/ "educational" encounter with wild animals.
At the end of the day you won´t learn anything about a wild killer whale by clapping away as you see how high it jumps inside a bright blue pool in sea world, would you?
What it´s majestic about wild animals is how they interact and behave within their own worlds.
How does a gorilla interacts with his family? how does a killer whale nurtures her offspring? or how does a dolphin swims more than 40 miles a day?
Their behavior enhances their beauty and warranties their survival, which becomes an indispensable part of the working mechanics of a fragile ecosystem.
Further Biography:
http://www.wspa-usa.org/wspaswork/oceans/wrongwithswimwithdolphins.aspx
http://www.ad-international.org/adi_home/
http://savejapandolphins.org/blog/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/
http://idausa.org
http://liberationbc.org/issues/zoos
