<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Berlin Zoo might have to send their once-famed polar bear packing]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by caniscandida http://www.grist.org/article/knut-no-longer-cute-to-get-the-boot/ Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:01:16 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/knut-no-longer-cute-to-get-the-boot/1 "he's still cute"

Of course he is!  You just need to change your perspective.  After all, we can refer to both a 5-year-old and a 20-year-old as "cute," even though we mean something a bit different in each case.

So hopefully young Knut will find a more hospitable home elsewhere, where he may be introduced to a future Mrs. Knut, and together they may perform their duty to the race, and produce lots of baby Knuts.

As for the "beancounters": It is unfortunate that zoos have to operate as though they were any other sort of business.  Unlike many other proponents of animal rights, I am not down on zoos entirely; at least the larger ones, in relatively enlightened cities, tend to treat their animals fairly humanely.  (Most of them, anyway; especially controversial is the keeping of elephants in ANY zoo in North America or Europe.)  Still, constant cynical observation is required.

In her excellent recent book on animal-welfare issues, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals," Karen Dawn writes (p.66):

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Captivity itself, life in cates, is the most obvious problem for animals in zoos -- no small issue, as human society locks up its own members only when they have committed crimes [a somewhat naive assessment of how humans in power make use of prisons].  Zoos are improving, and we have all seen or heard about large natural enclosures at some of the world's best zoos.  Yet even when visiting a zoo with the terrific reputation of the famous San Diego Zoo, one finds pairs of monkeys who spend every minute of their lives in cages no bigger than maximum-security jail cells so that visitors can get a close look.  If only people would settle for a video and a package of fresh monkey poop.  Actually, it isn't really fair to compare the monkey cages to jail cells -- at least murderers and rapists get an hour a day in the exercise yard.
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That is in chapter Three, "All the World's a Cage: Animal Entertainment."  Those zoos who try to justify their holding animals captive on the grounds that they do good work in conservation and in public education, are at grave risk of an ethical violation, inasmuch as an important part of their operation functions as an entertainment business.  Regarding the educational purpose, one person is quoted by Dawn to the effect that "the only thing I learned is that it is OK to kidnap animals and hold them in endless confinement."

That said, I am glad that when Knut was born, and abandoned by his mother, he was not euthanized, as some animal-rights activists were demanding.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.



]]> "he's still cute"

Of course he is!  You just need to change your perspective.  After all, we can refer to both a 5-year-old and a 20-year-old as "cute," even though we mean something a bit different in each case.

So hopefully young Knut will find a more hospitable home elsewhere, where he may be introduced to a future Mrs. Knut, and together they may perform their duty to the race, and produce lots of baby Knuts.

As for the "beancounters": It is unfortunate that zoos have to operate as though they were any other sort of business.  Unlike many other proponents of animal rights, I am not down on zoos entirely; at least the larger ones, in relatively enlightened cities, tend to treat their animals fairly humanely.  (Most of them, anyway; especially controversial is the keeping of elephants in ANY zoo in North America or Europe.)  Still, constant cynical observation is required.

In her excellent recent book on animal-welfare issues, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals," Karen Dawn writes (p.66):

<<
Captivity itself, life in cates, is the most obvious problem for animals in zoos -- no small issue, as human society locks up its own members only when they have committed crimes [a somewhat naive assessment of how humans in power make use of prisons].  Zoos are improving, and we have all seen or heard about large natural enclosures at some of the world's best zoos.  Yet even when visiting a zoo with the terrific reputation of the famous San Diego Zoo, one finds pairs of monkeys who spend every minute of their lives in cages no bigger than maximum-security jail cells so that visitors can get a close look.  If only people would settle for a video and a package of fresh monkey poop.  Actually, it isn't really fair to compare the monkey cages to jail cells -- at least murderers and rapists get an hour a day in the exercise yard.
>>

That is in chapter Three, "All the World's a Cage: Animal Entertainment."  Those zoos who try to justify their holding animals captive on the grounds that they do good work in conservation and in public education, are at grave risk of an ethical violation, inasmuch as an important part of their operation functions as an entertainment business.  Regarding the educational purpose, one person is quoted by Dawn to the effect that "the only thing I learned is that it is OK to kidnap animals and hold them in endless confinement."

That said, I am glad that when Knut was born, and abandoned by his mother, he was not euthanized, as some animal-rights activists were demanding.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.



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