Not too long ago, I got into a possibly ongoing debate with a couple of zoo haters on a post of a chimpanzee and its human "friend". You know their usual argument, animals are too smart for zoos and what not. My response? Animals don't have a concept of freedom or captivity. I explained that if the habitat is naturalistic as possible and all of their needs are met, they don't need to roam miles and miles, which costs energy. Another mentioned hunting. I don't know if they know that hunting isn't really a fun game for animals. I proceeded to explain how prey escapes more often than thought, and how many prey animals will fight back and may inflict fatal injuries to the predator. Another said that zoos don't save species, so I went on to list some species, such as wild dogs and Panamanian golden frogs, as well as many more, have been saved by zoos. Of course, I couldn't leave out that animals in zoos are cared for and outlive their wild counterparts, but they seem to always ignore this. Many think animals are still captured from the wild and "locked up". Looking at exhibits such as Woodland Park Zoo's brown bear habitat, Disney's gorilla habitat and safari, Columbus zoo's savanna, and many more, I would say locked up is a pretty poor choice of words. I can see how some may be a bit conflicted on zoos, but rather than letting animal rights propaganda and jumping on a zoo-hating bandwagon (which is honestly what it seems like these days), I wish these people could research or even visit a zoo for themselves and develop an opinion. I just don't get why they never seem to take these facts and respond with their "zoos are still bad." Anyone ever successfully converted a zoo hater? They just seem too stubborn to even think about the actual facts and see how most zoo animals behave outside of footage of roadside zoos used by animal rights people.
The thing with such extremist views, be it against zoos, climate change or big corporations is that these people have often been in their bubble for so long, it is impossible to convince them they are wrong. There is plenty of research showing that people don't change their opinion even when presented with clear facts that prove them wrong. It is still important to reply to such people, especially online as there are plenty of people who haven't made up their mind yet whom are open for new facts and stories. And not everyone is a "lost cause", Jane Goodall has for example made quite a turnaround with regards to captive apes, being strongly against captivity earlier, but now clearly in support of good zoos.
Perhaps we don't begin the conversation with "No, you're all wrong, that's not true." If you fall for the debate approach then there is a winner and a loser. Your friend will never agree to being the loser. Perhaps we begin with "What do you want for animals?" - I want them to be free in the wild as nature intended (What do you mean by "the wild"? "The Wild" is disappearing due to human incursions and resource extraction. Wild species are disappearing at historical rates. You might say there is no "wild" anymore as all natural landscapes today are either protected by humans or getting bulldozed. Whether it is a reserve or a zoo is a matter of scale in today's world.) - I'd rather die free than live in a cage. (Understandable, I feel the same. But we're talking about animals that are being hunted for entertainment, animals whose habitats are being burned or bulldozed. We're just trying to buy them some time. Zoos have led the way in protecting captive populations, working out the breeding biology necessary to save them, and generating public support for conservation. ) - I watched Tiger King. Zoo people are monsters. (Those are not zoos and those are not zoo people. Zoos belong to organizations with standards and accreditations to ensure proper care of the animals.) - Well you can see animals on videos. Why do they need to be caged? (You can swipe through Tinder or go on a date. It's not the same thing.) Like that
From what I've read, the key reason behind this is that human beings don't really operate on facts; they operate on trust. For many people, that trust is a trust in facts, and in the people (scientists) and process (the scientific method) by which facts are discovered... but even then, radical new scientific ideas are often dismissed and mocked by other scientists who are disinclined to accept that their original training and education were wrong. People can also disagree on what constitutes a fact based on whether they trust its implications or the source it originates from - at which point someone may consider themselves "fact-oriented" while simultaneously refusing to accept objectively true statements. Additionally, many people will openly admit that they don't decide what to believe based on what is told to them, but instead on what they feel. Facts and reason is not the way to reach those people, because facts and reason is not how they got to their viewpoint in the first place. As far as the Internet goes, I personally think much of the Internet is not a good platform for constructive debate - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Since few people commenting on public posts know and trust one another, it is a lot of arguing one's own point without listening to the arguments of the other. @lintworm's point about convincing bystanders is an interesting one, although I'm unsure how often that is successful. I'm inclined to believe that most of the arguments go as @Zooplantman describes here: at which point convincing the other debater(s) is far more unlikely than if you had just posted your opinion as a standalone comment (but was never likely either way). Conversely, I think ZooChat is different since most regular users have been around for a while and have built a rapport from which they can determine whether or not they trust another user's beliefs and opinions.
Prior to meeting me my significant other wasn't really a "zoo hater" as such but was cynical of their value and kind of persuaded by some of the "animal rights" arguments about welfare issues that float around social media. I'm happy to say that within a relatively short period of time I did manage to convince her of the value for ex-situ conservation that good well run zoos have.
