Top 10 Reasons Not To Visit Europe’s “Top Ten Zoos"

Reasoning like that could be used against any zoo in the world, mostly nonsense in my opinion.

 

So if everyone does it it's ok? I see

 

So, this is going to get really off topic (it was pretty off topic from the beginning) so a mod may want to split this off to a separate thread.

To start with, I am against cetaceans in captivity (although bottlenose dolphins are potentially justifiable) and that is why I said 'mostly' but lots of those reasons to be against a zoo are really quite ridiculous. I assume since you are on ZooChat you are not against animals in captivity completely so I'll pick out particular example from that list and say why they are stupid.

Vienna: the reason they give is that the Panda millions don't go towards conservation even though they should and whilst that is probably the case, that does not make it a bad zoo. The millions may be a waste of money but they (supposedly) bring in more visitors and visitors are needed to pay for the zoo.

The reason against Prague is purely the fact they hold polar bears. No further information is given so they have no evidence to back up their claims. To be honest, that is true for all of their reasons not to visit zoos and they haven't given sufficient information to judge anything properly.

 

I think it is accepted by most polar bears shouldn't be in zoos. But yes fair enough the rest is mostly opinion which requires more research that the average member of the public wouldn't do

 

I'm not a zoo lover but accept for many reasons some animals need to be in captivity, I just don't think for human entertainment is a valid reason

 

And your purpose in coming here and trolling a website for zoo lovers is what, exactly?

 

It is no coincidence that the "anti zoo dodo stuff, zzzzz." was linked to a SLs thread initially. The constant attacks on this British Zoo offers great encouragement and opportunity to these very obsessed people.
Even the best of Zoos are only one minor mishap or misjudgement away from becoming targets of these groups and their press contacts.
This forum (with the resident 'angrys') is seen as a potential recruitment centre for the Anti everything movement lol.

 

As stated before, it is not "accepted by most" that Polar Bears shouldn't be kept in captivity. What's your source for this or at least your reasoning? I agree the species shouldn't be kept in warmer weather zoos and not in the outdated bear grottoes of the past, but overall see no reason the species can't be kept.

~Thylo

 

Why just bottlenose dolphins? Several other cetacea species (like Beluga whales) seem to adapt well to captivity. Just because some species do not adapt well to it, this does not have to rule out husbandry in general .The majority of bat species cannot be kept adequately in captivity (unless a lot of personnel and financial resources are invested, and even that might not suffice). Still I have never seen anyone protest against chiroptera husbandry in general...and Egyptian fruit bats, Seba's short-tailed bats or Rodriguez flying foxes are doing nicely in captivity.

There was a good talk on that matter by a conservationist up on the net last year; can't find it anymore-maybe some else can post it. Stating that he doesn't actually like pandas, he stressed the importance of their flagship status for the conservation of their natural habitat, benefitting several other species of the same habitat. So even though Panda money might end up in the wrong pockets (which isn't limited to pandas or zoos, as currently nicely demonstrated by the FIFA...), at least some of it will still find its way to the right places, helping to enlarge their habitats. And I'm pretty sure the people in charge in Vienna make sure that this is far more than the ARF might give them credit for.

Maybe an important part of the sentence is missing:

"I think it is accepted by most polar bears [that they] shouldn't be in zoos." Any polar bear whisperers among us?

 

I say bottlenose in particular because they are a smaller species so enclosure sizes are more reasonable. They also have a significant population in captivity that could potentially be maintained by captive breeding without (further) captures from the wild being necessary.

 

And to provide further evidence to Thylo's very good point: http://www.zoochat.com/2/poll-should-polar-bears-housed-uk-409493/

 

But why should they be made to adapt? So pasty fatty tourists can swim with them?

They're some species that need to be in zoos such as orangutans as there is no hope for them in the wild but dolphins aren't in that position.

Evolution is trying to tell pandas some thing they went from being carnivorous eating to eating only bamboo and as we can see from natural history specialist feeders find it much harder to survive than generalist animals that are much less picky. Does anyone know it China still has the death penalty for those who kill panadas?

 

Hardly a non biased place to place a survey, I hope s/he noted the bias in the paper.

Ok well I should have been clearer it is accepted that most collections moved their polar bears on as they couldn't meet the requirements of the bear. What two zoos in the UK still keep Polaris?

 

Yorkshire Wildlife Park and Highland Wildlife Park.

The list of holdings for Polar Bears in Europe can be seen here:
ZootierlisteHomepage

 

I think the word still is a bit out of place here- both these parks never kept Polar Bears in the past(one being a very new park anyway) and both have built a series of extremely large enclosures for them now which cater well for their needs.

I have never quite understood the objections to keeping just Polar Bears in captivity. What about other bears? Polar and Brown Bears for example, are quite closely related. Is it because Polar Bears are seen as the essence of freedom roaming the Pack Ice? Other bears roam/travel big distances in the wild too, but that's often overlooked and the objections to keeping them in smaller zoo enclosures seem far more muted.

 

Polar bears live on ice and swim in freezing seas, whilst other bears deal with these conditions seasonlly, only the polar bears are adapted to live in these conditions consistently. So a zoo in a hot climate is going to struggle much more to meet the polar bears needs than a zoo in Norway or other freezing temperatures

 

Polar Bears are obviously not suited to being kept in hot climates, but UK very rarely suffers very hot weather. The issues here have always been more with the lack of space provided.