Hello comrades. I don't think I've ever posted a particular question on this site but I've been thinking a lot recently about zoos. Specifically should they exist? Are they a good idea to have them while the world is being destroyed by capitalism? Should they exist after the revolution?
As long as zoos give their animals ample room and enrichment, I’m all for them. I think it’s cool for people to be able to see animals from all around first of all. Second, on our dying planet they’re often the best way of keeping a species alive.
But third, and my biggest point, is that in a zoo that has ample room and enrichment, animals will live much longer, happier, healthier lives than they otherwise would. I think people, on the left especially, tend to romanticize nature, but the reality is nature fucking sucks. Being a wild animal sucks. Best case scenario you’re an apex predator who just has to worry about starving. Worst case you’re a bottom rung prey animal that on top of starving also has to worry about getting eaten.
Don’t over-anthropomorphize animals. They aren’t humans and don’t have the same desires as humans. For most animals priorities 1 and 2 are “Find food” and “Don’t get eaten” and then 3 is like “laze around, maybe play with something, maybe fuck.”
Obviously the “ample room and enrichment” bit excludes probably a majority of zoos, but definitely not all and I have absolutely no problems with zoos that do provide those. And obviously there are some animals that simply don’t do well in captivity (great white sharks for example). But I’d rather be a gazelle at Busch Gardens than a gazelle in the wild any fucking day.