Zoo Animal Ethics: Welfare, Conservation, and Captivity

Introduction: The Ethics of Zoos in a Conservation Age

Human beings have kept animals in zoos for centuries, but only relatively recently have the ethical considerations of this practice been widely examined. At one extreme are individuals and organizations that see no problem keeping animals in zoos and other attractions, in keeping with the long history of animal confinement for human entertainment. At the other extreme are those arguing that animals should not be kept in zoos on ethical grounds. This dichotomy has been complicated in recent years, however, as zoos have increasingly become some of the most important centers of animal conservation, forcing a reevaluation of the ethical status of zoos with respect to the animals they contain and the potential benefits they provide.

Examining the history of zoos, their potential for harm, and the ways they might better consider animal welfare reveals that keeping animals in zoos is ethically sound so long as the welfare of those animals is maintained — and that it is actually essential for zoos to continue and even expand their conservation efforts. Only by treating the animals already in captivity better will these conservation efforts begin to benefit animal populations as a whole, both in zoos and in the wild.

A Brief History of Zoos

Before addressing the contemporary state of zoos with regard to animal welfare, it is useful to consider the history of zoos in general, because this historical context helps demonstrate how zoos have always represented a balance between conservation and entertainment, even as that balance has shifted dramatically in recent decades. The earliest recorded example of something resembling a zoo comes from wall sculptures found in the tomb "of Mereruka, son-in-law of Pharaoh Teti of the 6th Dynasty" of ancient Egypt, dating to roughly 2300 BC (Bostock 7). The sculptures depict "oryx, addax, and gazelle […] tethered next to their manger, and some are being fed by their attendants, others led by men holding their horns" (Bostock 7). That these sculptures represent something akin to a zoo — rather than a collection of animals raised for food — is evidenced by the fact that they served a "religious or magical role, as scenes for a returning ka — or spiritual double of somebody whose body had been mummified — to gaze upon" (Bostock 7).

Along with the aforementioned animals, Egyptians kept crocodiles, lions, and, by the time of the 18th Dynasty around 1400 BC, "monkeys, leopards, [and] a giraffe [….] were kept in […] the first acclimatisation garden — that is, a place where animals brought from abroad could adjust, prior to their being domesticated or released as additions to the local fauna" (Bostock 8). Thus, even at the earliest stages of zoo development, one can see the dynamic between entertainment and conservation: these animals served as entertainment for pharaohs and royalty in both the real world and the imagined afterlife, while also being collected out of scientific and ecological interest.

While zoos gradually developed over the course of history, beginning with those Egyptian gardens, they generally remained accessible only to the rich and powerful for most of human history. Over the last few centuries, however, with the establishment of national scientific societies and public endowments, zoos became increasingly accessible, to the point that "each year more than 130 million Americans visit zoos — more people than attend professional baseball, football, and hockey games combined" (Bostock 34; Hanson 2). More recently, "the exciting developments in zoos have been largely in America and Europe," and the majority of major zoos and conservancies are now in the United States — whether the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, DC, or the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park in California (Bostock 34). These institutions have been at the forefront of the debate over the ethics of keeping animals, as they have had to balance revenues and visitors against growing concerns about animal treatment.

Works Cited

Bostock, Stephen. Zoos and Animal Rights: The Ethics of Keeping Animals. London: Routledge, 1993.

Cohn, Jeffrey P. "Do Elephants Belong in Zoos?" Bioscience 56.9 (2006): 714–7.

Cui, Bingbing, and Dezhong Jiang. "The Problems and Countermeasures of Animal Protection in Zoos — Take Shenyang Glacier Zoo for Example." International Journal of Biology 3.1 (2011): 136–9.

Hanson, Elizabeth. Animal Attractions: Nature on Display in American Zoos. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

United States. Smithsonian. Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute, 2012. Print.

Wickins-Drazilova, Dita. "Zoo Animal Welfare." Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 19.1 (2006): 27–36.