The Zoo

Lokedogg

Vet
Joined
Jan 4, 2008
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1,113
I and my wife took my girl to the zoo Sunday. Man I gotta tell ya, I just haven't been able to shake feeling bad for those animals. It's like 98 degree and this polar bear is out in it. He's just pacing around in circles in his little smoldering hot area. Elephants going side to side back n forth on his back feet. Baboons can't really move around much. Without going through the whole list of animals, they all just seemed so miserable. The dolphins seemed pretty happy cause they get a lot of interaction. If it wasn't for promoting awareness of the existance of all these animals I would declare the zoo evil. I've only been one other time when I was in TX to the Dallas zoo about 25 years ago. I remember feeling bummed out then. Just can't shake it. This shit bother anyone else?
 
Wild animals in captivity pacing around the same route over and over is a sign of mental illness. I watched a program on tv a while back about it.
Yes, zoos do raise awareness about animals that most people will never see and there are some endangered species whose best chance of survival is in cptivity but, like yourself, I feel that the space they are cooped up in is inadequate, some of these animals have a territory of many square miles in which they patrol for food and/or a mate. But this wouldn't be good for a zoo as visitors wouldn't be able to se them.
I was at London zoo in 2003 with the then-girlfriend and her two kids, I was horrified at the pelicans as they all had half of one of their wings clipped - not feathers, the actual wing - to prevent them flying away.

It's a catch 22, if they were in the wild, they might be killed by poachers/local people when developing land/hunting, in captivty they can live but in a shitty condition.
 
Yeah the zoo is pretty fucked up actually. There are some good ones tho. It all depends on the year round climate and space. The only big zoo ive been to is the bronx zoo which was really nice. Animals had a pretty good amount of room but again a zoo is a place to make money so if the animals have too much room you'll never see them and no one will go forcing it to shut down. Its a good vs evil.
 
Me and my little girl. Every time her shades slippped down she said "my sunglasses are broke".
 
"Red Panda" I don't know it's natural habitat/climate(somewhere in China I think) but he was pacing and panting just looking miserable.
 
I don't think you can get in trouble for feeding the animals unless they have signs posted.
 

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