Do Elephants Belong In Zoos? Extinction Policy Under Scrutiny (conservationaction.co.za) 88
Long-time Slashdot reader retroworks writes: In "Zoos Called It a 'Rescue.' But Are the Elephants Really Better Off?" New York Times reporter Charles Siebert does much to dispel the idea that zoos are a solution to extinction. In the first half of the article, the cruelty of zoos is in focus. "Neuroimaging has shown that elephants possess in their cerebral cortex the same elements of neural wiring we long thought exclusive to us, including spindle and pyramidal neurons, associated with higher cognitive functions like self-recognition, social awareness and language. "
The second half of the article questions whether any current (expensive) efforts to "save" the elephants offers anything more than window dressing. Ted Reilly [founder and executive director of a game preserve] is quoted that, "The greatest threat to wildlife in Africa today is the uncontrolled spread of human sprawl. As far as it sprawls, nature dies. And that's the reality on the ground. It's not the nice idea that people cook up and suggest, but that's the reality. And in my view, an equally important threat, serious threat, is dependence on donor money. If you become dependent on donor money, you will inevitably become dictated to in terms of your policies. And your management integrity will be interfered with. And it's not possible to be totally free of corruptive influences if you're not financially independent."
Does this type of reporting improve the situation, or cause despondence and abandonment of the extinction cause?
The 7,000-word article points out that 22 American zoos had already closed their elephant exhibits (or were phasing them out) by 2012 (according to a depressing study by the Seattle Times).
The New York Times adds that "an increasing awareness of nonhuman animal sentience is now compelling many to question the very existence of zoos."
The second half of the article questions whether any current (expensive) efforts to "save" the elephants offers anything more than window dressing. Ted Reilly [founder and executive director of a game preserve] is quoted that, "The greatest threat to wildlife in Africa today is the uncontrolled spread of human sprawl. As far as it sprawls, nature dies. And that's the reality on the ground. It's not the nice idea that people cook up and suggest, but that's the reality. And in my view, an equally important threat, serious threat, is dependence on donor money. If you become dependent on donor money, you will inevitably become dictated to in terms of your policies. And your management integrity will be interfered with. And it's not possible to be totally free of corruptive influences if you're not financially independent."
Does this type of reporting improve the situation, or cause despondence and abandonment of the extinction cause?
The 7,000-word article points out that 22 American zoos had already closed their elephant exhibits (or were phasing them out) by 2012 (according to a depressing study by the Seattle Times).
The New York Times adds that "an increasing awareness of nonhuman animal sentience is now compelling many to question the very existence of zoos."
Hard decisions to be made (Score:5, Insightful)
"an increasing awareness of nonhuman animal sentience is now compelling many to question the very existence of zoos."
The question then becomes "is it better to keep some in captivity, or permit the species to become extinct?" I know what my answer is. Ideally we'd provide the remaining elephants (etc.) sufficient protection that they could live in their natural habitat, but in most cases we're not even protecting their habitats. And protecting these animals requires a man-to-man (well, man-to-elephant, in this case) defense, a zone strategy is insufficient. That involves a lot of cost that, sadly, will not be considered worthwhile.
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defeatist stance is a problem not only in this context. the idea that there is nothing to be done because nobody else is doing anything is what it always boils down to. i dont agree with taking this position. everybody who isnt contributing at all has made the decision that participation isnt worth it on the whole, which his privilege, even he might be wrong about it.
Re:Hard decisions to be made (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm extremely sad to say that this ongoing extinction event is likely to include elephants. Human population growth is the largest factor destroying them, whether it is through the ongoing ivory market, the encroachment of humans on their territories, or human driven climate change destroying their habitats. Note that the climate change is not merely CO2 levels, but the desertification of their habitats from humans taking over the water supply and overgrazing with food animals like goats, it's destroyed the ecologies that supported such large herbivores.
Once this is acknowledged, the only remaining option is preserving the species through domestication, such as keeping them in zoos. And they're so expensive in terms of necessary living space, and feed, that I don't see them surviving much longer in zoos. As much as I appreciate them as a species, I just don't see how the species can survive.
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Someone had to say it.
Not only didn't they, but it also didn't have to be you.
Animals are going (and have gone) extinct all over the world, mostly for loss of habitat, so your peculiar theory ignores reality.
Re:Hard decisions to be made (Score:4, Informative)
Well why are they losing their habitat? Are humans involved in that? And if they are, is it the humans on the other side of the planet, or the humans right there in and around that habitat?
If it is the latter, then it is entirely factually accurate to say that the Africans are the lead cause of habitat loss in Africa.
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Well why are they losing their habitat? Are humans involved in that? And if they are, is it the humans on the other side of the planet, or the humans right there in and around that habitat?
It's some from each column, AFAICT. Colonial imperialism retarded social development everywhere it was used.
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It's some from each column, AFAICT. Colonial imperialism retarded social development everywhere it was used.
Colonialism, as cruel as it was, likely advanced development in places like India, and it most certainly did so in Africa.
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> Are humans involved in that?
Absolutely. The desertification of the Sahara and its annual expansion is very much human caused. So is the pollution of water supplies, the changes of arable land on which elephants lived to harvested land to grow food, the destruction of forest and jungle to provide food-raising land and habitation. The change from available habitats to populated or farmed land is visible from orbit.
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look it up, the number 1 reason is illegal hunting. number 2 is destruction of habitat by man (not climate)
fact are our friends.
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Who wants animal parts to get their dicks hard? The Chinese. Who poaches and sells the animal parts? The Africans.
It's shitty, but this one isn't imperialist white mans colonalised fault. ... unless you consider sharing modern medicine our fault.
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Someone? You mean chinks and nips?
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An elephant will be poached and can't be protected by law in a land of lawless savages
Which is why there are so many passenger pigeons in the USA and buffalo have never been threatened.
The longer answer is that in locations with low population densities even where there is a demand for a product (and with buffalo it wasn't even that) then it's hard to police and is it is nothing to do with people being 'lawless savages'. Cut off the demand and ensure that habitat is protected and elephants and humans are sufficiently separated and the problem gets easier, which is why Theodore Roosevelt had
Re:Hard decisions to be made (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that elephants don’t have a lot of economic value to the people who share the same land where the elephants naturally roam. In some cases it’s the opposite. If you’re a farmer and elephants are destroying your crops guess what’s going to happen. It’s not that they’re cruel or crass, but their survival is threatened. The same goes for people who are poor and destitute but can make some money from harvesting ivory.
Perhaps the best mode for dealing with the economic problem, game reserves, comes under attack from animal rights activists. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, letting a small number of people pay for the privilege of hunting big game like elephants (or lions, rhinos, etc.) can provide the necessary funding to maintain and protect the species. Perhaps it isn’t ideal, but the alternatives at present are largely wishful thinking.
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The point about farming issues is correct. It affected the USA to some extent too, hence the creation national parks as bastions and reserves of wilderness and habitats. But it comes down a lot to money. But a US national park system in nations of Africa would be inadequate to the range of elephants can be vast as they move away from seasonally arid areas. That's a really tough one to solve.
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Not a lot, no.
But consider the Elephant Sanctuary in TN. Currently, it's inhabited by four African and seven Asian elephants, all "retired" circus/show elephants, I believe. 2700 acres (1080 or so hectares for those who can't do unit conversions) divided into three areas. It's not the ideal solution for keeping elephants from going extinct (the inhabitants
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Unless we’re going to import some elephants and locate them on some federal land, there isn’t a lot the U.S. can do outside of zoos.
So do that.
Seriously, why hasn't this been done already? What does Mississippi have that anybody gives a fuck about right now? They have the Gulf Islands National Seashore, the De Soto National Forest, and a bunch of Civil War battlefield sites. It's rather pathetic actually. Fully half of their US National Parks are Civil War memorials. So let's do them a favor worth tens of millions in tourist revenue. Let's build the largest elephant preserve outside of Africa in Mississippi.
Load the park up with c
Re:Hard decisions to be made (Score:4, Insightful)
Allowing a small number of people pay really big money for the privilege of hunting ivory (and other byproducts like tiger testicles) poachers might do more to protect the species, and I'm pretty sure the animal rights activists wouldn't complain.
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I imagine a drone to man solution may help quite a bit.
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The question then becomes "is it better to keep some in captivity, or permit the species to become extinct?"
You clearly didn't read the Seattle Times article. The species will go extinct if they're limited to the ones in zoos, the question is really: "How can we protect elephants in the wild? Because that's the only option."
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Re: Hard decisions to be made (Score:2)
Is it better to keep some in captivity, or permit the species to become extinct?
Choice C: Neither. Zoos suck; large nature preserves and wildlife refuges are the only reasonable solution.
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Conservation does not require hunting. Only in special cases is hunting even a useful measure in managing endangered animal populations.
The notion that people who kill for fun (let's be honest here) are necessary to create political support for environment preservation is questionable at best. Such a politically active faction might contribute to it, but for rare animals it is only a very privileged (usually foreign) elite that are this constituency since endangered populations can tolerate only very low le
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Elephant will go extinct because your suggested method of preservation is emotionally unacceptable to humans.
Meanwhile chickens and cows thrive in the billions...
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You're missing the part where people are allowed to own the animals and keep their own game preserves. Private property rights solve the issues of the commons, which is what led to the problems you cite.
Allowing private ownership is where the incentives come into play. There's plenty of money to be made in keeping and protecting a herd of animals if they create a financial benefit, like charging people for hunting some of them. For example, there's a reason no one is worried that cows or chickens are going
Re: We need hunting of these animals to save them (Score:2)
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People will not hunt to extinction, so long as it's kept legal
All the species people have hunted to extinction legally beg to differ.
False Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Zoos aren't destroying the elephant's habitats. Nor is anybody who is actively engaged in that habitat destruction thinking -- this is okay elephants are being preserved in zoos. Only an eco-dilettante could imagine that is the case.
There is more than on fallacy at play here.
The biggest fallacy is the inevitable one of the charismatic species. Natural habitat preservation is frequently framed around the survival of species X, a popular animal (almost always either a large mammal, a bird or a butterfly), which is endangered by habitat destruction. But the loss of habitat is really about the loss of an entire eco-system, which invariably has many, many other non-charismatic species endangered as well, plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and yes many other non-famous birds and mammals. So the charismatic animal acts as a stand-in to encourage preservation of the eco-system it inhabits. Seen from this (accurate) perspective zoos are irrelevant. They have no role to play here at all, for good or ill.
Whether it is acceptable to keep elephants in a particular zoo environment should be based on the well-being of the elephant itself, and has nothing at all to do with loss of habitat.
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One could make a reasonable argument that being alive is probably in the best interests of the well being of the elephant. Or hadn't you heard that they are endangered?
The only remaining question to really ask is do the elephants in zoos seem happy about their situation? If they aren't, then it does becomes bigger ethical quandry... if they are, then I don't see the problem.
Re:False Choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Whether it is acceptable to keep elephants in a particular zoo environment should be based on the well-being of the elephant itself, and has nothing at all to do with loss of habitat.
Zoos are an educational institution, among other things. The way I see it is that we are on track to lose most of even the charismatic megafauna in the not so distant future. As a species these animals are desperately in need in whatever help education in zoos can muster from the wealthy and privileged populations on this earth.
Do you believe that, say, elephants are more likely or less likely to exist in 2119, if we get rid of all zoos exhibitions? I believe firmly that they are more likely to go extinct.
While I do not believe that an intelligent social animal like an elephant should live a life of suffering for the good of the species, I do not agree that purely the good of the individual animal is the only factor to consider.
Re:False Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
People are dumb and selfish. Most people couldn't give two shits about saving any habitat but their own (ie: their own house/apartment). Using a charismatic species as a reason to save a habitat... hell, if that's what it takes, let's do it. I'm a biologist, and I think that we need to be saving a lot of different habitats for ALL of the species in those habitats, but that's not happening in my lifetime. Remember how Americans freaked the fuck out when Carter asked Americans to put on an extra sweater and turn down the heat in their houses...?
San Diego Zoo Safari Park (Score:2)
So here in San Diego County, city of Escondido has the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (was originally Wild Animal Park). They get a pretty huge space that includes a bunch of friendly to each other African species including Elephants, Giraffes, some kind of antelope and lots of others just wandering around in a 300 acres or 120 HA.
Sure, that's nothing to the real world but it's not a pointless effort.
Capitalism (Score:2)
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"Community sharing" is why elephants are dying. Without private property rights and the ability to legally own and profit from elephants in their native habitats, no one in the community has the incentives to pay for preserving them.
Capitalism [fee.org] is about the only thing which may save the elephants [washingtonexaminer.com]. There's plenty of money to be made in keeping and protecting herd of them if someone is allowed to create a financial benefit, like charging people for hunting some of them, or harvesting their tusks for legal ivor
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Sure, but what about the millions of species which humans don't have a particular interest in eating or hunting? Or should we welcome a world where the only animals are domesticated cows, chickens, etc, with maybe a few special ranches for rhinos and lions. Nobody's going to have a fucking garter snake, orb weaver, or bullfrog farm.