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The Ethical Dilemma of Modern Zoos

Article adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/opinion/zoos-animal-cruelty.html Directions: Highlight the thesis in blue. Highlight the ethos in yellow. Highlight the logos in green. Highlight the pathos in pink. Highlight any counterargument orange. Highlight any rebuttal red. Highlight the call to action in purple. Write a convincing concluding paragraph with a call to action to end the already prepared essay. Modern Zoos Are Not Worth the Moral Cost By Emma Marris Ms. Marris is an environmental writer and the author of the forthcoming book "Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World." June 11, 2021 After being captives of the pandemic for more than a year, we have begun experiencing the pleasures of simple outings: dining al fresco, shopping with a friend, taking a stroll through the zoo. As we snap a selfie by the sea lions for the first time in so long, it seems worth asking, after our collective ordeal, whether our pleasure in seeing wild animals up close is worth the price of their captivity. Throughout history, men have accumulated large and fierce animals to advertise their might and prestige. Power-mad men from Henry III to Saddam Hussein's son Uday to the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar to Charlemagne all tried to underscore their strength by keeping terrifying beasts captive. William Randolph Hearst created his own private zoo with lions, tigers, leopards and more at Hearst Castle. It is these boastful collections of animals, these autocratic menageries, from which the modern zoo, with its didactic plaques and $15 hot dogs, springs. The first zoos housed animals behind metal bars in spartan cages. But relatively early in their evolution, a German exotic animal importer named Carl Hagenbeck changed the way wild animals were exhibited. In his Animal Park, which opened in 1907 in Hamburg, he designed cages that didn't look like cages, using moats and artfully arranged rock walls to invisibly pen animals. By designing these enclosures so that many animals could be seen at once, without any bars or walls in the visitors' lines of sight, he created an immersive panorama, in which the fact of captivity was supplanted by the illusion of being in nature. Mr. Hagenbeck's model was widely influential. Increasingly, animals were presented with the distasteful fact of their imprisonment visually elided. Zoos shifted just slightly from overt demonstrations of mastery over beasts to a narrative of benevolent protection of individual animals. From there, it was an easy leap to protecting animal species. The "educational day out" model of zoos endured until the late 20th century, when zoos began actively rebranding themselves as serious contributors to conservation. Zoo animals, this new narrative went, function as backup populations for wild animals under threat, as well as "ambassadors" for their species, teaching humans and motivating them to care about wildlife. This conservation focus "must be a key component" for institutions that want to be accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a nonprofit organization that sets standards and policies for facilities in the United States and 12 other countries.