Animal captivity.

Typedef

I was just thinking about Dublin Zoo.

Really it's repugnant and should be closed down. Keeping animals in captivity so that humans can stare at them all day long is sickening.

People often site the fact that some of the animals kept in the Zoo are kept there because they are endangered and are encouraged to breed whilst there.

This is not adequate justification for keeping animals locked up, for the amusement of humans.

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/youth/topics/captivity/zoos.htm

Personally I don't really accept the argument that 'somehow' the zoo helps humans respect wildlife, if anything it teachs young humans that wildlife is some sort of comodity, which you pay your penny and take your look at. Needless to say for the creatures with adequate capacity to understand that they are captive, the creatues in question become instutionalised.

http://www.goodzoos.com/arezoos.htm

Par example, does anyone really think that forcing or (training) animals to preform is anything but cruelty dressed up as entertainment? I don't.

I just thought I'd rant.

spooky donkey

Typedef,
I totally admire what you have said about Animals being kept in Zoos. No animal should be forced to live out it's life, being kept behind bars, only to be viewed as a freak show. The same way that no animal should be bred or taken out of the wild for scientific testing.
Animals in the Zoos all show the same repeditive behaviour that all other animals in captivity show. Example, circus animals, lab. animals, animals being rared for the fur trade, etc, etc, etc. Many animals in Dublin Zoo are given seditivies to stop them from behaving this way. The Polar bears are now to be shipped out to Alaska to live out their lives. And why? Because they are dying of a terminal illness. And guess what???? Nobody has to worry about never seeing a Polar bear in Dublin zoo again, because two more are being brought in to replace them. And the seals don't have to worry about swimming in contaminated water, because chemicals are added to the water. Hense, the seals are going blind. And I'm sure the Elephant is really having a ball, being kept in a tiny enclosure. Especially as this animal would travel thousands of miles a year if it had been left in it's native land.
And if people don't want to visit the Zoo, they can always visit the circus where animals are whipped, beated, stabbed and kept in cages for 23 hours a day and let out for one hour (if they are lucky) to perform to a ring of delighted onlookers.
But lets not just stop there. What about the Greyhound industry? Don't these dogs just love to run to their deaths? Why should any animal be bred for profit? The life of a Greyhound is between 3 to 5 years, if it's lucky enough to be able to run fast enough. So what happens to the ones that don't make the track? Or the ones that have passed their racing career? Do they end up spending their lives lying beside their owner's fire, being fed like kings and being treated like royality because they made their owners a healthy profit? Not at all. They are beaten to death, drowned, dumped into animal rescues, where they are put to sleep, sent to labs for vivisection, or sent on to other countries, where the racing conditions are crap, only to end up hanging from trees at the end of the season or made in meat for human consumption in counties like Asia.
No animal should be kept or used for the amusement of humans. And yes, I agree with you that it is just cruelty dressed up as entertainment.

Kalina

I recently visited Fota Wildlife park and enjoyed it. It's the best that Ireland has to offer wild animals and though they are not free some of the animals have so much room that I'm sure they don't even realise that they are in captivity. The small animals such as peacocks, parrots and even the monkeys have loads of space and roam free over a lot of the park. While I was there some monkeys who live on an island in the centre of a lake put on a great show of chasing each other up and down trees, rolling around and mock fighting. They looked content, at least to the normal visitor like me. The only really dangerous animals in Fota are the cheetahs who don't have huge pens unfounately but they have trees and grass and a place to hide from visitors and far more space than any of the wild cats in Dublin Zoo.
I feel that the government should support the closure of Dublin oo and fund the expansion of Fota or the founding of new parks. They sould provide proper facilities for large dangerous animals from Dublin Zoo such as the lions, tigers, elephants and the bears to live out the rest of their life in habitats as close to their own natural habitats as possible. As some of the links have stated many of these animals have become mentally disturbed from bing locked up, this is a terrible injustice and everything should be done to help these animals.
Dublin Zoo is a very popular tourist spot I'm sure but the land it is situated on must be worth millions. The government or private investors could purchase some cheaper land in the Dublin or surrounding countryside and set up another park which would still bring in tourists and improve the animals quality of life dramatically.
The animals welfare is what it's all about though people seem to forget it.