Do zoos really contribute to animal conservation and protect the environment?

Private animal collections date back as far as 2500 BC. It seems expeditions to distant places for rich people to bring back exotic animals to show off as status symbols are as embedded in human history as colonisation, the displacement of native peoples and the plundering of natural resources.

The first zoos, reminiscent of today’s modern variety, were established by wealthy individuals to reflect their high social and economic standing. They were called menageries and featured animals such as giraffes, elephants, bears and dolphins, all poached from the wild – the bigger the animal, the better.

For generations, menageries, safari parks, zoos and aquariums did nothing more than put animals on display, but in the 18th century, the emphasis shifted to science and research.

The Age of Enlightenment was a period that promoted reason and logic as ideals of society and that extended to the field of zoology.

Interest in the natural world was growing and studying wildlife in artificial environments supposedly provided scientists with an opportunity to improve our understanding of animal behaviour and their relationship with the world around them.

Museums of artificial habitats

For as long as zoos have existed, as many animals and species as possible have been crammed into small areas that were, and still are, severely unsuited to the animals’ needs; which ultimately impacts their natural behaviours.

Lions and tigers, for example, have around 18,000 times less space in captivity than they would in the wild and the natural frozen habitats of animals such as polar bears are impossible to replicate in the temperate setting of their concrete enclosures.

Because zoos are unable to recreate natural habitats, captive animals are undoubtedly suffering. Their physical, physiological and behavioural traits have evolved over millennia and a life in captivity differs substantially.

As a result of the stress, abnormal behaviours like head-bobbing, repetitive pacing, bar-biting and excessive grooming are common and the animals are described as being in a state of zoochosis.

The fact that a word even exists to refer to the stereotypical behaviours of captive animals is a clear indicator that artificial environments do not provide an acceptable habitat for wild animals.

Nevertheless, proponents of the scientific value of zoos to study wildlife continue to stress the importance of captive animals for species conservation, as well as entertainment and education.

In fact, an increasing number of people try to justify keeping animals captive in zoos and aquariums by claiming that doing so benefits public education and animal conservation. Despite this, over the last 50 years there has been a 68 per cent drop in global mammal, bird, fish, reptile and amphibian populations.

Entertaining captive conservation

The idea that zoos provide a scientific base, underpinning crucial conservation work, suggests that wildlife loss should, on the contrary, be declining.

However, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species, currently lists almost 17,000 animal species at risk of extinction.

The list is a useful indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity – a barometer of life – and it shows how wildlife across the planet is declining. Rather than slowing the rapid pace of dwindling populations we are instead amid the world’s sixth mass extinction.

Most species in the 100 or so institutions represented by the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) are not even vulnerable, let alone threatened, in the wild. This suggests the purpose of these animals’ continued captivity is rather to provide entertainment, with a highly limited educational value due to the unnatural settings in which they are displayed.

Breeding programs are frequently touted as the shining star of captive animal institutions, specifically designed to increase the genetic diversity of animals in the wild and thus ensuring their survival.

Yet, given most animals bred in captivity are artificially inseminated from a limited genetic pool, that argument is highly debatable – especially when ‘surplus animals’ are killed for this very reason.

Captive-born animals also lack the skills they need to survive in the wild and therefore stay in captivity, highlighting how zoo-goers and the general public are being vastly misled about their function.

One thing is for certain: zoos do provide punters with encounters many would be unlikely to experience otherwise, but the costs are far higher than the entry ticket stub suggests. In paying to see captive animals in artificial habitats, we funnel millions of pounds into ineffective breeding programs, unrealistic and therefore misleading research projects and outright animal abuse.

Exploring the natural world remotely

In the wild there are fewer than 900 mountain gorillas left. Rather than question why gorilla populations (not just the mountain gorilla) have dramatically reduced – a result of habitat destruction, disease, charcoal-making and poaching – we instead look to celebrate their confinement, urging the public to see them while they still can, and attempt to imitate nature by interfering with their breeding.

That doesn’t save the species though, simply because it doesn’t save their wild spaces or allow them to live free.

Interactions with animals behind bars, glass or Perspex screens are no more meaningful than ethical alternatives; such as watching biologist and natural historian Sir David Attenborough on our TV screens.

Human nature has a tendency to want to own and control – the perfect example being the evolution of our domesticated animals, selectively bred to serve our own purposes – but look at where this greed has got us.

We’re stuck in a climate emergency and wildlife loss is accelerating at breakneck speed while 80 billion farmed animals lead short and miserable lives, many confined in filthy, cramped conditions that pose a serious pandemic threat to the world.

All zoos try to teach us is that keeping animals captive is somehow acceptable and yet, it is not. We subject those imprisoned to a life of torment when we can learn so much more about them from taking a tour through our screens, exploring natural history texts, or for those more fortunate, experiencing their wild spaces for ourselves.

To find out more about human impacts on the planet and biodiversity loss, go online and download Viva!’s new Nature in Danger report from viva.org.uk/materials/naturein-danger-report.

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Featured image credit: Doris Rudd Designs via Getty Images