10-14-2015, 01:00 PM
"Zoo's teaches humans it's ok to exploit and cause untold grief and suffering to animals for the purpose of entertainment".
Disagree. The majority of zoo goers have no idea how much suffering the animals do or don't experience. The average relatively normal person would not attend if they thought the animal was suffering. The animal might in fact be suffering but the zoo goer is being sold something else entirely, perhaps a fantasy, perhaps not. It serves no purpose to get so carried away.
ETA: Namaste lived 15 years. That's longer than the average wild tiger and pretty good for a white tiger, which wikipedia says don't live as long as regular tigers. A white tiger is a fluke and probably would not have survived in the wild anyway. OTOH he was probably specifically bred by people who wanted a white tiger, the responsible gene being recessive, so maybe that means somebody owed him a living. Wikipedia also said that young male tigers have an annual mortality rate of 30% to 35%. He didn't have to deal with that. All in all Namaste was probably pretty happy with his 3 hots and a cot at the zoo. Perhaps his diet could have been better in terms of making him live longer but look how people enjoy eating themselves to death.
Disagree. The majority of zoo goers have no idea how much suffering the animals do or don't experience. The average relatively normal person would not attend if they thought the animal was suffering. The animal might in fact be suffering but the zoo goer is being sold something else entirely, perhaps a fantasy, perhaps not. It serves no purpose to get so carried away.
ETA: Namaste lived 15 years. That's longer than the average wild tiger and pretty good for a white tiger, which wikipedia says don't live as long as regular tigers. A white tiger is a fluke and probably would not have survived in the wild anyway. OTOH he was probably specifically bred by people who wanted a white tiger, the responsible gene being recessive, so maybe that means somebody owed him a living. Wikipedia also said that young male tigers have an annual mortality rate of 30% to 35%. He didn't have to deal with that. All in all Namaste was probably pretty happy with his 3 hots and a cot at the zoo. Perhaps his diet could have been better in terms of making him live longer but look how people enjoy eating themselves to death.