Are Zoos Rubbish?

Do they have polar bears now?

They are making a real effort to concentrate on the conservation aspect of a zoo's work. Every single sign on an enclosure tells the visitor how endangered the species is.

The presence of the alligators may well account for the absence of the penguins

But okay, here's a zoo question I've wondered about for years: Where do they get the blood to feed the vampire bats from? At the Philly zoo's (often excellent) nocturnal mammal house, they always have little bowls for them. Do they drain it from cows out back, or what?

And oh yeah, the Bronx Zoo is *unbelievably* overrated, by the way. Really crummy selection of animals, last time I went. If it wasn't in New York City, I doubt anybody would ever have even heard of it.

and davina and dermot were filming Dermot's Sporting Buddies there that day too

I really like the Philly zoo, and found it very sad a few years back when all the gorillas died.

The Brookfield Zoo a few miles from where I live is tops, though, and really puts into perspective the importance of zoos. It's amazing, especially at the city zoos, to see the looks on the faces of kids who have never seen anything more exotic than a dog before, let alone a cow.

The zoos also do a lot of breeding research and breeding in captivity, which helps ensure endangered animals (from giraffes to those cute little lion-looking South American monkeys) don't totally die off. I remember one day a few years ago when three giraffes were born the same day in Chicago, two at one zoo and one at the other. Now that's what I call science!

Anyway, if they didn't have zoos, and didn't have people to feed the vampire bats, then that would mean we all would be next! Therefore, zoos=classic.

therefore they should be left in the wild to have their penises and tusks taken by poachers for use in aphrodesiacs. stoopid animals have it coming as far as i'm concerned.

quite true, even truer of water parks as i've found out the hard way.

therefore they should be left in the wild to have their penises and tusks taken by poachers for use in aphrodesiacs. stoopid animals have it coming as far as i'm concerned.

That isn't what I meant at all - I realize that the wild is often far more dangerous (which I initially typed as 'fart more dangerous', but that's another story entirely) - I know that they do some good, as oops pointed out, it just seems somehow wrong to me.

Lesson learned: maybe the apes look sad because their instinctive heroism is being dampened!

The orangs at the National Zoo in D.C. have their own cool orangutan skyyway, aka a bunch of cables hanging over the main drag of the park between two enclosures. It's always kind of nice to see them traveling along overhead, all hairy and orange, while everyone gawks. The part of me that hates to see animals in zoos always sort of hopes that one of them will seize revenge and rain poo down on the tourists, but I've heard of it happening.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7649876.stm

Boy fed zoo reptiles to crocodile

A seven-year-old boy has been filmed going on the rampage at a popular zoo in Australia, killing rare reptiles and feeding live ones to a crocodile.

Footage from the security cameras at Alice Springs Reptile Centre caught the child smiling as he killed a total of 13 animals.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45074000/jpg/_45074574_boy226grab.jpg
The boy was caught on security camera at the reptile centre

During his 30-minute spree, he was seen hurling the animals over the security fence into the crocodile enclosure.

Zoo officials described the boy's actions as "unbelievable".

They are considering suing the parents as the boy is too young to be prosecuted.

'Difficult to replace'

The attack happened on Wednesday morning after the boy entered the zoo by jumping over the security fence and evading sensor alarms.

Over the next half hour, he bludgeoned some of the animals to death with stones and hurled others over the two fences surrounding the crocodile enclosure.

At one point, he tried scaling the outer enclosure himself to get to "Terry", the 11ft (3.3m) saltwater crocodile.

A turtle, four Western blue-tongued lizards, two bearded dragons, two thorny devil lizards and the zoo's 20-year-old goanna were among those killed.

Zoo director Rex Neindorf said many of the animals were rare or mature and would be difficult to replace.

"The fact a seven-year-old can wreak so much havoc in such a short time, it's unbelievable," he told Reuters news agency.

Mr Neindorf said the boy had "clammed up" when questioned by police.

As children under the age of 10 cannot be held accountable for their actions in the Northern Territory, the zoo would be seeking to take action against the parents.

"We'll be looking at suing the parents, who were supposedly in control of him at the time," he said.

sounds like GG Allin got reincarnated after all...

Future serial killer right there.

What a thing to say about Mark G.

mark gein

wow, nobody made the joke about a shit zoo ?

No-one is the small dog.

Worst zoo experience was at Dublin zoo. A family of knackers crowded round the orangutan's pen. The orangutan was sitting right at the window looking out at us, and the father was actually punching the plexiglas trying to get it to do something. Thankfully they got bored quickly and ran off to torment some other poor thing. A week or so later one of the hippos died when it ate a tennis ball that had been thrown into its enclosure. It was all-too-easy to imagine who the culprits were

yeah similar: Berlin zoo, Zebras, snowballs.

"The fact a seven-year-old can wreak so much havoc subvert the zoo's security system in such a short time, it's unbelievable"

The zoo's security system, which relies on sensors, probably did not detect the boy because of his size, Neindorf said

I always though they put sensors at about floor-level based on the assumption that intruders wouldn't be levitating. Obviously, this zoo had them at head-height maybe assuming that intruders wouldn't bend down.

I know he's just a kid, but still, I wish he'd have been able to scale that fence...

by which I mean outer enclosure...

Oh my gosh, why only reptiles? This is both odd and unfortunate news.

nice one, "henry s"

it's like Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales are still the prevailing moral standard

it's hilaire alright

Central Park Zoo was sort of nicer than I remembered it. I think maybe it was kind of run down back in the 80s? OTOH penguin area seems small as FUCK and made me sort of sad.

zoos should be illegal

if we outlaw zoos, only criminals will have zoos

good, i want to throw their asses in jail

central park zoo had a major renovation in the 90s,maybe it has had another since??
it was my fave nyc place as a child

more like mid to late 80s i see,closed for several years

buzza, im calling the police on you right now

bison hates zoos,wants to roam free

lol @ u

http://www.phillygenweb.org/images/neighborhood/bison.jpg

awoooooooooooooooooo im calling my bison pack through the still night air rn

u r toast btw

makes u think

http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_1173/11736855/file/zoo-bison-small-93953.jpg

nooooo they ran bobby through a paper shredder how did they do that nooooo

i remember going to the central park zoo several years ago, maybe six years ago, and being really disturbed by the polar bear, who seemed anxious and kept swimming back and forth in his tank. he also had patches of his fur missing. in general, i find zoos pretty grim. do they play a meaningful role in terms of preservation/educating the public or is that just zoo propoganda?

zoo propaganda
polar bears have no business being the united states

my first year of teaching we took our school on a field trip to the zoo
some kid threw a hamburger in the tiger's enclosure (there is a pit between the tiger' zone and the people zone lest the tiger get the impression that it was under attack from moron children and want to eat their face). anyway, the tiger leapt to its death going after the hamburger
fuck zoos

they should just be relabeled animal depression factories

zoos should be illegal

― "privilege" is not a meme. but "privilege is not a meme" is a meme. (m bison), Saturday, April 13, 2013 10:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Reptiles dead after blaze at zoo

instead of food pellets, you should be able to get paxil in the little vending machines for a quarter to throw at the animals feet as they endure another day of isolation and incongruous climates

all those studies showing that zoo elephants have 20% shorter life expectancies :\

m bison otm. zoos love to talk up their role in preservation and education, but the idea that we might legitimately "preserve" a nearly extinct species by keeping a few specimens behind glass is a sad joke. captive breeding programs are most successful where they're least needed. kids do love zoos, but it's hard to imagine that they're really learning much from seeing neurotic animals relentlessly work the limits of tiny enclosures.

I can totally understand anti-zoo sentiment, but I think it's a major disservice to the scientists on staff to discount their preservation efforts. We're not talking preservation like jam in a jar. We're talking about preserving their future. Learning to breed nearly extinct species in captivity comes about because most of those species are nearly extinct because they've been targeted or otherwise eliminated in their native environments. Which is to say, I think it's sad to see elephants penned up, and a lot of zoos are changing their mind on elephant enclosures, but back in Africa they're being targeted at a sickening rate, even on reserves for their tusks. So where are the elephants supposed to go, exactly? Also, studying animal behavior at close range in captivity surely pays dividends when it comes to research and other knowledge-gathering that can go toward bettering their lives in the wild, which is increasingly less wild, thanks to us.

Ideally there would be things like zoos, but dedicated strictly toward research, bypassing the ethically unseemly aspects of cages and display.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/el-paso-zoo-name-a-cockroach-after-your-ex-feed-to-meerkat-valentines-day-feb-14/

What is this vindictive bullshit?

You can message the zoo on Facebook with your ex's name, then wait patiently for February 14 to watch the roach get devoured during the "Quit Bugging Me" meerkat event, which will live-stream on Facebook and the zoo's website. The names of those exes will also be displayed around the meerkat exhibit and on social media starting February 11. The zoo calls it "the perfect Valentine's Day gift."

I thought zoos were about educating the public and promoting animal welfare

I guess they're pivoting to ritual sacrifice.

i think it's an intentionally arch take on this at the Bronx Zoo which has become a huge success
https://bronxzoo.com/roach

I imagine the El Paso cockroach thing was about getting press and it worked. Those cockroaches were gonna get eaten anyway.

Incidentally, the show about WCS is back on again and it's well worth a watch:
https://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/the-zoo/

I understand some of the anger and complaints but the modern zoo environment isn't any of the things that are being railed against upthread