Can We Improve The Lives Of Captive Animals?

A trip to the zoo can be a fun and educational day out, but do these institutions do more harm than good? 

- Dr Lori Marino

Until fairly recently, zoos and aquariums were primarily places to take children for a fun afternoon. Few people gave ethics much thought as they stood in front of a cage watching a tiger pacing back and forth. Today, however, the entire enterprise of displaying wild animals is under intense scrutiny, by both the general public and the scientific community. We now know a lot more about how animals fare in zoos and aquariums (and we therefore understand why that tiger was pacing), and zoos and aquariums have to answer tough questions when they claim, for example, that all of the animals in their collections live long, happy and healthy lives. 

A different look

Not so long ago, the collections of unusual and exotic creatures at zoos included humans from other cultures around the world. As recently as the early 1900s, people from Africa were displayed as exhibits. One of the most famous of these individuals was Ota Benga, a Congolese man who was captured by slave traders and taken to the US where he was displayed in the Monkey House with apes. While Benga was eventually freed from the Bronx Zoo, he committed suicide a few years after being released. In the 1960s and 1970s, zoos and aquariums started to rebrand themselves as places of education and conservation. But in many cases, the change was largely one of appearance. Enclosures and concrete tanks became ‘habitats’, tricks became ‘behaviours’, and elephant displays were painted with scenes of Africa.