Rabbi Marc Gellman on Zoos

I am way out of my league with the other posts. But what I do know is that my son 9 years is now interested motivated and comitted to animal conservation due to our membership and attendence to our local zoo Miami Metro In a city like miami wildlife is a conceptnot a reality. He has grown to know and love them the animals with his interactions with them. He now wants to work with them in conservation. One person one life can make a differenc. I think that GOOD zoo's have a place in today's society and they can make a difference in lives both human and and nonhuman.

thanks Maya! i will do that

it only shows 21 commentsa here but it says 22 on the other page D one day ill take you all to Perth Zoo to have a look around you can see for yourselves haha

Hi Ferretboy! Thank you for the response. What you're talking about sounds more like augmentation not reintroduction. I am not at all opposed to augmentation. For example if there were say 150 sunbears left in the wild and 2 female sunbears were released that might be a good thing if the habitat was completely recovered. As you and I agree releasing 200 plus lynx or sun bears or whatever into an area that has inadequate protection is very very bad. I am a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and I can tell you that a human teaching a wild animal "how" to live in the wild is an imperfect science at best. I've done it. The wild animal's mom is truly the only one who can teach them correctly. Then you have the fact that an animal bred in captivity has not developed the correct immune system or had the right colostrum to survive illnesses and they also have not undergone the years and years of natural selection that the native wildlife have. Then there's the fact that a bunch of captive bred animals released into the wild will create competition for the few animals remaining and cause fights for territory etc. I just think endangered wild animals have had enough torture from us human beings and we should not keep torturing them. Plus if it costs a million bucks to breed these animals the money is better spent on protecting the whole area. However like I said before if they're as cautious as you're describing I think it's a good method. But remember just because a zoo puts this idealistic plan on their website it does not mean they are actually doing exactly what they describe. You as a consumer have the right to see it with your own eyes before deciding if you agree with it. But I would LOVE to organize a group with you and others to reform zoos to be just like you and I both want them to be. Seriously. It's the year 2007 and I think it's time for zoo reform. Peace!!

For all of you who support the Perth Zoo I agree on two things 1. The enclosures look beautiful. Good for them. 2. Conservation work is fantastic I'm really pleased they are so devoted to it! However I am strongly against breeding in captivity and reintroduction. I've provided a link to a post I wrote about why it's not good. Mainly the habitats where they reintroduce the wildlife are usually still being destroyed. So instead of protecting the habitat they let loose more wild animals in a place that has been proven to not support those animals in the first place. The reintroduction often causes the remaining endangered animals to have even more problems. Breeding wildlife in zoos does not save the species it only creates more animals to live in captivity. When as you pointed out there are countless wildlife to be rescued. Also please consider that every time they build a large natural enclosure for an animal that takes up natural land that used to be used by native wildlife. Here's the link httpmaya857.vox.comlibrarypostlynxcontroversey.html If Perth Zoo only did the first two things with humane enclosures and conservation I'd say they were one of the best zoos on earth!!