The Role of Zoos

With the destruction of natural habitats in so many parts of the world, zoos play an increasingly important role in conservation. Without their intervention, many more of the world’s surviving species would become extinct. Zoos are able to intervene because of their expertise, which is developed through long-term, sustained studies at the zoos themselves, but also in support of fieldwork in the wild. One advantage of having this scientific work done in zoos is that it becomes more easily accessible to the wider public. Zoos are great vehicles for informing people of all ages, though particularly younger ones, in a direct and memorable way, about the proper treatment of animals, and how crucial they are to the world’s different ecosystems. This has not always been the case, but modern zoos look after animals well and, as such, present a valuable model to the wider population.

There have been many bad zoos in the past, but zoo animals today are well-fed and cared for in spacious surroundings. Zoologists and animal psychologists are brought in to design species-appropriate enclosures and activities. Studies of animals in zoos provide information that would be very hard to obtain in the wild. A study of gorillas at zoos in the UK and the USA, for example, discovered that happiness can increase the primates’ lives by up to 11 years, and findings of this kind are useful for zoologists in both zoos and the wild. Sadly, zoos’ efforts to breed animals that are close to extinction have mostly failed. The issue here is that the odds against reviving a species from a tiny captive community are very high. But generally, as institutions of scientific endeavour, zoos are crucial in the wider dissemination of knowledge, skills and values with regard to wildlife.

Care of wild animals in captivity tends to be much more humane than it was in the past, but the fact is that zoos are for commerce and entertainment. Most visitors go to zoos to be diverted by weird and wonderful creatures rather than to learn. One zoo study found that visitors spent less than eight seconds per snake and one minute per lion. What could possibly be learned from that? It is also widely acknowledged that, despite the best intentions of scientists, most zoo-based attempts to breed species in order to stave off extinction have been strikingly unsuccessful. Captive breeding programmes will only ever work in large nature reserves. Moreover, claims that zoos are ideal locations for studying animal behaviour conveniently ignore the point that environments affect behaviour, and so studies of animals in zoos may only tell us about captive populations and provide little data about animals in their natural habitats.

However well-intentioned zoo-keepers may be, zoos can never replicate the natural habitats of most wild animals. As a result, zoo animals are psychologically affected and often display abnormal, even self-destructive, behaviour. Attempts to use zoos for breeding threatened species are also well-intentioned, but, with rare exceptions, they fail to bear fruit. The key factor again is probably that zoos are nothing like nature, and wild animals simply do not breed well in confinement. The notion that zoos can be places of learning, enlightening the population about wildlife, is also well meant, but how much can visitors really discover about wild animals from seeing them in cages and small enclosures? The only way to understand an animal properly is to see it in its natural environment and, if that is not possible, then film and books will give a more accurate picture than the artificial and misleading context of a zoo.