My reading goal


Read in a convincing tone of voice. ‘Should Zoos Close?’


Yes: Bernie Wright – press officer of the Alliance for Animal Rights (AFAR)


A zoo is simply a collection of animals. It makes money by attracting paying visitors. The quality of life for the animals varies from totally inadequate to barely adequate.


Three thousand years ago, when zoos were started in the Middle East, animals were merely objects of curiosity from faraway places. Trapped from the wild, sometimes with parent animals being killed (young animals being easier to train and manage), many of them died on their long and horrific journeys to other continents and climates. These animals were treated as prized public attractions. They experienced fear, hardship, an alien environment, barren enclosures, and their mental and physical needs were ignored.


In 2008, Dublin Zoo sits on roughly 60 acres. It boasts such habitats as African plains, fringes of the Arctic, rainforests, the Kaziranga forest trail and shops and restaurants. All of this and 600 animals as well, ranging from tigers, elephants, and chimps to red pandas. Even with limited mathematical skills, 100 animals per acre hardly seems like a miraculous natural environment.


To quote the zoo, it invites visitors to ‘go wild in the heart of the city’. It’s a pity the animals cannot do the same. Indeed, it is well known that elephants can roam more than 40 miles in a day in their natural surroundings. Explain this to the Dublin Zoo elephants.


Most animals on display in zoos are not threatened by extinction, yet captive breeding programmes are one of the most common reasons that zoos use to justify their existence. They try to save species that are faltering in the wild from going extinct. When asked, ‘How many animals have been reintroduced back into the wild by Dublin Zoo since the 1800s?’, the answer was, ‘We have none in the records, but possibly a golden lion tamarin was released to a protective area in South America six years ago.’ Strangely, there are no statistics for released animals.


114


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155