WaterNotes

Robo-Shamu Can Jump Too!

I really hope that this is a publicity stunt of farcical proportions.  Apparently PETA, backed by an anonymous donor based in Norfolk, VA, has written to InBev, the new owner of Anheuser Busch’s parks SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, with an offer to buy out the parks. 

Why would PETA want to own zoological parks that “imprison” animals?  They want to set the animals free.  (Oh and replace them with animatronics!)

I have often encountered visitors in zoological parks who voice an opinion that holding animals in any enclosure is somehow unethical.  And I have yet to be converted by any of their reasons.  I also fail to comprehend the logic behind the position that zoological insitutions are simply out to make money or to entertain humans while allowing their animals to suffer. 

All the people I have ever had the pleasure to call my coworkers at zoos and aquariums have been exceedingly intelligent and passionate people who have wanted to work with animals and further the cause of conservation since they were children.  And it is never easy work.  Zoo careers require dedication and perseverance that would boggle the mind of those who enjoy a typical work week and a typical daily routine.  Would you have the fortitude to report to work at 2am every day and leave late at night?  Would you be happy to staff the institution during hurricanes?  Would you cheerfully haul 60lb buckets of fish for relatively little pay knowing that your classmates from Calculus C are now engineers pulling in $70,000 a year? 

I’m not attempting to denigrate other careers or to elevate the average zoological staffer.  Our jobs are incredibly rewarding and we do them because we love the work, not because we aspire to lasting fame or to financial heights. My point is entirely this: we wouldn’t work for an institution that allowed animals to suffer and we wouldn’t work for zoos if we didn’t believe in their ability to alter viewpoints, educate, and enlighten at the same time that they entertain. 

PETA’s targeting of SeaWorld over any other zoological institution is absolutely inane.  AB parks donate millions of dollars each year to other zoological institutions, conservation groups, grassroot outreach projects, and environmental education efforts across the globe in an effort to sustain research and education concerning wildlife.  And that says nothing of the rescue and rehabilitation efforts carried on within the park.

More than anything, the idea that animals born and raised in captivity will survive outside of captivity is disastrous.  While there are certainly animals within any zoo’s care that may survive outside of a zoological facility there are a tremendous number of factors working against them.  Questions of diseases carried by wild conspecifics and captive animal exposure, hunting skills, socialization problems, and whether or not suitable habitat exists all bear upon the survival of a mass release such as PETA proposes.  American zoos belonging to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums maintain several species that are effectively extinct in the wild and which, without zoos and aquariums, would no longer exist. 

PETA would do better to take the millions - maybe billions - required to buy out and shut down SeaWorld and other Busch parks and apply them to conservation and research for wildlife that might allow us to save habitat and repair human-impacted ecosystems around the world.  PETA probably won’t earn fame and glory for such a donation, but it would go so much farther towards the heart of their mission to save wildlife and animals that they feel are being subjugated for human greed.