"On Display" at the Zoo

by Stephanie Ernst · 2009-08-31 06:15:00 UTC
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These two headlines regarding a baby gorilla at a zoo in Omaha, Nebraska--headlines that are perfectly typical for news pieces and press releases about and from zoos--pretty well summarize my problem with zoos:

"Baby Gorilla on Display at Omaha Zoo" and "Tough Road for Baby Gorilla, Now On Display at Zoo"

"On display" is for inanimate artifacts and pieces of art. Not for sisters and brothers, parents and babies, grandchildren and grandparents, friends and partners. "On display" is a crude concept and cruel, offensive state of being for our fellow animals.

And that we put animals "on display" in "exhibits" says everything about how much we respect them and about what the main purpose of zoos is. Zoos are by and large for humans, for our entertainment, not for our fellow animals whom we turn into attractions.

Show me a zoo where every animal, small and large, furry or scaly, has such a large, natural, and complex habitat to explore--and in which to seek privacy--that humans can hardly ever catch a glimpse, where the animals clearly don't feel restricted, where our fellow animals aren't "on display," and then we'll debate where the priorities of zoos lie.

Find me a zoo where humans from dwindling and dying cultures are kept in small spaces behind glass walls in full view of their fellow humans, but in so-called natural habitat, as part of an educational effort to get other humans to stop encroaching on their land, resources, culture, and home, and then explain to me that zoos are justifiable because they're "educational" and argue that they're not exploitative. Show me an "exhibit" where one human has her hand up against the glass, looking out from her boxed-in life at a whole crowd of fellow humans, longing to be free like them, free to come and go and choose her surroundings and companions as she pleases. And then we'll debate whether zoos' appeal to curious, paying people justifies the captivity and displaying of the zoos' inhabitants.

Buy your kids some of the extraordinary nature DVDs available. Experience Planet Earth with them. Donate your money to conservation organizations and sanctuaries. Be a conscientious consumer and don't purchase products or support companies that are killing animals and destroying habitats. But please, skip the zoo. Don't teach your children that animals are our entertainment, that what we do to them is okay.

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Photo of a gorilla at Columbus Zoo by Flickr user poplinre

Stephanie Ernst wrote the original Animal Rights blog at Change.org until December 2009. She can now be found at Animal Rights & AntiOppression.
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