Ringling Bros. is retiring all their elephants by midyear. "Ringling Bros. and all circuses need to now retire the rest of their animal acts. Every other circus—big or little—every fair and carnival—big or little—needs to eliminate wild animals performing tricks or serving as rides for those who pay a few dollars to go around in circles" http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/02/a-large-problem-for-circuses/ What do you think? If animal acts need to go, what about zoos? Should zoos be shut down?
Pubic entertainment sounds much worse than public entertainment. - - - Updated - - - Zoos teach people to love Animals, and that's a good thing.
Are you serious? Zoos and botanical gardens are often the only thing that keep certain species from extinction. Do you have any idea how many elephants in the wild are slaughtered every day for their ivory? More important, zoos and aquariums and wild animal parks teach our young about our natural history and heritage. Why would you take that away from them?
I said in a few cases because of the need to protect some species. but wtf Heritage? zoos teach about 'heritage' what the fxxx does that mean? Yes 'the young' can learn everything they need abot natural history from Books TV etc they dont need to see some animal in a cage to do that.
But then ya wouldn't have shows like Lassie, Flipper, Rin-tin-tin... ... Granny thinks dey oughta give possum his own show.
I'm not in a position to judge if a travelling circus treats it's lions right. With the best will in the world I have no idea how you are supposed to treat a lion and the only person who does is going to be the person running the circus. So I won't get involved. With only one qualified opinion to go on, I should have to side with the circus owner every time. But with no counter expertise, that would still be more unreliable than I need to make any judgement. With regards to closing Zoo's. Absolutely not. Man is on the advance. The future for many species is either captivity or extinction. So lets try some more captivity please.
And in many cases their hatred for them comes from the same place. If you lived next a herd of Elephants for example, you may have learnt to hate them. Same maybe true for sharks and tigers and rattlesnakes. I feel the same way about wasps and foxes. Some animals we learn to love from living with them, our domestic animals for example. Others we learn to hate. Those that compete with us for resources for example. Those that destroy our property. Those that prey on us or behave aggressively to us. And so on.
I find it curious that you find teaching young people about history more important than the survival of species, or at least your post comes across that way. I am fine with doing away with animal acts in traveling circuses but I am conflicted on the zoo situation. It is kind of a false choice. We could still protect endangered species without having screaming school kids flood through the wildlife parks or whatever it is we want to call it.
Animals should be banned from pubic entertainment. That's just nasty. Public entertainment is just fine for animals, as long as the species are kept humanely. I see no problem with the big cats in zoos or circuses. Lions, for example, live well in captivity. Same with the great apes, and a lot of other critters.
