Off Topic Zoo

Been to some good ones, and some **** ones.

But it's an age old debate, where i can see both sides.

So what is your views on keeping captive animals?

 

For me im for it coz they protect endangered species

We should visit them to fund them.

However also like you...I get a bit of a downer when I think them beasts should be free

 

The animals should be free, but if they were free they'd be endangered. For some of the animals, they've only ever known that environment and therefore have no concept of what they're missing.

I watched a video about a honey badger that loved to escape from it's area, first it would climb up and unlatch the door, then when they added a second latch at the top it would hold the door in place as ANOTHER badger climbed to the top to unlatch it (you can see a video of them doing it,) then they decided they'd build a wall and try and keep the badger in that way, he climbed the trees, they moved the trees he builds steps out of rocks, they removed the rocks, he made balls of mud and used them. Thing was a ****ing genius.

Never actually tried to escape the zoo though, he'd just wander into the zookeepers house and make a mess. It was more like a sport for the Badger as he knew he was safe and well fed at the zoo.

 

Split on it really. No animal should be taken from the wild and kept in captivity, but that said zoos do a lot of decent conservation work and help folk to understand which animals are in danger in the wild.

There’s some pretty barbaric practice that goes on in some zoos though where animals are culled because of space or because they are genetically too similar to others in their breeding programmes. I think something like 3000-5000 healthy animals are killed by zoos each year in Europe

Then there is the actual welfare of the animals themselves, zoo animals can never have the freedom of their wild counterparts and as a result nearly all of them die prematurely

 

Not exactly true. A lion is genetically programmed to roam for hundreds of miles potentially and has millions of years of evolution to refine it into an apex predator designed to hunt and kill.

just because it’s born in captivity, it doesn’t mean it suddenly loses these instincts. It’s like keeping a human baby boxed up in a small room all of its life, it would develop into a maladjusted adult.

 

Sounds a bit like Chaos ...

 

Big fan of the zoo. Many a day I'd go and stand with my children and stare at the beautiful things, out in the open air like they should be.

After the internet it was inevitable the magazine wouldn't survive though.

 

I'm for them in terms of the captive breeding (and release) programmes for endangered species ... and there is no denying that I loved visiting the Zoo as a kid myself ... we had Twycross in Leicestershire and we now live within a shortish drive of Whipsnade.

It does concern me about them going stir crazy, but there are good reasons why we have so many endangered species and therefore I think, in the broader picture, including educationally, there is a need for them in today's world.

 

Animals get entire sides of organic cow to chew on for **** all and we have to pay through the nose for a processed dog food burger, sound.

 

I'm undecided, but I do know that good work is done to help save endangered species, also they help educate, because throughout the world and especially in ignorant America, the locals don't even know their regular visiting species of wildlife.

I think what really pushed me towards the negative side of zoo's was when I visited San Diego many years ago. Famous for quote;

'The San Diego Zoo was a pioneer in the concept of open-air, cageless exhibits that re-create natural animal habitats. It is one of the few zoos in the world that houses, and successfully bred the giant panda, although the pandas have recently been repatriated to China.'

I was appalled by the way some of their exhibits were kept, to mention one that still sticks in my mind, the penguins, it was a shocking environment, that resembled nothing like their real environment. Whereas I remember somewhere like Seaworld (I think it was) in Florida, created an environment, you saw from a moving walk-way that controlled day-time and night, as well has the cold tempertures. Two contrasts for sure, in doing it correctly.

 

Pandas are ****.

 

There’s loads of worse animals than the panda.

All birds, for example. Never seen an interesting bird.

And deer, they’re ****e, they do **** all.

 

Birds of Prey are pretty impressive
Owls too

 

Gay AF that tbh, give your head a wobble.

 

I like seagulls tbh, complete **** ****s and don't give a ****.

Top birds tbh

 

Sounds like you need a

 

Get £20 in Comm’s collection you tight ****.

 

You can tell a lot about a man by the type of birds he covets.

Had you down as more of a wren kind of guy. Not least because of the presumed size of your clutch.