I empathize with your reaction. That said, [good] zoos can and do play an important role in long-term species and habitat conservation. And it's generally no longer the case that the animals housed in [good] zoos have been taken from the wild, unless they were injured, abandoned, etc. and are unable to survive there. I would love to take you to the Indianapolis Zoo.
You might like the Bronx Zoo, in NYC, where the animals live in large habitats and the people are well-distanced observers. I have wept at some zoos; not at this one.
The small turtle against the glass is hard to forget. Not because it is dramatic, but because it is ordinary. Maybe the real discomfort is not seeing confinement. It is noticing how quickly we become calm enough to keep watching it. And maybe listening is where the emotion returns before the explanation does.
I empathize with your reaction. That said, [good] zoos can and do play an important role in long-term species and habitat conservation. And it's generally no longer the case that the animals housed in [good] zoos have been taken from the wild, unless they were injured, abandoned, etc. and are unable to survive there. I would love to take you to the Indianapolis Zoo.
You might like the Bronx Zoo, in NYC, where the animals live in large habitats and the people are well-distanced observers. I have wept at some zoos; not at this one.
The small turtle against the glass is hard to forget. Not because it is dramatic, but because it is ordinary. Maybe the real discomfort is not seeing confinement. It is noticing how quickly we become calm enough to keep watching it. And maybe listening is where the emotion returns before the explanation does.