Public radio recently ran a special on the morality of zoos, featuring Dan Ashe, President of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and Emma Marris, the author of a new book which opposes zoos. To an extent, I always hate giving air space to anti-zoo folks with opinions which are, and I'm being generous here, half-baked (and let's not lose sight of the fact that the goal here is to push her upcoming book). Still, I think it's important to understand what the opposition is thinking, so here it is for anyone who wants to hear it.
A lot can be debated about the moral cost of "captivity" I suppose - but it pales in comparison to the moral cost of extinction. If I were asked whether to accept the current world as it is, or one in which the dodo, Tasmanian tiger, Caribbean monk seal, quagga, Carolina parakeet, and a host of other recently-extinct species were still with us, but only in zoos and aquariums, I would unhesitatingly chose that second option.
Fall of the Wild: Zoos, Conservation, and the Moral Cost of Captivity
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