The Zoo

Sunday I went to the zoo, together with my boyfriend. As I grew up in Emmen, which has the only zoo in the northern part of the Netherlands, I've been in zoos quite a lot. Whenever I go abroad, I also try to visit at least one zoo, and I've been to Berlin Zoo, Budapest Zoo, London Zoo, the Highland Wildlife Park near Aviemore, and La Barben zoo near Avignon in the past few years.
Now as I am a vegetarian, anti-fur, and anti-factory-farming, you might think that I am against zoos as well. A lot of people have difficulties with locking animals up in cages for "our amusement". This is one argument that I never fully understood, because these are often the same people that do have pets (and sometimes even dress them up) or watch those "funniest animals" shows on tv or whatever. If you're against using animals for our amusement, then don't do those things either. And as I have pets myself, and do not live under the illusion that they're here for any other reason than that I want them to be here, this argument isn't really valid.
But I did have some difficulties with zoos when I was a teenager and rebelling against everything. I mean, it is using animals for our purposes, right? Wouldn't it be better to just let them go free, into the wild? I did have to admit that there wasn't a lot of "the wild" left, and that we were mainly responsible for that, so that we may keep these animals to sort of "safeguard" them when they become extinct in the wild. And a lot of zoos do have ecological and exchange programmes to enhance their species and keep them healthy and stable. But still, those animals can't like being locked up very much, can they? Even if it is for the greater good of their species, the individual animal surely suffers? So I still wasn't sure.
But then I read Life of Pi by Yann Martel, which is all about animals and animal psychology. The protagonist's father has run a zoo in India for several years, and somewhere along the story he finds himself on a lifeboat together with a big tiger. I won't go into the details, but I will tell you there is a lot about zoo animals and animal psychology in the book. One of the things Martel argues is that zoo animals do not want to escape. They often can, but they just don't. Why leave a place where you're safe, comfortable, healthy, and a lot of food is offered to you, for a place that is dangerous and unknown? You can see the same thing in people; most of us don't really go out of our way to make our lives uncomfortable. Why go camping in Norway if for the same amount of money you can book a hotel in Turkey and spend your days lounging on the beach? And for the animal, who is still in the survival-mode we have long left behind, this is even more of an issue. Why go away from the place that has sustained you for so long? Added to that, do animals really have a concept of what it is to be "free"? For us, with our history of fighting against repression and Enlightenment, this is an important value, but for some aristocratic slaves or household workers of the past (the latter still sometimes exist in the same conditions today) it was less of an issue. They were not free, but they were taken care of. Being unfree but alive is often preferred above being free but dead.
I know there was a lot of controversy surrounding Life of Pi, and a lot of people didn't believe that animals really could escape but just don't (I think most people would be surprised how fast those little springboks would be out of there if you put a lion in their exhibit). I myself had some doubts. But then Bokito came along. For those of you who have missed this; Bokito is a gorilla living in the zoo in Rotterdam, who in 2007 jumped across the large ditch separating his enclosure and the public when he was enraged by a woman acting stupidly (I won't go into what she did, but really, some people just don't understand animals). There was a big shock; how could he have jumped that ditch? The zoo was supposed to be safe, right? So it must have been a really special circumstance that made him do it. Interestingly, no news programme went into the question; so he could have jumped that ditch all along? Why didn't he? I think a lot of people would be scared to go to the zoo again if they realised this. But as he was really enraged in this case, he thought the occassion warranted going into unknown country. And when nothing bad happened to him, and he had taught his subordinate woman a lesson, he went to investigate his new surroundings, not agressively, but just curious. This is when he was tranquilized, but we may well assume that he would have jumped back into his cage if he hadn't found any food and feeding time was approaching. Also, we shouldn't have been that surprised about Bokito, he had already climbed the 3 meter high wall surrounding his enclosure in Berlin in 2004, and on that occasion he was put back quietly.
So there probably is some truth in what Martel is saying; most (not all, of course, for some it is technically impossible, although you would be surprised to see what an animal (or human) will go through to stay alive) animals are able to escape their enclosures but decide to stay. You can also see this from for example Baghdad Zoo, where animals did escape when they were not provided with food anymore because of the American invasion. As long are conditions are good, they just stay put. And who can blame them, really?
So to get back where I started; no, I am not against animals in zoos.  Provided that no animals are taken from the wild and put into captivity (but why would we need to do that, there's already a surplus of zoo animals as it is), they are taken care of properly, and are given the chance to exhibit some of their natural behaviour, of course. Although that latter condition is slightly ironic, as so many humans today do not exhibit any of the natural behaviour of our species. I think most animals aren't against being in a zoo either, if they were given the choice. They are healthier, have more offspring, and live longer than many of their wild counterparts.
Just like us humans, really.