Safari Parks and zoos

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Safari Parks and zoos - ethical?

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Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 276

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 25 10:10 am Post subject: Safari Parks and zoos - ethical?
Exactly what to safari parks and zoos do for the environment? I appreciate that sometimes they may have breeding programmes to conserve endangered species but whether these are ever returned to their native environments. Am really not sure what they do by encouraging the better off countries to ogle non native species.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 9456
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 25 10:32 am Post subject:
I think they do return animals when successful enough and it is feasible..ie their environment exists. With internet and photography do we still need to go and gawp?

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45745
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 25 3:28 pm Post subject:

ZSL and their ilk really do a lot that people have no understanding of. I was lucky enough to have a couple of hours chatting to this guy last year, they do amazing work:

https://www.zsl.org/about-zsl/our-people/andrew-cunningham

https://www.zsl.org/what-we-do/science-research/wildlife-health
https://cms.zsl.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/REF2021%20Impact%20Case%20Study_Zoonotic%20Disease%20Emergence.pdf

Would I go to a zoo, probably not but orgs like this are important for ALL the science they're involved in as well as the conservation work they underpin.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 44721
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 25 5:18 pm Post subject:

a long time ago i was chummy with london zoo, there were some smallish critters i was good with

i did decline on the poison arrow frogs, if i had known that 6 months on fruit flies rather than their "wild" diet of flies that eat very toxic plants made them fairly safe to wrangle i would have gone for it if the vivarium was provided, 3 phase environment, up a "tree", on land and in nice water

GAS are fun, and good after a bath in court bouillon and garlic butter if you breed too many

tree crabs are simple until one goes missing, not easy to play hide and seek with, bit of a nip if troubled
vegetarian crabs that live on land is a strange concept, mine were keen on orange , mango and coconut

not totally vegetarian, they were "flexible" faced with opportunity or need to breed

etc, good zoos are ace, bad ones are nasty

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 44721
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 25 5:37 pm Post subject:

tongue kissed by a giraffe was interesting, trunk hugged by an elephant was different, 20 years apart and both memorable

playing with lemurs is splendid(when i was a kid they roamed loose in bristol zoo)

i made friends with a hippo in chester , they do remember meeting calm kids

many of zoo good works are with less well known critters who often have no "charismatic " appeal to the public but they are almost extinct through human actions and are an important part of their native ecosystem, if that can be protected or restored

animal magic

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45745
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 25 5:40 pm Post subject:

dpack wrote:

animal magic

Johnny Morris

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16750

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 25 9:40 am Post subject:

I used to love Animal Magic. Johnny Morris was brilliant. He also wrote the script for Armand Dennis who with his wife used to do the programme 'On Safari', as Armand's English wasn't that good.

The research done by some zoos and the breeding programmes are really important. In some cases animals can't be returned to the wild as the habitat is under threat or gone, so the only way to keep the species going is in zoos and safari parks. I must say I am not interested in them as a whole, but agree they can do very good work.

Talking of lemurs; when they allowed people in to their enclosures, son and DIL went in and the lemurs took a great interest in her wheelchair. Son thought given half a chance they would have stolen bits off it and had a secret stash of bits they had pinched off various things to build something themselves.

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