For Those Days When You Need More Alchemy With Your Chemistry..

For those days when you need more Alchemy with your Chemistry..

The artist also does glass molecule jewelry.. which is amazing.

- mashafalkov on Etsy

On my walk home the other night

Honest advertising from the Vancouver Aquarium. (via Reddit)

Are zoos bad for animals? In short, no, and here's why:

I originally wrote all this as a response to something I reblogged earlier, but decided that it deserved its own post.

Yes, there are bad zoos out there that keep animals in sub-standard conditions solely for the purpose of human entertainment. But you know what? From my experience, most zoos are so, somuch better than that. Don't believe me? Take, for example, WCS, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the organization that runs the New York City zoos.

First, go to the website: what's the first thing you see? Pictures of animals in cages? No. Once you get past the pop-up that asks you to sign a petition to help with an environmental campaign, there's a slideshow that links you to information on the ivory trade, animal trafficking, and the conservation status of elephants (and a single slide asking for donations). Beyond that the site provides all sorts of resources about the state of endangered animals in the wild, conservation efforts, and ways to take action.

The mission statement of the organization reads follows: "WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature."

If you look at the where we work section, you'd see that a TON of the work they do has nothing to do with the zoos at all, but rather doing important conservation work all around the globe.

Lets look at a couple of the individual animals housed at the NYC zoos:

(source)

This is Claire, a Bald Eagle who was found with a broken wing. She was taken to the Queens Zoo where she was nursed back to health and given a place to live because she would not have survived in the wild with a bad wing had she been released.

(source)

See these adorable, healthy-looking tiger cubs? They were born in captivity as part of an effort to increase genetic diversity in the Siberian tiger population. They currently live at Tiger Mountain in the Bonx Zoo.

This leads me to my next point: environmental enrichment.

According to Wikipedia, environmental enrichment, also known as behavioral enrichment, "is an animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological well-being. The goal of environmental enrichment is to improve or maintain an animal's physical and psychological health by increasing the range or number of species-specific behaviors, increasing positive utilization of the captive environment, preventing or reducing the frequency of abnormal behaviors such as stereotypies, and increasing the individual's ability to cope with the challenges of captivity."

The Bronx Zoo has long been known for its progressive zoo design and behavioral enrichment. One of the best current examples of this is the Tiger Mountain exhibit which features new and innovative methods of enrichment which the visitors are encouraged to learn about as they see them in action. If I recall correctly, they even had a tiger tug-of-war (as seen above) set up.

So, are zoos establishments to accept and support without question? No; even some of the best zoos occasionally do some really shady things. Are they generally organizations that help and care for animals and help preserve the entire biosphere? Yes.

I leave you with some resources and food for thought:

A list of species that are extinct in the wild, but live on in zoos

A list of species that were saved by zoos, then reintroduced to the wild (to various degrees of success)

WAZA (World Association of Zoos and Aquariums) is an organization that promotes "cooperation between zoological gardens and aquariums with regard to the conservation, management and breeding of animals in human care and we encourage the highest standards of animal welfare and husbandry." They even provide lists of approved zoos and aquariums so that you can be sure you're patronizing an ethical institution.

Read up on the history of the New York Zoological Society (now the WCS), its founders, and early members; it's fascinating stuff!

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