Rochester Writers

As a leather-wearing, pet-owning carnivore, my general take on animal rights is that they have the right to play fetch or take a one-way trip to the abattoir.  But there's something about the institution of a zoological park that strikes me as unnecessarily cruel.   Is anybody's life better for seeing a tiger bat away flies from its meal of ground horsemeat?  Do we really need to watch the otter swim the same figure 8 pattern for the four thousandth time in a given day?

Unlike my pooch and my hamburger, which are both the product of thousands of years of domestication, the majority of the animals in the zoo were wild a few years ago.  In other words, at least some of the monkeys were recently abducted from a tree-laden forest and transported to a concrete pen, just to allow kids to point and say "Look, A Monkey!"   No matter how well they're treated at the zoo (and the dedicated, hard-working staff at our zoo treats them as well as humanly possible), these animals are being used, cruelly, for our amusement.

A more "natural" environment, like the one recently constructed for the elephants, is an insignificant half-measure. Most of these new displays merely put the animals behind glass instead of bars, and shape the concrete to look more like trees.  We might appreciate that, but I think the animals know the difference.   

Also, I don't buy the notion that zoos have an irreplaceable role in protecting endangered species.  That's a side-effect at best, and it can be done for a fraction of the price of a zoo.

So, to quote one of your heroes, Maggie, "Tear down those walls".  Close the zoo and save a few bucks.  Wild Kingdom is back on TV.  If "Look, A Monkey!" is so damn important, kids can just watch that show and point.