Bred in captivity

Flag this one as non parenting related.

I nearly got unfriended on Facebook for a controversial comment. A friend of my late brother, who added me after his passing last year (in other words one of those "friends" that you don't really know) posted a meme of two men standing with a banner out side a zoo, the banner read "Please don't take your children to the Zoo. Instead teach them that all animals deserve to be free."

I have several issues with this statement but will try to keep my rant to a minimum.

My first issue is that the animals living in that zoo already will starve to death if no one paid to see them. Where do these type of activists think the feed comes from? Now I am not naive, I get that some zoos treat the animals in their care horrendously! And this is not acceptably in any way, but to generalize is just like assumption... the mother of all bugger-ups (to put it politely).

My second issue is that the days of filling the cages in zoo's by taking animals from the wild is long gone. Most of the animals are bred in captivity, the offspring of other animals who were the offspring of others... and so forth and so on, they are all captive animals. They know no life outside of those walls, they have no concept of hunting for their food or what is safe to forage. And those not bred in captivity are animals who got injured in the wild and after healing were not capable of returning to the wild. Is it fair to set them free too die within a month or two.

And third, the survival of some species depends on the fact that they are kept safe in zoos or rescue centers. Our impact to nature is far reaching and human greed and the lusting for having bigger and better over the decades have completely decimated ecosystems leaving animals destitute. Where would these species turn to if we stopped supporting these places of safety?

Here is my point of view.... WE as humans buggered-up, we took animals meant for the wild and caged them.... we built our towns without a second thought for what ecological damage we might be causing... we intervened with the natural process of the wild where if an animal gets hurt he dies because that's the way it should be... we, arrogantly, think our selves the caretakers of the wild by darting the injured animal and fixing it to the best of our skills.

So what do we now? What is the ethical thing to do? Stand outside these places of safety with a banner urging people to stop visiting these animals? Close the doors and let them starve? set them free and let them starve?

The only thing we can do is to keep zoos open, keep funding them, keep sanctuaries open and keep funding them, keep wild parks open (be honest its just a bigger cage) and keep funding them... or maybe that's just my point of view.