Why Zoos Should Be Obsolete
And animals shouldn’t be in cages
How would you react if you came across the exhibit of a human being in a cage? Displayed in a monkey house? At a zoo? I experienced shock and complete disbelief when I first read about this. Further research revealed that not only did this indeed happen, but was far from an isolated incident.
I’m talking about the case of Ota Benga. He came from the Congo region of Africa where he had been bought from slave traders in order to be exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. After the St. Louis Fair wrapped up, he was taken to the Bronx Zoo in New York and put in the Monkey House. The sign to his exhibit read:
Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches.
Weight 103 pound. Brought from the Kasai River,
Congo Free State, South Central Africa,
By D. Samuel P Verner.
Exhibited each afternoon during September
Some African American ministers protested about this “monstrous disrespect”, and Benga was eventually released from the zoo. He ended up in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he lived with various families of the Baptist community. But he longed to move back to his homeland. The beginning of World War I made this impossible, and in 1916 he shot himself.
A deeply disturbing story, but not unique. There are other examples of “Human Zoos”. Another exhibit at the St.Louis Fair was the Igorot Village, where a number of people from various Philippine mountain tribes were on display. One could visit similar villages at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, WA in 1909, and also on Coney Island in 1905. To read more about the exploitation of these tribes people and how they ended up in the United States, read this Smithsomian Magazine article.
And these atrocities are by no means restricted to the United States. In France, Germany, Russia and other European countries human zoos were popular attractions, often installed to affirm the superiority of a white culture and the values of a colonial past. The 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels featured a Congolese village; in the above picture we see a young girl in Western dress, being fed by a visitor from the other side of a fence. By that time, the notion of a human zoo had become distasteful and most countries had banned such exhibits. However, even in the 21st Century you can find remnants of such atrocities. You can find more on the forgotten history of human zoos here.
I uphold a loosely held belief in the evolution of ethics and consciousness, and the fact that human zoos have lost their popularity seems to confirm that. Human beings, no matter where they live, what they wear, what skin color they have, which religious customs they may follow, are seen as individuals rather than as members of a group or a tribe. Remember Martin Luther King Jr. 's saying: “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” We’re not at all there yet, but I see a trend, a slow movement in this direction. And I’m convinced that non-human animals should be part of this trend, as well.
Which means that they shouldn’t be kept in cages. Yes, many American and European zoos have designed their habitats so that they resemble the animals’ conditions in the wild. How inadequate even these efforts can be I mentioned in a past article about the lonely elephant Happy at the Bronx Zoo. And while 238 US zoos and aquariums are accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, there are many exotic animal parks and private zoos which have no oversight and operate solely for financial gain. Maybe you watched the Tiger King docu-series on Netflix about the inhumane treatment and abuse of exotic animals at some private zoos – I couldn’t.
Probably you fondly remember some fun-filled zoo visits as a kid, and you believe that children should be able to meet wild animals, even those behind fences and in cages. I know I did. But is this necessary today? When I was a kid, admittedly a very long time ago, there were no videos, YouTube channels, countless TV stations, streaming media, what have you. Unless you had an encyclopedia at home, you probably had to go to your local library if you wanted to find out what a tapir or a rhinoceros looked like. But this has changed, right?
Everybody was talking about the Fat Bear contest last week, when people could vote for their favorite fattest bear at the Katmai National Park in Alaska. From late June through September, the brown bears sit in or by Brooks River in Alaska and catch as many salmon as they can so they gain enough weight to make it through the hibernating months in winter. This year’s Fat Bear Week’s champion, Bear 747, could weigh as much as 1,400 pounds…
The way to watch the bears, fat or not, is to visit the live webcams provided by explore.org. They offer many other animals on live cams: polar bears, bald eagles, lions, elephants, gorillas, seals, sea lions, whales, and lots more. This is much more fun to watch than a zoo animal. And of course there are countless wildlife documentaries on any number of streaming channels, first and foremost David Attenborough’s award-winning films. You gain fascinating knowledge about the habitat and habits of wild creatures that a zoo can’t possibly provide.
What do you think – do we still need zoos or not?
Oh my goodness - human zoos? I never knew about this, and the thought of it has thoroughly disgusted me... Animal zoos have disgusted me for some time now...