To the editor: What a thoughtful piece by editorial board member Carla Hall about elephants, who like all animals in zoos, “don’t must keep away from predators or hunt their subsequent meal, however they pay for that with a life in captivity.”
These of us who stay with canine and cats notice that their feelings are very similar to ours, and science is lastly acknowledging that the identical goes for different clever beings. We are able to due to this fact most likely extrapolate from human struggling in jails, the place individuals get meals and shelter however are disadvantaged of freedom, to the struggling of different species in captivity.
Zoos forfeit the emotional welfare of particular person animals with the intention to show them and breed them, each for human enjoyment and with the hope that our pleasure will result in concern and take care of the species on show. Most sanctuaries don’t permit guests in any respect. What we want is steadiness.
We’d like locations the place members of different species can stay in security, with house and autonomy, with out pressured breeding, and with out the separation of oldsters from their offspring. However there’s no good cause that people shouldn’t be allowed to go to and observe the animals who stay in these locations, on carts that cross the lots of of acres they inhabit, in trade for funding their welfare.
In our remedy of different species, similar to with our personal, it’s time for some common sense steadiness that may result in a profitable end result for all.
Karen Daybreak, Santa Barbara
The author is founder and president of DawnWatch, an animal advocacy nonprofit.
