Expert: Stephen Vantassel - 4/20/2007

Question
Hi I'm Jack and I have heard a lot about how there is Animal Cruelty in zoos. Could You Please give me some reasons of how there isn't animal cruelty in zoos?

Answer
Well the first and most important issue is definining what constitutes cruelty to animals. Like the rainbow, not all animal rights individuals agree. Additionally, the public and even some AR adherents confuse the distinction between animal welfare and animal rights.

Animal rights generally is understood as meaning that the animal has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of its own happiness free from human interference.

Animal welfare proponents believe that animals should be treated with regard to their being animals. You may eat an animal but you must show due concern for the way you kill it and how it is handled during the process. Of course there are differences of opinion in this group too.

So getting back to zoos. AR people would usually claim that putting an animal in a zoo, even one where the animal had hundreds of acres to roam is by defnition cruel because its right of freedom has been restricted.
Others would say, no, if the zoo is used to prevent the animal species from becoming extinct eg. panda's, lions etc. Zoos were used to raise eagles etc. for reintroduction purposes.

You can see this gets pretty complicated, pretty quickly.