Malamud (2017) on Zoos

 Randy Malamud, “The Problem with Zoos.” Chapter 21, pages 397-410, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Linda Kalof, editor, 2017.

• Professor Malamud opens this chapter with a zoo dialectic, a description of a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

• Thesis: Zoos offer rescue and conservation and build connections between humans and anymals – connections that lead to better outcomes for our planet.

• Antithesis: “Zoos and aquariums are prisons for kidnapped, alienated, tortured specimens who are forced to live their lives in vastly unsuitable compounds for the titillation of ignorant crowds brought in by marketing and advertising campaigns that promise highbrow ecological experiences but actually pander to audiences’ less noble cravings for amusement parks, or even freakshows [p. 397].”

• Synthesis: A happy medium?

• Malamud's chapter offers a full-throated defense of the Antithesis: "[A]ll zoos are bad zoos [p. 398]."

• Zoos reinforce speciesism, especially the notion that humans have the power (and are entitled) to control.

• Capitalism and ecology are inconsistent, despite the efforts of zoos to greenwash.

• The zoo spectators are free, the animals are captive, in an unnatural environment, forever: “the animals don’t want to be there [p. 401]…”

• "...And the people don't care."

• Modern public zoos have their origins in imperialism: witness Stamford Raffles. Sometimes humans were exhibited, too.

• “zookeepers will tell you that zoos were bad in the bad old days but are lately much improved [p. 403].” Malamud believes that zoos have been and remain bad.

• The true conservation mission of zoos is self-conservation (p.403).

• "Every species suffers its own particular pain in zoos [p. 405]."

• Gimmickry like having orangutans play with iPads is anthropocentric, sending to humans the coded message that the zoo dwellers are better off than their wild cousins. "If we like to waste our own days playing with iPads, we reason, why wouldn’t they [p. 407]?" By “giving” zoo animals stuff, we try to justify their captivity.

• We frame zoo animals in our terms, not theirs; “we have to learn to leave these animals alone [p. 407]."

• “Zoos, unfortunately, perpetuate misinformation [p. 407]...”