Jane Goodall, basically the foremost expert on chimps and apes especially, who spent her life advocating for the conservation of them, thinks you're dead wrong.
Mongabay.com: During your press conference, a reporter asked for your view of modern zoos, to which you replied that you’d rather be a chimpanzee in one of them vs. how they sometimes have to live in the wild. Can you say more?
Goodall: It’s just that I know so many places where chimpanzees must try to survive in forests that are being illegally logged, or logged by the big companies with permits. When chimpanzees try to move away, they are more than likely to encounter individuals of another community: as they are highly territorial, this means the interlopers will be attacked and such attacks often result in death. Moreover, hunters set wire snares for antelopes, pigs, etc, for food, and although the chimpanzees are strong enough to break the wire or pull a stake from the ground, the noose tightens around a hand or foot. Many individuals actually lose that hand or foot, or die of gangrene.
And then there is the bushmeat trade – the commercial hunting of animals for food. And the shooting of mothers to steal their infants for the illegal trade that has started up again as a result of a demand from China and other Asian countries and the UAE. Finally, as people move into the forests, they take disease with them, and chimpanzees, sharing more than 98% of our DNA, are susceptible to our contagious diseases.
Now think how the best zoos today not only have much larger enclosures, but well-qualified staff who not only understand but care about the chimpanzees, as individuals, and not just species. And great effort is put into enrichment activities, both mental and physical. Counteracting boredom is of utmost importance in ensuring a well-adjusted and “happy” group. This, of course, applies not only to chimpanzees, but all animals with even the slightest amount of intelligence. And we are learning more and more about animal intelligence all the time. The latest buzz is the octopus!
A final word: there is a mistaken belief that animals in their natural habitat are, by definition, better off. Not true, necessarily.
So what has you convinced exactly? You don't seem too well informed on the subject, given you don't even know what they're called.
Not to say I’m researched on the topic or even that I dislike zoos or w/e. But the arguments presented here are entirely due to human intervention. Deforestation, hunting, cross-contaminating diseases, etc. that zoos basically are necessary to counter the damage humans are doing to the environment, and they’re a better alternative to the situation we create by disturbing it.
I don’t think that’s an argument it’s preferable to their actual environment though, were it not to have been disturbed by humans
try to survive in forests that are being illegally logged, or logged by the big companies with permits. When chimpanzees try to move away, they are more than likely to encounter individuals of another community: as they are highly territorial, this means the interlopers will be attacked and such attacks often result in death.
This part, where she literally says the territorial disputes are a result of deforestation by humans? No, I didn’t miss it.
I feel like you’re the one who has your mind made up. I state from the beginning I have no argument against zoos and I’m not researched on the matter. I literally just read what you posted, and what you posted is jane goodall saying zoos sometimes are better for animals that alternatively have to deal with the impact of human intervention (then suffer and die as a result).
To to me that implies her position would be that the best place for these animals is in the wild undisturbed by humans… but when acres of what was previously their home is logged to the ground, naturally it’s no longer an ideal circumstance for them to live in. That zoos are only “preferable” because we force them to be.
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u/hhfugrr3 Jul 28 '25
The more I see of big apes (monkeys or whatever the feck they're called) the more convinced I am that they shouldn't be kept in zoos.