*Good* zoos provide stimulation for their animals and try to make their habitats as realistic as possible. Unlike historically, when the purpose of zoos was to just cram in as many different types of animals into a given property to show off to the public, and they were just kept in basic cages with concrete floors. That's why animals would pace a lot, and even develop tics like chewing themselves or wandering in circles in a specific spot of their cage. If an animal is showing signs of repetitive behavior, then you know they aren't getting enough mental stimulation. That's why zoos and aquariums in modern times will give the animals toys with food in them, and sometimes even food frozen in ice chunks, to give the animals something to think about (i.e., how do I get the food out of here?).
Oh, my dear anon, how I wish your description was the norm for all the zoos. Of course, there are places that respect and look for their animals and etc, but a lot of them actually not. They don't care, or they don't have enough money, or they don't know how to take care of them... and so on.
For me, no matter how I'll look at it, a cage is a cage. Golden bars don't make it better.
You can give a funny freezed toy that taste like meat, yeah, but if you are in the need to give an animal frozen food because is too hot and the animal needs to cool off, means than creature is out if its own environment where it can cool off by itself. Means you need to take care of the animal because you dragged it out of its home, where it can survive without your meat icecreams. And, why you dragged it out? With what purpose?
Spectacle. "to show off to the public". Is not so different from the past. Oh, well, now they have toys. Yay.
We reached the time where we don't need zoos anymore for scientific purposes, and we are totally able to travel to the main ecosystem to know and study the animals we want to have the data of, without disruptim at high scale their lives.
I totally agree with you. Circus and Zoos are just plain animal abuse. If people want to see these beautiful creatures in real life then they should go on safari instead of taking these animals from their homes and putting them in cages for the rest of their life. Like you said a cage is still a cage even with toys and ice-cream
"i even forgot how to run already"
And that is what animals on zoos/pounds/other captivity places are feeling. Sad.
About the dj, omg, I wanted more ⊙ω⊙ that end is not enough!