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When conservation and animal rights collide

10,000 Birds

One of the first examples I ever encountered was in the books of Gerald Durrell, the famous conservationist who was an early pioneer of the roles of zoos in conservation. He often defended that role in his books from animal rights activists who opposed “imprisoning” animals in zoos even if it saved them from extinction.

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J. Baird Callicott on Domesticity

Animal Ethics

From the perspective of the land ethic a herd of cattle, sheep, or pigs is as much or more a ruinous blight on the landscape as a fleet of four-wheel drive off-road vehicles. African cheetas [sic] in American and European zoos are captive, not indentured, beings. But this is not true of cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens.