Zoos are a multi-million dollar attraction that serve as lifetime experiences for many visitors. They serve as a place for visitors to view native animals from all around the world in captivity. Zoos first started out as private collections called menageries. The wealthy possessed exotic menageries to express their power. The public, modern zoos became popular during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. The Age of Enlightenment was a period in history when science, reason, and logic were the primary fundamentals of society and government. Therefore people wanted to study animals for scientific reasons which later lead to the development of zoology. Scientists needed to study the animals in places that were similar to the animals’ natural
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People believe that the humans in charge of zoos have a warped, personal morality of how animals are treated due to their own greed. Therefore, instead of humans centering zoos on proper exhibits on animal needs, they rather rely on human priority over nature. In Jeffery Cohn's, "Do Elephants Belong in Zoos?," he explains how zoos do not provide enough space for the largest walking mammals. Elephants need to walk up to fifty miles a day, or else they can get lethal foot infections. Cohn states, "The money zoos spend on elephants, they state, could be better used on conservation in the wild and on animals that zoos can house …show more content…
In Kay Anderson's, "Culture and Nature at the Adelaide Zoo: At the Frontiers of 'Human' Geography," she writes about the visitors experiences and emotions people have towards zoos. Zoos provide an array of species, majority of which people have never encountered in nature before, therefore people's emotions range from excitement, fear, sadness, and nostalgia. They also provide a lifetime of memories for any visitor (Anderson 276). Anderson mainly argues that zoos ultimately tell stories that set boundaries between animals and humans, "Humans engage in cultural self-definition against a variably constructed and opposed nature. With animals as the medium , they inscribe a cultural sense of distance from that loosely defined realm that has come to be called 'nature'"
People believe that the humans in charge of zoos have a warped, personal morality of how animals are treated due to their own greed. Therefore, instead of humans centering zoos on proper exhibits on animal needs, they rather rely on human priority over nature. In Jeffery Cohn's, "Do Elephants Belong in Zoos?," he explains how zoos do not provide enough space for the largest walking mammals. Elephants need to walk up to fifty miles a day, or else they can get lethal foot infections. Cohn states, "The money zoos spend on elephants, they state, could be better used on conservation in the wild and on animals that zoos can house …show more content…
In Kay Anderson's, "Culture and Nature at the Adelaide Zoo: At the Frontiers of 'Human' Geography," she writes about the visitors experiences and emotions people have towards zoos. Zoos provide an array of species, majority of which people have never encountered in nature before, therefore people's emotions range from excitement, fear, sadness, and nostalgia. They also provide a lifetime of memories for any visitor (Anderson 276). Anderson mainly argues that zoos ultimately tell stories that set boundaries between animals and humans, "Humans engage in cultural self-definition against a variably constructed and opposed nature. With animals as the medium , they inscribe a cultural sense of distance from that loosely defined realm that has come to be called 'nature'"