animal treatment at AK

[Emanuel]

This is a little off topic, but I always felt like the lions were drugged.

How can you go on the ride and think that they are not drugged, you are so close to them if they wanted they could attack you easily.

Plus, they are always laying around and always sleeping. I have been on it 4x and they are always the same way. I been in the morning & in the afternoon and they are always sleeping!

I don't eat Beef or Pork, I'm not a Peta memeber. I do love Disney. You never know what happends behind closed doors. For all we know some of these animals might be over drugged.

The lions are given air controlled rocks. That's what makes them comfy and always seem asleep.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I think, just from observation that the animals at Disney are treated very well. Captive, yes they are! In the actual wild, no they are not, however, try to factor in that in the wild they are really nothing more then a link in the food chain. Some other animals lunch. We, those of us allegedly, at the top of the food chain are not concerned about that and think of animal freedom being the same as ours. They are treated well, housed, protected and NOT part of the menu while captive at Disney. Lush animal surroundings hardly seems cruel to animals, protection from being an horderve, seems like a reasonable trade off. I think I would accept that as well since all I would have to do to survive is let weird looking people wearing mouse ears see me laying on an air conditioned rock as the pass by.

And yes, I do realize that this is a 13 year old thread. Nothing about what I said has changed in those passing years.

 

[celluloid]

I think, just from observation that the animals at Disney are treated very well. Captive, yes they are! In the actual wild, no they are not, however, try to factor in that in the wild they are really nothing more then a link in the food chain. Some other animals lunch. We, those of us allegedly, at the top of the food chain are not concerned about that and think of animal freedom being the same as ours. They are treated well, housed, protected and NOT part of the menu while captive at Disney. Lush animal surroundings hardly seems cruel to animals, protection from being an horderve, seems like a reasonable trade off. I think I would accept that as well since all I would have to do to survive is let weird looking people wearing mouse ears see me laying on an air conditioned rock as the pass by.

And yes, I do realize that this is a 13 year old thread. Nothing about what I said has changed in those passing years.

Well said. And neat to bring it up since that was prior to the uneducated CNN produced documentaries. It would not be just Sea World but other Zoological parks like those facilities at Walt Disney World with Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. We so often as a species try to relate our ways to the animal world. Animals do not have the same emotions or psychology as us. They certainly have moment to moment wants or needs but they are not agendas like ours where we want to see rome, or become a doctor. This is why AZA Accredited Zoos and Aquariums feature Animals that are living long past their average life expectancies and outside of having to stress about what is going to eat or kill them daily or if they are going to find food, do all the same things in the wild that an Animal in the wild would do. Then we can learn how to better help the ones in the wild. This is why Sea World, Animal Kingdom and other responsible Zoos and Aquariums are great places.

 

[J_Carioca]

Well said. And neat to bring it up since that was prior to the uneducated CNN produced documentaries. It would not be just Sea World but other Zoological parks like those facilities at Walt Disney World with Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. We so often as a species try to relate our ways to the animal world. Animals do not have the same emotions or psychology as us. They certainly have moment to moment wants or needs but they are not agendas like ours where we want to see rome, or become a doctor. This is why AZA Accredited Zoos and Aquariums feature Animals that are living long past their average life expectancies and outside of having to stress about what is going to eat or kill them daily or if they are going to find food, do all the same things in the wild that an Animal in the wild would do. Then we can learn how to better help the ones in the wild. This is why Sea World, Animal Kingdom and other responsible Zoos and Aquariums are great places.

Sorry, what "uneducated CNN produced documentaries" are you referring to?

Your statement "animals do not have the same emotions or psychology as us" is really incorrect. First of all, a human is an animal; so is an ant, so is a dog, so is a salmon and so is an elephant. You can't generalize about the emotions or psychology of an animal because an "animal" could be a very simple creature like a worm, or it could be a highly complex being like a dolphin. It has long been proven that many animals do have very similar emotions and in fact similar brain structures to humans. This would include all of the great apes of course. And we all know elephants have very deep and complex emotional lives that humans can't even fully understand. The (false) argument that animals don't experience emotions the way that humans do (fear, pain, sadness, etc...) has been used to justify mistreatment and abuse of animals for centuries.

And sorry to burst your bubble, but animals in zoos and aquariums don't do all the same things that wild animals do. Think about it logically for a second. What do you think the tigers at AK eat. Prey that they've hunted themselves? No, they're fed from a bucket. They do not live a life that's the same as it would be in the wild - that goes for the good (not having to worry about finding food/being caught as prey) and the bad (having a very limited space in which to live/having to deal with people gawking at you). I agree with you that AZA-accredited facilities make a huge effort to care for animals properly, but let's be honest and admit that their lives are very different than they would be in the wild.

 

[DisAl]

Male lions sleep 18 to 20 hours a day. Females to most of the hunting and other "work" in the pride. The males just sleep, eat, fight other males who want to take over their pride, and.... well, you know.
The reason you see the lions on top of the rocks most of the time is because there are air conditioning (and I assume heat for weather like last week...) vents built into the rocks to entice them into staying up there where you can see them. Because of the design you don't see the deep dry moat between the ride vehicles and the lions to keep them away from the ride vehicles. FYI you can see these on Google Earth. In the attached photo you can see the "lion rocks" just about in the center with the moat surrounding them.
And yes, their life is different from being in the wild. They don't have to catch their next meal, never have to contend with the water hole drying up, and very little exposure to disease or injury.

 

[celluloid]

Sorry, what "uneducated CNN produced documentaries" are you referring to?

Your statement "animals do not have the same emotions or psychology as us" is really incorrect. First of all, a human is an animal; so is an ant, so is a dog, so is a salmon and so is an elephant. You can't generalize about the emotions or psychology of an animal because an "animal" could be a very simple creature like a worm, or it could be a highly complex being like a dolphin. It has long been proven that many animals do have very similar emotions and in fact similar brain structures to humans. This would include all of the great apes of course. And we all know elephants have very deep and complex emotional lives that humans can't even fully understand. The (false) argument that animals don't experience emotions the way that humans do (fear, pain, sadness, etc...) has been used to justify mistreatment and abuse of animals for centuries.

And sorry to burst your bubble, but animals in zoos and aquariums don't do all the same things that wild animals do. Think about it logically for a second. What do you think the tigers at AK eat. Prey that they've hunted themselves? No, they're fed from a bucket. They do not live a life that's the same as it would be in the wild - that goes for the good (not having to worry about finding food/being caught as prey) and the bad (having a very limited space in which to live/having to deal with people gawking at you). I agree with you that AZA-accredited facilities make a huge effort to care for animals properly, but let's be honest and admit that their lives are very different than they would be in the wild.

Your two statements in bold contradict themselves.
That in bold right there is the type of emotional need of a human that many animals and the flaw in the argument. Humans are different from the rest of the animal world. You made no specific animal and no research to show what animal you may be talking about needs. Some animals prefer small safe spaces. So there you actually generalized. There is no basis for this and I would want to know which animal you feel does not have enough room such as the ones you will see at accredited zoos and aquariums have differently. This is natural and is the way humans learn that cause us to feel like because we are always comparing to how we live. Maybe that animal does not have enough room? In the wild, they share that space with all of the other animals in the world and they don't really have "room." They do not have the agenda to visit rome, or find a bathroom or get a degree in hospitality management. They don't have the same needs as you. An animal in the Ocean migrates for reasons of needing warmer temperatures when it gets cold or colder when rapidly changing climates are destroying its home.
Exactly the same would be impossible. Yes, much in the same way you do not have to hunt and grow multiple sources of food to make a taco. And yes, there lives are very different, but their behaviors that they naturally display in accreddited facilities are comparable.
And don't worry you didn't burst my bubble.
As far as eating food that has already been hunted for them or pacing or having people gawk at them? There you go with the trying to put human psychology into other animal psychology. You think Tigers care about people gawking at them through glass the same way a human could feel of running naked as people look at them running on a treadmill at home? That is the problem with things like "Blackfish" which is an emotionally strong but very uneducated CNN produced documentary based on what is known in the scientific methods of research. You can be a compassionate human and care for the billions of types of life that share the planet and are in danger because humans are different.

The uneducated feel bad for animals well taken care of.
The educated feel bad for the ones in the wild in danger of preventable causes and look for solutions.

 

[J_Carioca]

Your two statements in bold contradict themselves.
That in bold right there is the type of emotional need of a human that many animals and the flaw in the argument. Humans are different from the rest of the animal world. You made no specific animal and no research to show what animal you may be talking about needs. Some animals prefer small safe spaces. So there you actually generalized. There is no basis for this and I would want to know which animal you feel does not have enough room such as the ones you will see at accredited zoos and aquariums have differently. This is natural and is the way humans learn that cause us to feel like because we are always comparing to how we live. Maybe that animal does not have enough room? In the wild, they share that space with all of the other animals in the world and they don't really have "room." They do not have the agenda to visit rome, or find a bathroom or get a degree in hospitality management. They don't have the same needs as you. An animal in the Ocean migrates for reasons of needing warmer temperatures when it gets cold or colder when rapidly changing climates are destroying its home.
Exactly the same would be impossible. Yes, much in the same way you do not have to hunt and grow multiple sources of food to make a taco. And yes, there lives are very different, but their behaviors that they naturally display in accreddited facilities are comparable.
And don't worry you didn't burst my bubble.
As far as eating food that has already been hunted for them or pacing or having people gawk at them? There you go with the trying to put human psychology into other animal psychology. You think Tigers care about people gawking at them through glass the same way a human could feel of running naked as people look at them running on a treadmill at home? That is the problem with things like "Blackfish" which is an emotionally strong but very uneducated CNN produced documentary based on what is known in the scientific methods of research. You can be a compassionate human and care for the billions of types of life that share the planet and are in danger because humans are different.

The uneducated feel bad for animals well taken care of.
The educated feel bad for the ones in the wild in danger of preventable causes and look for solutions.

You are drawing a line between humans and animals that does not exist. Emotionally and mentally, an orang utan is much closer to a human than it is to a snake. Humans are not fundamentally different from the rest of the animal world, at least not in terms of basic emotional needs. It is well-documented that dogs, for instance, have about the same level of emotional development as a two-year old human child.

To simply say that a human can't possibly understand the needs or emotions of a specific animal is wrong.
That's part of what zoologists, anthropologists, animal behaviourists study every day. Scientists have a very good idea of the emotional and psychological lives of a number of species - there are countless books and articles written about this.

As for your question about whether I think the tigers care about people gawking at them through the glass - I don't know about tigers, but it's well-documented that the great apes do very much mind being gawked at, though some of course become acclimatized to it in captivity. And honestly, your argument has to go both ways. If you argue that a human can't possibly imagine what a given animal is feeling, then you have to accept the possibility that perhaps some of these animals have greater emotional needs than we can comprehend. You're assuming that animal needs are "less" than what humans imagine. Based on your argument, it's possible that they are "more".

I stand by my assertion that this argument ("animals are just 'different' than humans") is used to justify all kinds of animal mistreatment. It is a convenient argument because it allows us to do things to them that we would not do to another human.

Finally, your last two lines come off as very condescending, as well as inaccurate. There are plenty of very educated people that advocate for the needs of animals in captivity. Many of these same people are also very concerned about the threats to wild animals.

 

[celluloid]

I am aware that many animals have emotions and what we in zoological(I work in the field) would call connections. But that does not mean the same. That is a dangerous slope as well because I do not think there is any animal that has the same psychological emotional needs as a human. That is great that a dog has similar emotional needs to a two year old to three year old child according to some brain research. I don't doubt that dogs are intelligent and emotionally connecting creatures, but a two to three year old human's psychology is still vastly different. My two(nearly) three year old son knows right from wrong. A wild animal or domestic animal will never have that same ability to know and understand right from wrong actions. It is unfair to put that agency on them. Every moment is a new moment for an animal.

And I do sincerely apologize for that coming off condescending at the end. Frankly, it would not even be directed at you but someone who has no compassion for animals or researching when their intentions(while likely in the right place) are misused. The same reason why Sea World has to get permission before going out to many Sea Rescues, because the people with their intentions in the right place show up and cause more harm.

I do apologize again for the condescending nature and I will certainly own up to that being a poor place to put that statement.

 

[J_Carioca]

I am aware that many animals have emotions and what we in zoological(I work in the field) would call connections. But that does not mean the same. That is a dangerous slope as well because I do not think there is any animal that has the same psychological emotional needs as a human. That is great that a dog has similar emotional needs to a two year old to three year old child according to some brain research. I don't doubt that dogs are intelligent and emotionally connecting creatures, but a two to three year old human's psychology is still vastly different. My two(nearly) three year old son knows right from wrong. A wild animal or domestic animal will never have that same ability to know and understand right from wrong actions. It is unfair to put that agency on them. Every moment is a new moment for an animal.

And I do sincerely apologize for that coming off condescending at the end. Frankly, it would not even be directed at you but someone who has no compassion for animals or researching when their intentions(while likely in the right place) are misused. The same reason why Sea World has to get permission before going out to many Sea Rescues, because the people with their intentions in the right place show up and cause more harm.

I do apologize again for the condescending nature and I will certainly own up to that being a poor place to put that statement.

Thanks for the apology and don't worry about it...the internet lends itself to misunderstandings!