Animal Petition!

[kate5002]

Hi I'm new to this forum, and I feel very passionate about animals just like all of you do. I believe one of the main steps to taking actions is spreading awareness, getting enough support and then take some action against power authorities. 
The following is a petition I have started, and I have a dream for this to go global. It is protesting against zoos, which people think are museums for animals, when in reality animals truly suffer from this treatment. It saddens me and brings tears to my eyes when I think about the tigers pacing, the elephants swaying, and the animals stuck in cages. I encourage all of you to read this petition below and share it. You don't know me at all, but I can assure you I hate animal cruelty and I would do anything, go miles, to save these animals. Please, do it for the animals.

Link -http://chng.it/JrjV8HgV

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*This image is copyright of its original author

Imagine if we were trapped behind steel bars. 
Imagine if our hearts were filled with sorrow and loneliness.
Imagine if others saw us as wallpaper for entertainment.
Imagine if others found pleasure in viewing our misery.
Imagine if we lived like this forever and always.
Imagine if we were the animals living in the zoos. 

Everyone in the world now knows exactly the feeling of being in a ‘Covid induced lockdown’ - frustration, anxiousness, loneliness, basically a feeling of just outright mental and physical imprisonment, which is just wrong for human beings, right? 

This is the exact emotion that animals in a zoo go through, except not for a few weeks but a lifetime; except not to save humanity from the invisible virus enemy but for the mere pleasure of human beings. This lockdown has given us the opportunity to mildly experience, maybe even feel empathy towards the hardships animals in zoos go through.

While we may justify zoos as a way for kids or adults to learn about our natural environment, the bitter truth is that the artificial habitat is just downright cruel. Long term confinement not only restricts the animals’ natural movement, but also causes neurotic behavior such as self harm, pacing in circles, not eating food and repeatedly swaying side to side. 

We strongly believe that Zoos - where people find pleasure by mostly walking around, eating food, treating these suffering animals as an art gallery - are not required. In today’s high tech world experiencing wildlife at close quarters can be easily met through programs such as virtual zoos and safaris. 

We petition all World Leaders and Animal Rights Organizations, to do the following:
Publicly announce 

1. No new zoos to be opened in the future.
2. No new animals to be inducted in any existing zoo. 
3. Close down zoos that have very low footfall.
4. Design a Phase-out plan for existing zoos over the next few years.
   

Please Sign this petition if you too would like to end this misery for animals.  Reply

[Rishi]

Shared & signed... For it means well. But this petition has frankly has the whole concept upside down.

(04-20-2020, 09:07 PM)kate5002 Wrote: While we may justify zoos as a way for kids or adults to learn about our natural environment...

...We strongly believe that Zoos - where people find pleasure by mostly walking around, eating food, treating these suffering animals as an art gallery - are not required. In today’s high tech world experiencing wildlife at close quarters can be easily met through programs such as virtual zoos and safaris. 

Firstly, that's not what zoos are for at all. Much of big zoos are even off limit to visitors. Visitors are just a source of additional income. Rescue & breeding centres often don't allow visitors so that the animals (meant to be released in wild) don't get used to humans.
They have a many other purpose than just indulging people... They serve as gene banks... They serve as captive breeders... They serve as rescue centres. Visit the link & read.

Yes zoos with those sort of enclosures need to be terminated... or upgraded to this standard, where it ensures the animal's comfort over visitor's.

But thats just bad infrastructure. Bad infrastructure is everywhere in a country like India. We even have schools/hospitals equivalent of that too, but you can't post a photo of one such school to demand all schools to be shut down & children be homeschooled instead.

Quote:
No new zoos to be opened in the future.
No new animals to be inducted in any existing zoo.
Close down zoos that have very low footfall.
Design a Phase-out plan for existing zoos over the next few years.

Those demands themselves are like saying, shutdown all fossil-fuel plants. Not feasible in practical scenario... Plus a certain number of problem/conflict animals come up every year that need to be housed in captivity or shot. They need to be housed somewhere.

Not to mention, there are thousands of animals of hundreds of species that can't be rewilded (as they are adults & don't have the knowhow to survive in the wild).


If they were to move zoo animals to semi-wild safari parks (basically fenced forest patches) with enclosures of atleast few hectares, then that would have made sense.
So, maybe reconsider the target to make it more practically doable. Reply