Abstract
The COVID-19 crisis has left zoos especially vulnerable to bankruptcy, and the precarity of their financial situation threatens the lives and well-being of the animals who live in them. In this paper, we argue that while we and our governments have a responsibility to ensure the protection of animals in struggling zoos, it is morally impermissible to make private donations or state subsidies to zoos because such actions serve to perpetuate an unjust institution. In order to protect zoo animals without perpetrating further injustice, governments should subsidize the transformation of zoos into sanctuaries and then facilitate the gradual closure of most of these sanctuaries.
Highlights
Preamble: 1. For the purpose of this document EAZA defines culling as the removal of animals from a population in human care by humane killing carried out by appropriately qualified and experienced staff
Any culling procedure by an EAZA member must conform to the national legislation of the country in which it is located
EAZA members represent a broad range of cultures, legislative systems and opinions, and so it is recognised that population management techniques will differ across the EAZA region
Summary
Preamble: 1. For the purpose of this document EAZA defines culling as the removal of animals from a population in human care by humane killing carried out by appropriately qualified and experienced staff. 7. While EAZA members are ethically obliged to maximise the physical and psychological wellbeing of individual animals in their care, their responsibility for the fulfilment of defined conservation goals and the viability of the overall population may, under certain conditions, take precedence over the right to life of specific individual animals. While EAZA members are ethically obliged to maximise the physical and psychological wellbeing of individual animals in their care, their responsibility for the fulfilment of defined conservation goals and the viability of the overall population may, under certain conditions, take precedence over the right to life of specific individual animals This reflects recognised in situ conservation practice, and notes that modern welfare science regards lack of life as a neutral position. The maintenance of a population’s demographic or genetic viability is at risk through the continued presence of one or more individual animals
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