Don’t blame fireworks for the baby panda’s death, blame zoos

Should red pandas be kept in zoos at all?

November 16, 2024 11:00 am

Fireworks cause so much misery for animals that future generations will certainly not believe we ever used them.

Fireworks are known to scare pets – 62 percent of dogs show signs of fear during displays – but they bring suffering and death also for many other animals.

Hedgehogs rest in bonfires while they are being built and then are burned alive on November 5. Horses become frightened by the explosions, run out of their pasture and are hit by cars. Farm animals miscarry and birds fly into buildings. The debris from the fireworks ends up in rivers, where it can slowly poison fish, ducks and swans.

The suffering does not end there. Edinburgh Zoo’s baby red panda died from stress caused by fireworks on Bonfire Night. As fireworks were set off across the city, three-month-old Roxie was terrified and choked on her own vomit. Her mother, Ginger, had died unexpectedly five days earlier, and veterinarians say her death could also be related to fireworks noise.

Less than a third of Brits enjoy fireworks ‘a lot’ government study found, and most of us enjoy fireworks only ‘a little’, ‘not that much’ or ‘not at all’. Fireworks cause so much death and suffering for animals and bring so little human joy. It doesn’t seem fair at all.

But should red pandas, which are native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China, be kept in zoos at all? Many of us enjoyed going to zoos as children, but they had more of an impact on us than we could have realized at the time.

Numerous studies have come to light suffering and cruelty in zoos. In May, British zoos were among dozens in Europe accused of “gross neglect” after an 18-month European investigation uncovered thousands of apparent breaches of animal welfare standards.

Previous research has shown that enclosures in British zoos and safari parks are on average 100 times smaller than the minimum habitat for animals in their natural habitat. study Research has shown that more than three quarters of UK zoos are failing to meet all minimum animal welfare standards.

People are starting to wake up. In August, a work by Banksy appeared on the shutters of the London Zoo, with a gorilla opening the wall to let captured animals run free. The strong message was clear, but the zoo’s PR team tried to smooth it over, saying it was “excited” that the world-famous graffiti artist had chosen the location.

People who are completely against zoos would accept that some are crueler than others. But even the best of them promote something that ‘ speciesism: the idea that the lives of members of one species are morally more important than those of members of another species.

This is a dominant philosophy in the West due to conditioning: you are not born believing that cats and dogs deserve to be cuddled, but cows and pigs deserve to be killed. People have made you think that way.

Whether they like it or not, zoos play a significant role in this. Many of us were taken to a zoo as children. We fell in love with the elephants, giraffes and flamingos, but then went to the zoo’s cafe, where we ate the charred, tortured remains of cows, pigs or chickens that were enslaved and killed for us.

So no matter how caring or dedicated a zoo is, as long as the public is confused and conditioned in this way, there will always be blood on the hands of the 90 billion animals killed every day for their meat. year.

My dream is that one day every slaughterhouse in the world will be closed, except one in each country, which will be preserved as a museum so that future generations can visit and shake their heads at how cruel we have been to animals.