Animal Welfare (2)
The case was part of a long-running legal battle to free captive animals. The animal rights group that filed the suit wanted Happy to be moved from the zoo to an elephant sanctuary.
Elephants are extremely social by nature. And it’s true that “an elephant never forgets”-they have very good memories. Happy and other elephants at the zoo were trained to do tricks, give rides to children and play tug of war with firefighters and college football players.
I love zoos-I’ve been to zoos in many different places. But I have to admit I don’t know much about their history.
The oldest one in the world is the Schonbrunn Zoo, which was built in Vienna in the mid-177s. It’s still in operation, by the way. It’s famous for being the first to introduce many design innovations, such as keeping animals in naturalistic settings.
By displaying animals in settings resembling their natural habitat-and setting the scene from visitors to imagine themselves in that habitat-zoo operators let visitors who might never see a lion in its element feel a sense of passion for its preservation.
Yes, zoos have come a long way, especially when it comes to how they care for animals. Many have evolved into conservation organizations. They focus on saving endangered animals from extinction. In recent years, the zoo and aquarium industry has fundamentally changed the way it views the task of caring for the animals in their collections.
They’ve set a higher standard called “animal welfare.” This is a new metric and it represents a huge change.
