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There are zoos all over the world with animals from africa. I'm against all zoos personally, but who cares if they are for chinese zoos? Britain has a bunch o

There are zoos all over the world with animals from africa. I'm against all zoos personally, but who cares if they are for chinese zoos? Britain has a bunch of zoos with elephants, rhinos and all kinds of animals from africa. Is it bad because it is for the chinese?

rhcom2 9y ago
The article mentions imports to the US, Cuba and Mexico as well.
logfromblammo 9y ago
Many of the African-origin animals in well established zoos are the result of captive breeding programs run in cooperation with hundreds of international zoos. The rest are animals taken from the wild due to injury or environmental circumstance, who were then unable to be returned to the wild for some reason. China is building cities at a tremendous rate, and many of those cities are building zoos. The existing captive breeding programs and animal-swap programs are simply not capable of supplying those new zoos with the larger animals with slow breeding rates. In any case, going out to poach animals from the wild is cheaper. It's not bad because Chinese, but bad because it's going faster than the existing systems can handle.
smnrchrds 9y ago
NPR Planet Money did an episode about how zoos acquire animals. I recommend listening to it: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/09/493295430/episode-566-the-zoo-economy http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/09/493295430/episo... To put it in a nutshell, they are not allowed to buy and sell animals. Aquariums can trade animals with other aquariums but no money should change hands. Zoos depend solely on goodwill, as even trade is banned. So when an animal is born in a zoo, if they don't need it or cannot keep it, they donate it to another zoo who needs it. And if a zoo needs an animals, they put the word out that they require one and some other zoo donates them one of theirs.

rhcom2 9y ago

The article mentions imports to the US, Cuba and Mexico as well.

logfromblammo 9y ago

Many of the African-origin animals in well established zoos are the result of captive breeding programs run in cooperation with hundreds of international zoos. The rest are animals taken from the wild due to injury or environmental circumstance, who were then unable to be returned to the wild for some reason. China is building cities at a tremendous rate, and many of those cities are building zoos. The existing captive breeding programs and animal-swap programs are simply not capable of supplying those new zoos with the larger animals with slow breeding rates. In any case, going out to poach animals from the wild is cheaper. It's not bad because Chinese, but bad because it's going faster than the existing systems can handle.

smnrchrds 9y ago

NPR Planet Money did an episode about how zoos acquire animals. I recommend listening to it: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/09/493295430/episode-566-the-zoo-economy http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/09/493295430/episo... To put it in a nutshell, they are not allowed to buy and sell animals. Aquariums can trade animals with other aquariums but no money should change hands. Zoos depend solely on goodwill, as even trade is banned. So when an animal is born in a zoo, if they don't need it or cannot keep it, they donate it to another zoo who needs it. And if a zoo needs an animals, they put the word out that they require one and some other zoo donates them one of theirs.