Zoos: Confinement & the Nature of Nature.

but I mean it's you know when you think
about it they're trying to feel alive and they were in a situation where they can't feel alive you know they can't feel the normal play their instincts I would say for me as a human being when I was a child I felt that way too I often did feel literally caged you know I think a lot of us do but maybe some of us your memory doesn't go back far enough but when you're a small child we also grow up in very unnatural settings even if they're comfortable zoos I never saw the film but I do remember we discussed it right there's there's this one if there's if I were to go back and do a J cosmic video again there's one guy who I would make a response to and I so got sicker the response videos like it was just for in a big way like the zoo stuff it's such a part of my life it's not positive part of my life there's so many reasons and just got the point where I was like I don't want to talk about this anymore like I for so many reasons other than I've done I've been doing made so many videos on it like it's stolen talked about but if I was to make another one there's this one guy he's a former SeaWorld trainer his name is Kyle Kittleson and he has a youtube and is his a big video is that he talked about like basically everything that was wrong with blackfish but he approaches the subject like from this perspective that someone that animal rights activist has no idea what they're talking about specifically because they don't work with animals on an everyday basis now like from my perspective I essentially think he's deluding himself in his own way yeah cuz you know working with zookeepers there there are so many things that you you convince yourself the Burin about your relationship of the animals and what you know about the animals that no one can know because they've never worked with them and it's interesting because the it's the same with traditional farmers and traditional hunters they always think they understand the mind of the animal they've made up stories to explain their behavior and yeah yeah yeah that's a real that's I mean sense its psychological projection although not the way we normally talk about psychological projection yeah yeah I know exactly what you're talking about yeah go on um the first the first video I remember they showed me like orientation day for zookeepers they show you this video and it's basically this guy who talks about this this horrible experience where he he witnessed his um his friend and fellow zookeeper get attacked by a zebra zebras are one of those animals that I think a lot of people think are harmless they're absolutely super dangerous Morris isn't like I don't know how much you know about horses and stuff like that but zebras are notorious for like you have to have multiple water containers in their exhibit because there are particularly like protective water and like you know you have to do all this stuff with the females around the males and stuff like that because they do like a whole harem thing and stuff like that and they're you know they get in fights it can be bad like he had this experience where his keepers attacked by a zookeeper and he talks about what it did and what the repercussions were what he didn't do and what he wishes he had done and one of the reflections he has is that you know you might think you know an animal but all you can really say is like that animal has never done X&Y before so it's basically like complete reflection that you start out with that completely flies in the face of basing your assumptions that you build up for the years going on from there like what what this animal is capable of and what they're not but I remember like there were some surreal beliefs that zoo keepers had people who had been there and for like in the field for a really long time like I remember one I remember sitting at the lunchroom table and these two keepers talking about how stereotypical you know stress behavior pacing back and forth was exercise no it's exercise that's how they get exercise yeah and you know though they're the only animals that and I remember like um there's this there's a porcupine that lived at the zoo too and remembered she would do this thing where she would go to the back corner and she would do like this is like dancing movement the swinging side to side looking at the back exhibit not facing anything total neurotic behavior yeah I remember they we would call it Oh her happy dance she's doing the happy that's like just to come here to no one acknowledge that you're completely taking the edge of something serious don't really wanted to acknowledge it that actually this animal is being deprived of the habitat habitat it needs to have normal behaviors and normal even mental health yeah can I mention one example of that that I saw on the zoo and conveying because it was interesting me I was there with my teacher as a translator basically and me and my teacher both picked up on how sad it was we saw a red to panda so the red panda is much smaller than the black-and-white panda it's a very different species but that's we call them red panda and black Amanda and as a red panda in a tiny enclosure that was basically like a fence circling a tree so it's just a tree less than one meter on every side of the tree like maybe half a meter of space when he said serrated victory and then a little ladder I could go up to like a little tree house in the tree that looked cute look at human kids tree house and you know we could actually see this red panda running in circles in its tiny habitat and I think it's not too much to say that it was trying to cheer itself up before going it's very very hurt for me to describe the the behaviour but also but also it was avoiding looking at the humans you know which was very telling and I've seen that with animals sometimes you know with chickens when you kill one chicken and then none of the other chickens are looking at you when you slaughter the chicken or they're never they don't they're looking away from the humans they were avoiding making eye contact or avoiding making eye contact with the chicken that's that's gonna be killed or as screaming and dying you can see chickens looking away but this the nature of this enclosure was so exposed but yeah it was really sad I'm soul just interesting that me and her both picked up on it cuz in a sense you know it says you like you were saying it's like a seemingly cheerful movement but you could see this this this animal was so used to living in this tiny enclosure and being on display all the time that it had developed these repetitive behaviors obsess you just call them obsessive or neurotic behaviors of trying to trying to make the best of its its cage yeah and you know where and the other tragedy is there right it's like you never know because intelligence varies a lot within one species of animal people know that with dog is one dog can be much more intelligent than another our family dog I had as a kid actually could understand quite a few words of the English language not that uncommon we you know any why would you say it wasn't unusually intelligent dog in some ways would do you know was it was miserable for that reason it was much more unhappy because it was more intelligent but you wonder you look at that it's like to what extent does this red panda understand you know what it's doing yeah the worst-case neuroticism that I ever saw was exactly the kind of cage that you described it's probably another scientific classification that belongs to but it's like it's like a small like rat it's like a it's like a South American raccoon basically and it um it was it would literally do the same motion over and over again and the night the head roll is the worst when they they'll climb a little bit on the cage they'll do like this twist of the body to get back into position to go to the other side of the cage like it's just there's no purpose for that movement at all unless you're like struggling as like a capture and like like injured about to die animal but I mean it's you know when you think about it they're trying to feel alive and they were in a situation where they can't feel alive you know they can't feel the normal player their instincts now I would say for me as a human being when I was a child I felt that way too I often did feel literally caged you know I think a lot of us do but maybe some of us our memory doesn't go back far enough but when you're a small child we also grow up in very unnatural settings even if they're comfortable I think that part of us also is rebelling against that or is looking for a kind of stimulus or free play of the instincts which would include the experience of fear you know include you know unpleasant experiences and you know fear of predators and what-have-you but we're growing up that dad would say I knew I knew one woman in Cambodia who told me she described what it was like growing up with Tigers wild tigers in the jungle of Cambodia she was the last generation to have that experience where literally you know she had to to guard herself against Tigers when she walked to school every day you know Tigers still eight people in her village and she was too shy I'm laughing about it but that doesn't exist in Cambodia anymore and in the whole world you know there's a couple of places in India where humans I could slip together but in terms of evolutionary time that's what a lot of us grew up with right like that's what we're evolved to grow up with is looking over your shoulder you know and not for the schoolyard bully exercise because they're like you know a predator as well they live in the same range but you know I think in reality these are animals we're all the worst cases we're always in with really extreme levels of interaction with something like the Cody that I was talking about you know they live in giant groups right like hundreds of individuals and this is a small like cage of this animal and a mountain lion you know they'll range you know some of them some of those big cats will have you know bears - they'll have really large ranges and these these were relatively small cages like like your one out of 100,000 like like that some tiny fraction of like what their actual range was you know somebody said I just wanna say you know a mind with a human mind or an animal mind a mind in a vacuum tends to resemble that vacuum you know a large part of what our mind does is like a mirror and you know you you know the myth it's a total lie there's a total lie that's commonly believed that you know the goldfish has such a short memory that it's never bored inside a goldfish bowl because like you know every few seconds it's you know it doesn't know where it is have you heard that lie that's a commonly told lie to children that oh don't worry though don't worry the goldfish are happy just swimming back and forth and they're in the same bowl it not only is it untrue you know when scientists researched it they have a photographic memory and can map out huge areas of the ocean floor and that's what they're evolved to do is range over this big big area with complex three-dimensional habitats and you know we also be watching for predator self the time that no actually you know the the wild form that the goldfish has quite impressive mental faculties and then you know you take them and you deprive them of that even when we're not talking about castration and declawing and these other elements yeah I think that's the tragedy of and I say look I mean you know I don't know if I'm flattering myself or insulting myself but I am in some ways burdened with very accurate memory of childhood and I can relate to some of that in terms of my own experience as a mammal fact like the cow Kittleson guy like sure the things that he explicitly says in his video that I find particularly ridiculous to see he literally says you know he talks about this story about how you know the killer whales because that's what he did he worked with he literally worked with these killer whales at SeaWorld from the blackfish movie and he talks about how oh we would open up the bigger you know tanks for them to go in and they would stay in the small ones so that means to me that no they don't they wouldn't want to go to an open water pen you know that would be he literally says that would be the worst possible scenario yeah and it's just it boggles my mind a little bit there whether I've met people who you know they're zookeepers have biology degrees you know they've studied the sciences you know my kid Olson is someone who you know his background is in theater which is not actually that uncommon it's such a in some ways it's such a low paying job that you know you get people who you know who are art students who love animals who are you know they they get it they understand animals they grew up with animals that you know they get in that career path calculon's really good at what he do I'm sure he's an amazing trainer I'm sure the dog that he trained to get the beer from the fridge for his master a function that like of things you could teach enable to do to get them something that actually destroys the brain of the taken away yeah but but he's sitting there and he's like you know I've eight years experience and this is my conclusion that the worst possible thing from a biological and ethical standpoint would be to allow these animals in an open water tank like the things that like professional people convince themselves up that they have all this experience around these animals this is absolutely ridiculous yeah I agree with you but I think that's part of the the myth making self justification side of the human mind and I can really remember in terms of my own maturation for me it was really a conscious decision not to live that way it's like I'm not gonna make up excuses I'm not gonna make up justifications but for a lot of people that's what their whole ethical system hangs on whether it has to do with you know keeping a whale in a bathtub or you know here in China you know justifications for mass murder for millions of people dying and the role they may feel they played in it or that their parents played in it or what have you or that they're playing a part in right now just being part of the society don't worry we can stick with zoos we don't have to talk about we don't talk about asthma don't worry the manager I remember I talked to you about the manager who would storm out in the meeting room about the cage in a cage he actually had this is one really awesome lucid moment that I remember like vividly like literally like the moment the most common things do keepers talk about around the lunch tables is a pup a negative and that a negative turned positive interaction with with a guest who you know comes to you and they're like the animals are living in such horrible conditions here you know I can't believe that this is happening and you know it always has the same path it seems it goes you know you talk about talk about conservation you know there's all the animals who are a part of some conservation program you know I mean I've had the iPad I've worked with animals that were part of conservation programs that were literally sick on a daily basis and it's like are these animals ever gonna go back to wild and I remember like you know one day one day he was just like he was listening this conversation about conversation and about conservation like this interaction he was like kind of like stop stop you know I think on some level he was just his whole point was I think on some level you know the most thing that we can say to these people is we're doing the best we can and you know there I've had arguments with people on Facebook because especially on Facebook there's this clear divide that people had in their minds you know sanctuaries are goods whose are bad and you know all I'll say to people you know 90% of people work in zoos have biology degrees they have you know yours agree to this you know see Roald especially all those whales cow Kittleson is right they have 10 vet staff to take care of each of those whales like from my pure health standpoint like that probably the best care in the world and you know these are people on a daily basis you know I remember a vet told me once you know the the best vet I ever worked with he said he said you know from my standpoint you know the best vets have to realize in some level the people work with these animals on a daily basis you know they really view them as their pets I just think I just think they're so similar like in a lot of ways that vegans are not willing to recognize and I think zoos have some things going for them and sanctuaries have some things going for him and I don't think they're that different but I I think I was definitely the first vegan on YouTube to challenge the paradigm you just mentioned you just summarized it as situate but I wonder it's possible I'm the first vegan even in print you know because the written history of veganism is not that long and that's that's certainly an obscure and edgy enough issue it's possible no other vegan took the stand I did would you basically basically is anti sanctuary and you know I mean the thing with zoos I've repeatedly drawn attention to this concept of obsolescence most recently in the video boat economics where I say look we're not gonna make vivisection obsolete I'd love it if we could but that's not situation right now I don't think we're gonna make sues obsolete you know in that sense you know the circus we can get rid of this is this is the difference in the zoo in the circus and blackfish was out it's possible I read message you but said nothing anything one of my professors in Canada he was at the elite level of whale activism so specifically West Coast killer whales you know he'd made documentary films and stuff he had connections in government and whatever you know see was he was a long time involved in that and I I made some comment to him I said well now that now that this movie blackfish has come out won't there be pressure on you to kind of never talk to and never cooperate with the people at SeaWorld again and I'm sorry if I'm getting the name wrong I think the park there is SeaWorld if it's not SeaWorld it's another it's a competitor that's very similar to SeaWorld but you know there's a park like that on the west coast there and he turned to me with no pause without missing a beat and he said that park that amusement park that no exploits whales or whatever he said that is the only infrastructure the government has to deal with sick or injured whales and it was created by this private sector company you know so they could put on these acrobatic shows there whatever these these exploitative shows he says that's all we've got if there's ever a problem if there's ever a no great break and you know he has all these statistics you know the West Coast pod is down to its last seven reproducing females you know I mean they're on the edge of extinction blah blah blah just just in that area he said our only capacity to do something good to help you know ensure the the future of this species actually depends on that Park so that was a shock to me I wasn't expecting to say anything like that I was expecting him to make some kind of catty remark that yeah he's you know he'd like to see SeaWorld burn but no on on the contrary he said that's all with God so that was interesting and you know I'm sure in terms of the the conservation role that some zoos do play and in theory all all zoos can play there will be parallels to that with other species and I I've told ya you you you gotta study bugs at that video we have these unique species of monkey here in here in Yan'an right on the on the edge of extinction because they only eat they only eat moss right the bulk of their diet is moss remember that like it like it thank you thank you thank you see you don't get a mixed up you can't feed a moss it's got these these alike and eating monkeys of alter it for eating lichen and like it's grim as hell seeing them in zoos those monkey it is it is I wish I could say nothing is grimmer the grimmest here are the elephants seeing the elephants here in China that's that's really more you know more moving than Dante's Inferno or Dante's purgatory I mean it's really hell to see the elephants in in Chains here and makes you you know that that makes you wanna that makes you want to resort to violence seeing the elephants of that here so I'm starting it's here I'm starting to tear up thinking about I'm starting to cry thinking about the situation of the elephants yeah but I mean that's you know anyway look you know but as terrible situation is with zoos and I've seen zoos here that are terrible I mentioned in a recent video I don't know if you caught it yet you know the the Tigers literally with with pieces of meat dangling from from fishing lines did you catch that yet I [Laughter] [Music] know they were there were strips of raw meat they weren't cooked me so they were raw meat but yeah go up like that one it's a more about image watching what's surreal go watching that video watching that video in particular seem to tell you with a hot dog on a stick because I've actually had the experience like of talking to people who have paid like I don't know how much you charge for this piece of meat on a stick but I've I didn't ask what they would have sold me one I've had the experience talking to people who just got to see like the most endangered the rarest canine on the unearth the Mexican gray wolf okay and like you know they paid I don't even know if they paid five bucks for we gave you know there was there was at Cal in California we gave this group like this campsite this really great deal to see these really like endangered animals and I remember I remember you know having conversation of the people like oh this wasn't for free not only does your money go to see these really rare animals but like it actually goes to an organization that is not for profit that is like actually involved in conversations like we I could literally say see those cages back there those wolves who go to the wild they will literally live in the wild they will literally have pups in the wild you are literally seeing a part of a program that is actually bringing a species it was a hot dog on a stick yeah you know I met the thing I loved about it was the world wildlife management paradigm you know basically I want animals to live in their own domain you know what I mean I basically want all the animals to be treated like sharks you know what I mean it's okay I mean you know it's okay to watch them in a documentary it's okay to stand on the edge of the shore and look in but I mean you know I wish I wish we had more of a more of an attitude like this in Western culture but it's obviously it's not at all the puppy centered attitude instead is people want to interact with the animals play with the animals they want to see if they get a reaction out of them and yeah I have seen people here in China with you know bears in cages and the cage isn't that much bigger than the bear you get a great huge bear poking at the Bears with sticks and forcing through food to try to get a reaction of the bear you know little little pieces of meat or hotdogs or whatever they had trying to try to interact with the with the bear in these ways but hey I don't know I mean when my father was a child we literally had you know bear wrestling in Canada and you know bears and cages for that for humans getting in and wrestling the Bears and that kind of stuff so yeah I mean it's not you know what happened Gary Yourofsky a lot of people who are involved in the animal rights side of things they get more and more misanthropic until they just end up hating the human race because they see this side of human nature for too long right but look I hope I hope it's something positive you can carry with you I don't know how I'll ever come back into your life but you had this period of your life when zoos and habitat conservation and this kind of work with animals was was really your main thing maybe it'll be in your old age there'll be at some other point but you know I hope I hope that can come back into your life in a meaningful way positive like because right now basically what I do is I'm a sub in the school systems and you know that involves going to elementary schools and middle schools and one of the things that you can talk like the kids like hearing those stories yeah like their favorite their favorite stories the one of the one I have about the polar bear and it's not even a firsthand story but on I remember the zoo that I worked at was kind of famous in the area because a long time ago they had this polar bear and that was like a big thing back then to go and see like this white bear that you know was out in the hot Sun in the summer like roasting you know on the on the concrete everyone had great stories I in fact I remember walking around the zoo like and I remember this what I'll never forget this one group of yes and I remember exactly what they said perfect they said I'm like they were by the llamas they were like that's that's where habitat conservation begins is when it's no longer existing for human entertainment or human exploitation when the wilderness exists just to be the wilderness you know and that's that's the hardest thing for human beings to do ultimately human beings create the wilderness because they create a barrier and they don't allow other human beings to cut down the trees on the other side of that barrier or go and hunt the animals that very that's in the 21st century all wilderness is human created because at a minimum we have to employ people to stop the other humans from destroying it you know that's that's the fragile Millennium were going into now and there was a time when I was [ __ ] up with it there was a time when like emotionally it was like oh my god is this the world my children are gonna be born into you know a world where where there is really no wilderness and so on but but I got over it doing the story about the pole anyway the story about the polar bears a brief thing that my manager used to talk about he um basically like when they when they would do medicals for the animal like when they would do like the physicals every year they actually they couldn't dart the polar bear but it has something to do with their skin being so thick or something like that that you actually you literally can't dart them in their hide they had to train them to get up on the fence and a bull bear is like a huge animal like probably the biggest bear it's like I believe it is yeah I've seen grizzly bears they were like ten feet tall and stuff like that and he'd have to get up on the fence and they'd have to jab they'd have to jab stick him under the armpit because that was the only place that it was soft enough that that that is the favorite story of elementary school kids I'm not sure why but that always gets the best reaction but I have been able to like tell some interesting stories that not many science teachers or really any other teacher I remember one time I was just I was just in the eighth in the class and I told her I was a zookeeper and she was like oh we have to we have to schedule 15 minutes for the kids to ask you questions about animals mmm and um which ended up being a little more like 30 or 40 minutes because everyone had it everyone and anyone had to ask their their best and some of the Dumber questions about animals I have a lot of a lot of good stuff I have a lot of good memories now talking about just talking to kids about animals and stuff like that and you know hearing what they think and things like that so that's been the most positive thing that's recently come out of it I would have to say or so they're talking about on YouTube in a way yeah look I mean I'm happy for you I just made a video talking about the extent to which the different like missions I was on ended in failure and I feel like I've got nothing positive you know to bring forward in my life I guess I can still speak Thai and lotion I guess coming up pretty soon I'm going back to Thailand so I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to learn that language again you know brush up or remind myself how to speak that language a little bit for a while I'm in Thailand but um you know I mean that is something paused if you get to carry with you for the rest of your life so I'm happy to hear that I'm happy I'm glad you're not in the situation where you feel like you're a failed zoo keeper and every day you wake up and resent that you're not you're not getting the smell of that that Zoo poo shoveling manure because you know that's that's the story you're not telling the children about that's the other reality right is baling the hay and the the last year I went to and could mang you could see they did have large groups of all the monkey species living together they had many different species of monkey so the monkeys weren't isolated in that sense they were in in whole troops but they were absolutely constantly mating and constantly getting pregnant and producing more monkeys and I assume those monkeys would be sold on to other zoos because obviously they can't they can't have a constantly expanding monkey population or sold on to be used for other purposes right whether scientific experimentation or or what-have-you my translator she absolutist me in China there are some really broad laws that various kinds of animals can just never be killed for meat including deer she really insists to me that in China they dates illegal it's out to kill deer under any circumstance or beat it like come on you must be joking but whether or not those laws exist I don't know because every day you know the the exhibits we're getting pregnant to put it that way and you know every every month the population would be increasing if they weren't doing something to export the new births or or to eliminate them to liquidate them so yeah those would be their choices because I wonder like because I remember there was there's like it's kind of a this like an idiom about animals in captivity like you know the you know if given the opportunity they'll make the way they should it's basically a way to explain like you know meeting with their brothers and sisters in captivity and you know there's kind of like I think about sounds of time but you know the zoo aza zoos manage really well and I don't know they've said to how they do this you know how much space they have for certain species of animal you know there there are times when you literally you literally you can't breathe you can't breathe certain animals because there's literally no space for anymore like you don't have any zoos to send them to that have the proper but that you know that requires a lot of you know kind of really sad things whether it's not literally implanting an animal with extra the outside hormones so that they don't you know they don't have to get pregnant when they made or just strictly separating animals you know right next to each other and that have you know those you know those instincts and I know for for Lions they have mechanical forms of birth control where they put they insert a device into the the female or lion and so on I know that some of that has been so there is an effect birth control rather than castration or they're more invasive you know the equivalent of the birth control pill but it is actually you know a mechanism that's releasing necessary chemicals would have you obviously it's not saying look tuned into a great length as soon as else cuz the extraordinary cost of keeping lions but yeah I'd say too I mean another sense in which I think modern humans who are in many ways separated from the life of the instincts separated from the life of the wild I think that's also you know just like the monkeys in the cage that was just describing in the zoo in China for those monkeys in the cage sexuality is the only instinct they've got left left it's the only instinct they can still exercise right inside that cage there's nothing else they can they can do so I'll guessing all their time and energy basically goes into sex because it's the only part of their nature that can still exercise and I don't know I mean you know for me living in this modern society in this cage of my own making that's some truth to that too we've gotten rid of we've gotten rid of the experience of most of the other instincts including fear a lot of people want to live very safe lives and never never feel afraid and so on and I guess more of our mental energy those into goes into the last remaining instinct we got a cage yeah evolution