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As the late black author and professor Julius Lester (may he rest in peace) said in his book "More Tales of Uncle Remus", "...animals ain't people and people ain't bananas."

However intelligent they may be (and in the case of the former, however closely related to us they may be), nonhuman primates, elephants, and cetaceans (whales and dolphins) are still animals, and while yes, historically all those creatures have been (and sometimes still are) treated less than ideally in captivity, there are plenty of good zoos, aquariums, and other facilities now that genuinely take (or try to take) good care of them. Also keep in mind that all species of elephants and many species of primates are endangered to critically endangered, and many zoos have breeding programs or otherwise act as refuges for them. There's not as much wild for them to go back to as there used to be, and while these are wild animals, captivity is still better than being extinct. To get rid of these animals' presence at good zoos (or to get rid of good zoos themselves) would be, like defunding/getting rid of the police, throwing the baby out with the bath water.

And don't even get me started on the controversy regarding the keeping of cetaceans in captivity.

Not all facilities that house whales and dolphins make them perform tricks for food, and even those (at least among the respectable facilities) that do still have them perform tricks don't otherwise starve them of food, but give them the food as treats in addition to feeding them meals. It's like taking your kid out for ice cream as a reward for getting a gold star or an A+.

And the lifespan of captive cetaceans isn't always miserably short. Take Nellie and Lilly, the bottlenose dolphins who used to live at Marineland of Florida (not to be confused with Marineland in Canada, which is an unrelated institution). The average lifespan of wild bottlenose dolphins is about twenty five years. Some have lived to be 40 or 60 there, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. But Nellie lived to be 61 (dying in 2014; at that time the oldest dolphin in human care) and Lilly lived to be 47 years old, which I'd say are decently long lifespans for captive dolphins.

There are also some people (on DeviantArt and off) who have looked at and debunked the notions that the propaganda film Blackfish perpetuates about orcas in captivity (as well as addressing questionable practices used in the making of that film). Here are links to some of them:

www.deviantart.com/skyebobpiep…

www.deviantart.com/igloo9201/a… (note: spelling is atrocious in some places, but they still make good arguments)

awesomeocean.com/top-stories/b…

medium.com/@isaacwadd/whats-wr…

awesomeocean.com/top-stories/w…

Shrek belongs to NBCUniversal.

Description

As the late black author and professor Julius Lester (may he rest in peace) said in his book "More Tales of Uncle Remus", "...animals ain't people and people ain't bananas."

However intelligent they may be (and in the case of the former, however closely related to us they may be), nonhuman primates, elephants, and cetaceans (whales and dolphins) are still animals, and while yes, historically all those creatures have been (and sometimes still are) treated less than ideally in captivity, there are plenty of good zoos, aquariums, and other facilities now that genuinely take (or try to take) good care of them. Also keep in mind that all species of elephants and many species of primates are endangered to critically endangered, and many zoos have breeding programs or otherwise act as refuges for them. There's not as much wild for them to go back to as there used to be, and while these are wild animals, captivity is still better than being extinct. To get rid of these animals' presence at good zoos (or to get rid of good zoos themselves) would be, like defunding/getting rid of the police, throwing the baby out with the bath water.

And don't even get me started on the controversy regarding the keeping of cetaceans in captivity.

Not all facilities that house whales and dolphins make them perform tricks for food, and even those (at least among the respectable facilities) that do still have them perform tricks don't otherwise starve them of food, but give them the food as treats in addition to feeding them meals. It's like taking your kid out for ice cream as a reward for getting a gold star or an A+.

And the lifespan of captive cetaceans isn't always miserably short. Take Nellie and Lilly, the bottlenose dolphins who used to live at Marineland of Florida (not to be confused with Marineland in Canada, which is an unrelated institution). The average lifespan of wild bottlenose dolphins is about twenty five years. Some have lived to be 40 or 60 there, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. But Nellie lived to be 61 (dying in 2014; at that time the oldest dolphin in human care) and Lilly lived to be 47 years old, which I'd say are decently long lifespans for captive dolphins.

There are also some people (on DeviantArt and off) who have looked at and debunked the notions that the propaganda film Blackfish perpetuates about orcas in captivity (as well as addressing questionable practices used in the making of that film). Here are links to some of them:

www.deviantart.com/skyebobpiep…

www.deviantart.com/igloo9201/a… (note: spelling is atrocious in some places, but they still make good arguments)

awesomeocean.com/top-stories/b…

medium.com/@isaacwadd/whats-wr…

awesomeocean.com/top-stories/w…

Shrek belongs to NBCUniversal.