Find our latest Sentientism conversation (both Walter and Heather are previous guests) on the Sentientism YouTube here and here on the Sentientism podcast.

⁠Heather Browning⁠ is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton. Her primary research interests are animal welfare, ethics, and consciousness.

⁠Walter Veit⁠ is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading and an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Much of Walter’s recent writing has been on animal minds, welfare and ethics, as well as evolution.

As we’ve already covered our standard Sentientism “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and “how to make a better world?” questions in our previous conversations in episodes 48, 54 and 158, here we focus on Heather and Walter’s new book “⁠What Are Zoos For?⁠“

Find my previous conversations with Walter and Heather ⁠here⁠, ⁠here⁠ and ⁠here⁠.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and “how can we make a better future?”

Sentientism answers those questions with “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” In addition to the YouTube and Spotify above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple & here on all the other platforms.

00:00 Clips

01:12 Welcome

– Heather’s episode 54, Walter’s episodes 48 & 158

02:15 Intros (see bios above)

– Heather “How do we study what’s happening inside the minds of animals… what the world is like for them… the ethical implications”

– Walter “I study the diversity of minds… in animals… neurodiversity… in humans… in AI systems”

– “Our zoo book… how should zoos run… take a non-anthropocentric perspective”

03:40 What Are Zoos For? And Who Are They For?

– The range of human views about zoos: entertainment / conservation / fascination vs. exploitation

– Heather’s background as a zookeeper and a zoo animal welfare officer

– Combining an understanding of zoos from the inside plus philosophy

– Instead of the zoo industry vs. total animal liberation “a more balanced perspective… from the point of view of the animals and not just human ethics”

06:44 Pillars of Human Zoo Justification

– Entertainment, conservation, education and research

– “There’s definitely been a shift over time”

– “In the beginning they were very much places of entertainment. The original proto-zoos were owned by rich and powerful people… to demonstrate their power”

– “This history… entertainment… domination of animals… leads people to be very concerned about what zoos do”

– Monica Murphy & Bill Wasik episode: https://youtu.be/G61Gx7qaqp4

08:35 Types of Zoo Today

– “There’s a great diversity of zoos… we’re not just defending all zoos as they currently exist”

– Best practices, improving welfare standards “they should increase”

– “If you want to think about an ideal [but realistic] zoo… can we make welfare a priority of zoos… that’s quite achievable”

– “When we think about the best zoos that really prioritise animal welfare do we even need to justify them?”

– “Even the question… ‘can zoos be justified’ often assumes that harm is taking place… that assumption can be questioned.”

– JW: Are any zoos meeting this standard today of being genuinely good for the animals or is this a conceptual aspiration?

– “there are zoos who do that… for at least some of their species”

– “whether or not the animals in that zoo have good lives is going to depend a lot on what species they are… some species do better or worse in zoos”

– “Large, well-resourced zoos that put a lot of time and attention into building huge, complex habitats for their animals… the animals in those lead good lives that… they would probably choose if given the choice”

– “Present them in a way that is respectful and informative”

– “Members of the public gain more than… ‘look at those silly animals’… form these feelings of awe… compassion… empathy… connection”

– “Not even the best zoos have that across the board”

– “… under-resourced, for-profit institutions that care a lot more about getting people through the door than about anything to do with their animals… those should not exist”

– “There’s a large number of zoos across the world now that are doing a good job in providing fulfilling lives for their animals”

– “Does this particular species have a higher welfare in a zoo than in the wild?… that might be a minimal standard if that wild animal doesn’t have a good life in the wild… disease… starvation… we probably do want more – we can do more. Zoos can give these animals really good lives…”

– “You probably want to distinguish between different species”

– “Elephant enclosures… the most controversial case… in the wild they cross many kilometres – in these enclosures they don’t have this opportunity… maybe zoos can’t offer them the right conditions”

– “We need a more species-sensitive answer”

16:15 Challenges to the idea of “good zoos”

– Risks that we’re wrong about what animals want and that our human interests will warp our thinking

– Tensions between wellbeing/welfare vs. dignity, autonomy, rights perspectives

– “The biggest problem in any of our dealings with animals is how do we really take their point of view… all of my work is trying to answer this question”

– “What is it that those animals value? What do they have the capacity to value…?”

– “Autonomy and dignity and naturalness… these seem deeply anthropocentric… these are human-centred concepts that represent things that we value in our own lives because we as humans have the ability to conceptualise abstract concepts… and care a lot about them”

– “By forcing this line that ‘those things are good for animals’… we’re imposing our worldview on them.”

– Risks of misguided paternalism “If the animals themselves don’t care… reflected in how they feel and what they choose…”

– Agency “the ability to make choices in your environment – to have control… this is something that animals probably value… it feels good to do that.”

– An additional benefit of agency – are animals (us humans included) normally best placed to decide what’s good for them? (short and long-term)

– “Constrain the option set to those things that you think are in the long-term interests of the animal while then hoping within that to still have a set of choices that they can make… different animals like different things at different times”

– Giving animals varieties of sleeping places, hiding spots

– “Many [zoo] animals do enjoy the engagement with visitors” while others do hate it

– “During the pandemic many animals seemed to miss the contact with humans”

– The possibility of genuinely benevolent intervention / maternalism / paternalism

25:52 Zoos, the wild, agriculture, companions, sanctuaries

– Animals rescued from the wild vs. bred in captivity

– Comparisons between wild living, zoos and animal agriculture

– The non-identity problem of comparing situations with different beings in them or with non-existence

– “What is the welfare value of not existing… maybe it’s the same as a neutral zero line of existing?… that doesn’t seem like a good enough justification…”

– “What’s a life worth living?… it’s a difficult one even for humans and I don’t think we have good answers in the animal case either”

– “It wants to be flourishing… but you don’t want to set it too high… a beautiful life full of nothing but joy”

– “When we compare to other sorts of situations that animals are kept in zoo animals are probably one of the best off groups compared to agricultural animals and even… compared to pet [companion] animals… people keep in their houses… a lot of their day alone, without much to do… very little control over their environments…”

– “There’s all kinds of things that companion animals lack that zoo animals… the zookeepers spend a lot of time trying to make sure that they have”

– “When people criticise zoos… it seems to be holding zoos to a very high standard”

– JW: Comparing zoos vs. animal sanctuaries “they are playing a role of saving or rescuing a non-human animal from a position of human exploitation… into an environment where they’re safe and hopefully happy… many sanctuaries also look after wild animals that have suffered in the wild… injured or abandoned… so the framing is much more clearly that they’re there for the animals… but there are many sanctuaries with pretty poor conditions… where the human motivations have actually undermined the need to centre the animals”

– JW: “Could we re-name zoos as sanctuaries and would that help us shift the focus… to really genuinely centre the best interests of the animal?”

– “The word sanctuary almost implies a nice glow around it… but you might not question as much how the animals are being treated there… vs. the word ‘zoo’… often implies the animals are used for entertainment purposes… exploitation…”

– “Many zoos now are changing their names towards ‘conservation parks’ because they want to avoid the negativity with the [zoo] label”

– “There’s no regulations around who gets to use the word ‘sanctuary’… there are institutions that call themselves sanctuaries that really just breed a lot of young animals for visitors to come and pat for photos”

– Serious sanctuaries “the primary goal of rescuing animals and housing them well until the ends of their lives… they are differentiated from zoos in that zoos are public institutions that exist for people to come and learn or connect… many sanctuaries are closed to the public”

– “That doesn’t have to imply a difference in quality of life [between sanctuaries and zoos]… people just assume that in a sanctuary you must do well and in a zoo you must do worse”

– “The resource constraints of a lot of sanctuaries are very real… zoos have the money in through the gate… the ability to provide well for animals is potentially there for zoos”

– Problems of a cetacean sanctuary for pilot whales “…because of various healthy issues and having to condition them they’ve spent the years that they’ve been there in an indoor pool basically the same as what they would have been in in the aquarium”

35:50 Parallels with human situations?

– JW: If we reject speciesism… “are there analogies with intra-human situations… where we’re helping… saving… applying benevolent intervention?”

– JW: “One of the other challenges to the very idea of a zoo… there’s no situation in which we’d ever consider doing this with our fellow humans… plenty of horrific examples over history where homo sapiens have actually been in some of these ‘menageries’”

– “There are groups of humans for which we do have similar kinds of things… human beings that don’t have the high cognitive functioning to make the sorts of rational autonomous decisions for their lives… we certainly put all kinds of constraints and protections in place in a caring way…”

– “Raising children – we don’t let them go wherever they want whenever they want and do whatever they want. They’re typically constrained to the spaces in which their parents allow them to go and they are fed what their parents want them to eat.”

– “They do have these constraints for their own good… if you do it well you give them the choices within the option set that you think is safe and valuable for them to choose between”

– Care facilities “You create caring but restricted environments… you are thinking about what is good for them… providing all the things that you hope they need to have a good life… that freedom is restricted… for their own good”

– “Sometimes to show care for another human being is to protect them in certain kinds of ways and is to constrain their freedoms in ways that you think will make them better off”

– “Some zoos in history actually featured humans… to show hierarchies of dominations… horrific”

– “Most people who go to zoos or people operating zoos they’re not trying to show how much better humans are vs. animals… they’re typically animal lovers and they want to take care of them and appreciate them… there the difference is quite major”

– Orangutan enclosures “small enclosures, small groups… individuals might get separated… who can get lonely… that’s often a very sad life”

– “Sometimes their natural habitats get destroyed so zoos sometimes become like sanctuaries”

– “We really want to think much more about how do you give animals social opportunities. There often keepers start to play crucial roles – they’re not just someone who looks after the animals but they’re really a close social companion.”

– “In politics… let’s just give people their autonomy… taking away some money from the rich to give money to the poor… ‘that’s harming the rich so clearly we can’t do that!’… [instead] maybe we should just think more on balance of how we can increase general welfare [instead of thinking about benefits or harms]”

– Negative freedoms (from harm / constraint) vs. positive freedoms (freedom to do things – opportunities)

– “…a zoo can give animals opportunities. They might not have that negative freedom to be able to leave their enclosures but they might have much more free time to engage in the activities they really care about.”

– “Instead of spending most of the hours in the day… hiding from predator animals… finding food… [in a zoo] that’s actually quite easy… then they can really spend the rest of the time how they want… zoo animals have much more free time… just as human children might… they can play”

44:25 The life histories of zoo animals

– Breeding, feeding, daily life, death

– Breeding as natural behaviour, the responsibility of bringing new life into being, human conservation motivations

– “The breeding question is probably one of the most ethically difficult issues that zoos are facing at the moment… the problem of what are called ‘surplus animals’… that zoos don’t have space or resources to house”

– “Forming bonds… mating behaviours… giving birth to and rearing young… usually very positively valanced – they’re sources of a lot of reward for these animals… allowing animals to do these things is almost certainly enriching… mammals in particular”

– “If you allow them to do so [reproduce] unconstrained… you end up with a lot of adult animals… they take space and they take time and they take money.”

– “In some zoos… they will euthanise the offspring usually around the age that they would disperse from their parents naturally in the wild… from the parents’ perspective the animal leaving them is not a source of major grief… and the argument is that the ‘humane’ euthanasia of the animal causes it no pain or suffering… some will say ‘given the benefits of breeding and the lacks of harm then that is fine – a nice way of keeping a healthy, flourishing population… keep the genetics fresh… keep the ones that have the genetics that keep the population going and euthanise the ones that don’t’”

– “Other people are very concerned… the loss of life of animals that otherwise would potentially have had good lives.”

– “The idea that euthanasia is not a harm… is a dangerous one… it implies that the only thing bad in your life is experiencing suffering but I think the length of life matters too… if you end that life prematurely you have fewer experiences.”

– “There’s a careful middle ground to tread there… try to plan your breeding such that animals get some opportunities to do these things while hopefully maintaining a population size that isn’t beyond your capacity to care for… large bachelor groups… sanctuaries – open range areas… it’s very species specific”

– The ethical challenges of feeding – particularly carnivorous animals

– JW: “Even carnivorous animals don’t really need to eat meat if they get the right technical nutrients from the right places… there might be other solutions… companion animals… commercially available 100% plant-based foods available for dogs and cats… taurine, spirulina that can be synthesised” (see Sentientism ep: 148 with Dr. Andrew Knight)

– JW: “If you are allowing the breeding of more carnivores you are also taking the decision to harm, exploit and kill tens if not hundreds of other sentient beings”

– “We do already have lab-grown meat… once that’s is on scale and affordable… Until then… maybe we should just have zoos for animals that do not rely on killing other animals?”

– “That’s a difficult ethical cost – some moral philosophers have argued maybe we should sterilise we should sterilise all the predators in the wild. That’s quite a radical view” Herbivorising nature?

– Other groups of animals that are not suited to even an idealised zoo? “In theory there is no such animal… given enough space and enough resources it’s probably possible to give any animal a good life in captivity. But when you talk about the realistic constraints on resources… there are going to be species”

– Research on animals that have worse welfare issues in captivity… wide ranging carnivores… large cetaceans, whales in particular… orcas… elephants”

– “Elephants in city zoos is typically not a good idea… very large numbers of city zoos are relocating animals to countryside zoos… safari park style areas… very, very large spaces… large ungulates… giraffes, antelopes, zebras and elephants… They can be given much, much more space and be kept in larger, more natural groupings”

– “An example of how you can take a welfare problem with a species and fix it without having to get rid of that animal from captivity”

– A division of labour “different zoos specialising in what they can keep well”

– “Typically people think of the large animals… reptile house… snakes… often enclosures there are quite small… snakes might want to stretch their whole body out… but it becomes impossible in some of these types of enclosures”

– “Animals that are very small are often given the least attention in terms of welfare… we might have a more radical shift here… enclosures to be way larger”

– “Birds are a good example… the three dimensional space they have access to becomes very important… traditionally you do see a lot of zoos having big rows… all quite small and not allowing them much space to fly… Increasingly you see large, open range, multi-species, walk-in aviary spaces where the birds can move around a lot more”

59:55 Should human animals just leave other animals alone?

– JW: Or “if we genuinely try to take the perspectives of the animals themselves as sentient beings that doesn’t necessarily lead us to a position where there is zero human engagement… intervention when it’s genuinely benevolent… [analogous to the question of] intervention in the wild / free-ranging animals… if our cynicism about humanity leads us to hold back from even helping when we obviously can – maybe we’re making a mistake?”

– JW: Risks re: the aspiration to put animal interests as the central pillar for zoos: “As long as the other pillars are still there… human interests in conservation, research, education, entertainment… we know what us humans are like… [our human interests might] overwhelm the animals’ interests again? How do we not let this theory [of zoos that are genuinely good for animals]… get dragged into more insidious exploitative practice?”

– JW: A warning analogy “Animal agriculture presents themselves as ‘humane and sustainable and we care about our animals’ as a means for justifying what us humans want to keep doing”

– “Zoos have one advantage… their business model is essentially bringing humans and animals together”

– “People are recognising animals as other subjects… they’re recognising their sentience… they’re caring about them. I think we see an increased concern for animal welfare as a general trend. If we think that’s true… it makes business sense for zoos to do well for animals too because that’s what people want”

– Reconceiving the pillar of entertainment “as a pillar of connection between humans and animals… people who go there don’t just want to see animals they want to connect with them… the animal looking back… or following them… these things make someones’ day… the rise of animal encounters where you can go along with the keepers and feed… the wonder they feel when this happens – when they get close to animals”

– “Humans genuinely have a psychological desire to do well by animals and to connect with them. This misfires in all sorts of ways but if we are very explicit about the fact that we want zoos to care about animal welfare above all other things… any time a decision-making scenario comes up… the animal welfare will always come up on top”

– JW: “The fascination people feel with non-human animals is not just an aesthetic fascination… it is also because of that compassionate, empathic link… recognising there’s another sentient being there looking back at you”

– A downside to zoos moving out of cities “City people who might never see animals in the wild… don’t have that engagement which can make people more caring about animals…”

– “A school trip to the zoo… where a kid for the first time sees all these animals – that can often lead to someone becoming more of an animal activist or at least someone who cares about animals”

– “Yes humans tend to care about others but we do not tend to care about others if we’ve never encountered them… having some encounters is quite important for humans to care more about animals and zoos are one of the only places where that happens”

– JW: Changing the education pillar “refer more strongly and directly to what it might be like to be these animals?”

– “We do see the education role of zoos shifting already… [from] little signs… [to] huge displays of interactive activities… there is this idea of trying to connect people more in this way… signs about all the individual animals… personalities and preferences…”

– JW: “He, she and they not it… individuals and names”

– “That’s probably a really strong way of giving people this idea that they’re interacting there with other subjects and not just viewing something flat in the world”

01:10:12 What can we do?

– “Be careful about which zoos you support… accredited vs. non-accredited zoos… it’s a step forward… means a zoo is making an effort”

– “Avoiding… these smaller poorly run zoos that give you the opportunities to get up close to animals without respecting the animals choice”

– Care re: what we share on social media “There is this rise of people who have these interactions with animals… like and share… in many cases these animals are not kept well”

01:11:44 Follow

– What Are Zoos For?

– Heather Browning

– Walter Veit

Thanks to Graham for the post-production and to Tarabella, Roy and Denise for helping to fund this episode via our Sentientism Patreon and our Ko-Fi page. You can do the same or help by picking out some Sentientism merch on Redbubble or buying our guests’ books at the Sentientism Bookshop.