Today’s blog post, while a little less relevant to current issues, is addressing something that was in a reading a couple weeks ago that’s still bothering me now. In our Gibson text, A Reenchanted World, I had previously been quite enjoying it as a read—it had a lot of interesting stories and points to make—but when we got to chapter 7 and Gibson went on a brief rant about mistaken enchantment in zoos, it struck a chord with me in a bad way that I am still not quite over.
First off, though, a disclaimer. I am not here to support every ‘zoo’ in existence, as it is true that some of them do not observe best practices, like unhealthy exotics breeding programs, poor containment, or inhumane treatment of their animals. But lumping every zoo together as a black-market-dealing animal exploiter is horribly misrepresentative of zoos that perform critically important conservation work and scientific education for countless people.
My main issue with this segment boils down to misinformation. Gibson has one singular source for his scalding criticisms of all zoos, AZA accredited and otherwise—the AZA, or Association of Zoos and Aquariums, has a rigorous process to ‘accredit’ zoos for high quality performance, essentially giving them a seal of approval for good work—the 1999 investigative journalism novel Animal Underworld by author Alan Green. That’s it.
Not only does Gibson cite Green as if it’s a reputable text—which it isn’t—but he describes this ‘animal underworld’ of excess animal trading between zoos as if it’s a confirmed, yet little-known fact of zoo management… Which it isn’t. It’s just not. This, among several other things Green claims in Animal Underworld, are either played up lies with grains of truth or purposefully emotional distortions that aim to pull at your heartstrings so you ignore that the claims he’s making are entirely unsourced.
There’s an excellent article shared by the National Animal Interest Alliance, a nonprofit animal welfare advocacy group that aims to promote humane treatment of animals and protect the rights of responsible animal owners, that dissects the distortions and falsehoods present in Animal Underworld. Titled “How Not to Write an Exposé,” it describes how while Green does list some truths about unethical animal ownership, he also cites very few sources and incorrectly lumps every instance of animal ownership as ‘exploitation’ and writes an elaborate horror story about purposefully overinflated concepts. According to Green, any trade of ‘exotics’ is a horrific exploitation of animals best left alone, completely ignoring the many values of responsible animal ownership especially within accredited zoos who perform excellent scientific education. He accuses zoos that sell animals for any reason of “systematic laundering of exotic species,” claims the USDA is, “the object of endless ridicule” for enforcing policies and that the USFWS doesn’t care about zoonotic diseases in exotics, all of which seem pretty antithetical to the purposes of each institution, right? Not only does he do little but paint every institution that’s apparently not doing enough to protect exotics as an evil villain that’s maliciously going out of its way to harm these animals, but he doesn’t even offer any constructive suggestions for how to make things better, just that they’re bad. The commentary isn’t even useful—and neither is it sourced! Green claims on several occasions to have compiled large volumes of easily-falsified paperwork, but never provides any examples; he talks about but never provides proof of conversations with authorities; and most importantly, he lumps in every institution that handles, trades, or owns exotic animals as just the same evil, which leads to making false claims about reputable institutions that may be true for others that don’t observe the same levels of quality.
On the other hand, in terms of purposeful distortions, there are a handful of anecdotes discussed in the article where his claims are purposefully mis-told. In one case, he incorrectly retells the story of Las Vegas performer Bobby Berosini, who was supposedly caught on tape in 1989 abusing his orangutans. In reality, an extensive investigation was performed and Berosini was found not guilty, despite PeTA—the incredibly infamous animal rights organization known for its blatant misinformation and malicious fear-mongering—attempting to hire multiple professionals to support their cruelty allegations. All Green states is that he was stripped of his USFWS permit, which is technically true, as continued incessant allegations from PeTA led to its eventual revocation, but his retelling completely leaves out that the tape was found to be doctored and purposefully used to try and defame Berosini. It’s dishonest of him to try and use this story to continually defame Berosini’s image, since the anecdote was brought up as the context for who he was—in a statement about the specialists offering the USDA’s APHIS division on standards for keeping exotic species. It’s cruel of him to bring up a case where Berosini was found not guilty as his defining trait missing the context where he was found not guilty as a sort of negative qualifier for something he was perfectly qualified to do. He’s doing the same thing PeTA did, and in my eyes, that’s damning enough on it’s own. Later on, he also claims the Ohio Association of Animal Owners “successfully wages aggressive campaigns against any legislative proposal deemed a threat to the rights of those who own or sell animals,” when the goal of the OAAO is just to promote animal welfare laws in Ohio as well as protect animal owners targeted by humane agencies. They literally seek to improve the legislation around animal ownership in a way that benefits both humans and animals, but because Green is so hellbent on animal rights and claiming that any ownership or trade of exotics humane and beneficial or not is evil, they’re his enemies just the same as unethical animal owners. The generalization puts the association in an awful light.
In conclusion, before I make this incessantly long by jumping into a tangent about how much I hate PeTA’s malicious advocacy, I was shocked to read in a chapter of a book that I’d so far quite enjoyed such an unfounded segment bashing zoos based in one poorly sourced book. It interrupted my enjoyment of the novel and left me (clearly) a little more than a little upset after. In this house, we appreciate accredited zoos and reputable conservation programs that promote the healthy management of animals and their welfare.
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