Given all these conditions, should animals be kept in captivity in places like the circus?
Circuses and zoos may represent our only contact with these animals.
Role of the Zoo:
- May raise funds to rebuild nature preserves and parks
- Need to hire more USDA inspectors and implement a comprehensive training program
- Establish higher standards of care, including behavioural enrichment
programs as the threshold minimum standard of care by which to measure compliance - Create a “private right of action” on behalf of animals
Ethics
As long as we have animals in the circus, society has the responsibility of ensuring their well-being regarded as “sentient beings, and with this, the responsibility to safeguard individual animals from physical, social, and psychosocial suffering” (Weisberg, 1999).