No where in his post do I see him arguing for putting a lion in a cage small enough that it can't run.
That's arguing for zoos in general. There aren't any zoos with large enough enclosures, only nature reserves. A zoo is putting a large animal in a small enough cage so that the public can wonder passed and look at it, that isn't compatible with a large enough enclosure for the size animal we're discussing.
If you want to go ahead and link me to one of these "ethical zoos" that has a lion enclosure, I'd welcome it.
Here's some info on the conservation efforts they do: http://institute.sandiegozoo.org/species/african-lion
Here's info about where they breed them and care for them:
You can see the small scale here:
Do you know what happens to male lions in the wild? A stronger male lion takes their mate, kills their children, and then kills them. And this is just the ones lucky enough to survive that long. Male lions are kicked out of their pride as soon as they reach adolescence. Most don’t even make it to adulthood or survive long enough to mate. And if you’ve never seen an animal kill another animal, they don’t exactly prioritize a quick and painless death. Life as a wild lion is nasty, brutish, and short. It’s incredible, the the romantic notions that people dream up for themselves.
Wtf is being proposed here, to keep lions at capture to avoid the parts of their lifestyle we don't like or consider too savage?
That which you described is what MAKES a lion.
As an aside: I personally don’t think it actually matters whether captivity is better than nature, but I’m pointing out arguendo that it probably isn’t. I think it is fine, short of wanton cruelty, for us humans to use animals for our own ends.
Of course it does.
>The way humans live in the wild is pretty different than in civilization too.
The civilisation is human's wild. We built this, it was not imposed upon us.
Also, by the logic you're using, you can just as well say that possibly living in captivity is the lion's new nature. After all, humans are part of nature and our capturing of animals then is too.
It's a sad day when you need to give a reason why captivity is worst than letting lions live free.
In the end, even genocide is not good or bad objectively. It depends on a value judgement, which from a rational perspective it's still a leap of faith or "fallacy".
Either you acknowledge the value of freedom for animals or you don't.
But to avoid the "naturalistic fallacy" let's perform an empirical, scientific experiment: let's keep you captive in a cage for several years, and see how you fare, and whether you find it alright afterwards. We'll also have a control group and everything of course, lest we mess up the experiment.
>Also, by the logic you're using, you can just as well say that possibly living in captivity is the lion's new nature. After all, humans are part of nature and our capturing of animals then is too.
In the lion's case, it's a nature imposed on them, so there's a difference. Just because we're all parts of nature doesn't mean we enjoy or thrive under everything that happens in nature: we wouldn't enjoy being eaten by lions or being kept captive in cages by higher sentient animals (e.g. aliens).
You’re right that enclosure size is mostly determined by business concerns rather than animal satisfaction. Practically speaking, however, the enclosures can rarely be large enough to completely suit an animal’s needs.
You are making a straw man argument.
There is no reading of their position for which this is a reasonable interpretation.
Except if you have in mind some huge zoos, where animals run, hunt, and explore a large area free, the parent's is a perfectly reasonable understanding of what the grandparent wrote, not a strawman.
>And members of the public may even have to put up with wild predators actually killed their food
Isn't it unethical in regards to "food"? Or are only animals at the top of the food chain deserving of "ethics"? Maybe it's more ethical to cage all the carnivores (it could be argued that meat-eating is unethical in itself), thus allowing a larger number of prey animals to roam free.
A theoretical zoo paradise could work, but such a zoo would look more like a wildlife refuge than what we're typically used it. And members of the public may even have to put up with wild predators actually killed their food, and not seeing some of the wildlife very often.
Most zoos have small enclosures for economic reasons, not because it is what the animals themselves need.