What are Tess Lemmon's main objections to zoos? Summarise them in your own words as a series of numbered points.
Philip Xiu 10SK ZOOOOOOH! 1. What are Tess Lemmon’s main objections to zoos? Summarise them in your own words as a series of numbered points. Tess Lemmon has a number of objections to zoos. From the dubious objection astutely and subtly planted in the text without making a direct objection to a more direct unreceptive and unsympathetic objection to the existence of the zoos of today. Here is a summary of the points, which Tess Lemmon has made. Zoos are immaterial in an era of people concerned with saving the endangered animals and saving the environment in which the animals and we live in, as the zoo is an unnatural environment for the allegedly wild animals.Zoos are only here today because of their so claimed educational, scientific, commitment to conservation purposes, zoos are not what they claim to be, they do not educate the public, they do not help researchers and the animals are not wild they are domesticated beasts which stand no chance in the wilderness. Although the zoos reject documentary films
they do not even get to the standard of the habitat of the animals and furthermore the zoos do not motivate people through their “educational day” out to think and do something about the natural plight of the animals.Zoos do not allow any natural and meaningful contact through their bars and concrete between the animals and the humans as it gives the wrong impressions. The only things that zoos can offer are concrete, shortage of space and bars. The only relationship and contact that the animals and the humans have are the relationship that they set as exhibit and visitor. ...
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they do not even get to the standard of the habitat of the animals and furthermore the zoos do not motivate people through their “educational day” out to think and do something about the natural plight of the animals.Zoos do not allow any natural and meaningful contact through their bars and concrete between the animals and the humans as it gives the wrong impressions. The only things that zoos can offer are concrete, shortage of space and bars. The only relationship and contact that the animals and the humans have are the relationship that they set as exhibit and visitor. Therefore it does not live up to the natural educational role it says that it has. The only sole reason for the existence of zoos and for our tolerance to it is our enjoyment in seeing animals, in seeing animals that we have never ever heard of, we go and see to be entertained, to have a good day out in the animal’s expense. And the relationship that they set is of spectator and performer.Therefore in relation to entertainment it goes hand in hand with pre-eminence, it is not surprising as zoos sprang up in the Victorian era as people could be entertained by the foreign conquests that were made in that time and the animals trained (stemmed from a desire to control, to tame) to become performer really, and it only shows that even now zoos strengthen the outdated ideals of supremacy and conquests.In accordance with conquests, the zoos of the past ‘s housing gave us enough clues of what zoos are a crime of, prejudice and ignorance as the monkeys living in fake temples and elephants living in mud houses. Another crime that zoos are guilty of are their inability or rather the deficiency of any challenge of the anthropomorphic view of which nearly all the people going into the zoos, and coming out with the same ideas from advertising hoardings, television and books.Zoos are probably most guilty of the fact that they reinforce the stereotypical view that humans are always the best and that animals are less superior to us, a rather fascist view, even though we, in scientific terms are classified as animals ourselves. We take pride in the fact that we are in power, we have tamed the animals, the animal is at our beck and call and that we have designed the concrete habitat in which the animal is living.The zoos do not teach us what the animal that they are; we only recognize them as animals that please us, things that we have known since the childhood days from books depicting them to be fierce beasts to now bringing them in to the zoo and not challenged in the ideas but rather sometimes to be persuaded even more so. The idea of the zoo not challenging the people with their stereotypical views is a dangerous as it leads us to question the effectiveness of the education of the public. In demeaning the animals we demean ourselves and it creates the wrong sort of atmosphere, with examples being wanting some form of recognition and in failing that the horrible animal brutality of banging on cages, pulling faces, challenges, teasing and insulting remarks. We in some cases are worse than animals and we should be in the cages instead of the animals.Zoos widen the gulf between animal and humans as the gorilla picks its nose or the hippo urinates, humans automatically compares them to humans and therefore we think that they are worse than they really are but animals do it naturally, and the humans in being ”superior” get caught up in conscience of knowing that the animals do it naturally but being “superior: they decide on the other route, the laughter towards the animal for the bad behaviour as if the animal is a kind of a baby.The worst thing that zoos manage to do is to demean animals, the animals although lives 2-3 times the length of its predecessors in the forests, though it has a boring life, one only sits in the cages all day- Tess makes a sharp, stinging sarcastic comment of that the tiger doesn’t even have to expend the energy of walking anywhere! And gets fed instead of the stimulating, exhilarating kill of hunting. The “ambassador to the wild” is no more than a thing, which is fun to look and to laugh at. The zoos rob it of its natural dignity, the animal is enclosed in a space not even suitable for people, it is worse than a prison as that we give to murderers and rapists and with their scenery and painted backgrounds zoos demean animals by making it, as it was a doll with its furniture and background.