Increasing Legal Rights for Zoo Animals: Justice on the Ark

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We are on the precipice of momentous legal changes for animals that may soon give some of them rights of personhood and citizenship. Companion animals in particular are gaining rights to public representation in government, access to housing, inheritance, and increased protection through the criminal justice system. Nonhuman primates used as research subjects are also gaining limited rights of personhood in some countries. This book examines how zoo animals could benefit from that revolution as well. Reviewing zoo law and politics in the United States, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, scholars and zoo directors grapple with how the current law in those regions of the world impacts zoo animals and how it could be changed to serve them better. They discuss the ways in which zoo animals could benefit from some re-worked companion animal law in the United States; the challenges of reintroductions and their legal barriers; how we can extend ideas of human research subject rights to zoo animal research; the stark problems of too few animal welfare laws in South East Asia; the need for a central governing body focused solely on exotic captive animals in New Zealand; and the need for stricter laws preventing the exotic pet problem that is increasingly affecting both zoos and sanctuaries. The book starts a dialogue that moves the scholarship about zoos beyond a general discussion of ethics to a concrete dialogue and set of suggestions about how to extend legal rights to this group of animals.

Reviews

In the depths of the Anthropocene, we have a responsibility to take a critical look at the institutions that surround us,assessing their purpose, their sustainability, and theirethical integrity. This timely work does just that by peering into the zoological park, a multi-billion-dollar industry built around and upon animal inhabitants, ambassadors, and co-citizens. Increasing Legal Rights for Zoo Animals raises thought-provoking questions about thelives animals and thefuture of zoos in the twenty-first century. More important, its authorspresent a range of approaches to making the zoo a better place.Whether zoogoer or zoo critic, this collection is a must-read. -- Daniel Vandersommers, McMaster University
Earth is now a managed sanctuary. Wilderness is a relative status and is much diminished. Wildlife, wherever it survives, is necessary to our quality of life and yet it ispoorly protected. It is time that the one dominant species gets serious about protecting the other species. Zoo and aquarium animals are a significant part of bringing about these protections. These institutions need to be supported and improved, not ignored and closed. The essays in this book are timely and important contributions to our efforts to recognize the value of zoo and aquarium animals in the struggle to finally, and effectively, conserve our wildlife. They are essential reading for anyone interested in accomplishing these conservation efforts. -- Vernon Kisling, University of Florida
Justice on the Ark asks the difficult questions that are necessary as long as there are zoos and nonhuman animals in them. Professor Donahue's argument that wild zoo animals ought to be recognized as co-citizens, given the same rights as companion animals, and thought about as "wild public companion animals" is an important step forward in what is often an intractable debate between zoo advocates and opponents. This argument and others offered in the book make it an extremely valuable collection, a must-read for those involved in the zoo world and those who are critical of zoos and aquariums. -- Angela Fernandez, University of Toronto

Author Bio

Jesse Donahue is professor of political science at Saginaw Valley State University.