Conservation Education Quotes

“Even if we accept their claims for the educational potential of zoos at face value, study after study has shown that zoos fail miserably at this task. As one author notes, 'A study of observation periods at Regent’s Park in 1985 revealed that spectators stood in front of the monkey enclosure for an average of 46 seconds, and spent 32 minutes in a pavilion containing a hundred cages. Rather than indicating thorough examination, this is reminiscent of the speed at which television programmes, and even works of art in museums, are consumed.' This 46 seconds includes time spent reading—or rather skimming—the information posted about the animals. Further, while 80 percent of zoo visitors claim to have learned something at the zoo, studies have shown that even after their visit patrons remain ‘less sensitive to the need to respect nature' than hikers. Further still, inquiry after inquiry has revealed that even while patrons are in the zoo, standing directly in front of the animals in question, they consistently fail even rudimentary nomenclature questions: they still call gibbons and orangutans monkeys; vultures buzzards; cassowaries peacocks; toucans fruitloop birds; tigers lions; otters beavers; and so on.”
― Derrick Jensen, Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos