Our Wild World

I’ve just returned from a conference on Captive Wildlife by the Performing Animal Welfare Society, PAWS: 3 days filled with eye opening education on the cascades of its resultant issues. Today’s conversation will touch upon all that lives under the big top umbrella of captive animals: from wild caught to breeding to stress and veterinary issues; from zoo vs. sanctuary; and the legal battles from defense to rights and welfare to personhood. Facts: humans keep and breed exotic animals for captivity. Why? The answers and justifications surrounding this tower of power are as astonishing as they are layered, and multi-faceted in what it says about us- their captors. What we have done, could, and have the ability to, do. Ultimately the conference reinforced the point that we humans have some serious ethical adjustments to make, much to be learned about how we behave, and what we value- because of living with non-human beings.