Why do I have to pay to see the animals?
Muriel Arnal: Today, in zoos, animals are products: it is a place of pleasure and entertainment for the public.
Baptiste Mulot: If we want to fund conservation programs, associations and governments, we need money. This money comes from visitors, catering, the store. And the more visitors there are, the more money there is.
Are the enclosures adapted to the needs of the animals?
Muriel Arnal: The facilities are made to amaze visitors. The animals are completely in the background.
Baptiste Mulot: Today, there are many zoos with very natural enclosures, where the animal is hardly visible. And even in less natural zoos, we always think of the enclosure according to the well-being of the animal but also, of course, according to the visitor.
Are zoos advancing research?
Muriel Arnal: Zoos help advance research on captive animals, not free wild animals. If we want to do research on free animals, we will observe them in nature.
Baptiste Mulot: Both wilderness study and zoo study are important, because you don’t study the same things. In the wild, we study population movements, group interactions, feeding methods … In a zoo, we learn the methods of movement, the means of interaction, the means of communication.
Is reintroduction into the wild possible?
Muriel Arnal: When you want to put an animal back in the wild, you need extremely specific conditions, without any contact with humans. It is not by keeping them in captivity that we will save them.
Baptiste Mulot: Reintroductions are not impossible: we have reintroduced gorillas, Andean condors, Java langurs … Przewalski’s horse, which no longer existed in the natural environment, has been reintroduced thanks to zoological parks. Today we have a population of a few hundred individuals in the natural environment. On the other hand, it is complicated and that is why it is not necessarily the work of zoos.