Q&A 7, Answer

My question is: Is the focus that Jamieson's and the Defence of Zoos articles place on benefits (as they outweigh, or fail to outweigh, the harms) of zoos the right path to take in this discussion, or would a focus on the level of harm be more productive?  How much harm do zoo animals sustain from captivity independent of any other factors (such as abuse or obviously improper facilities)?

I think that such a focus would be much more productive.  Both articles seem to be assuming, right from the start, that they know that amount of harm caused by confining animals in zoos - and I think that they assume different levels of harm.  This makes it difficult to set them directly against one another, since they are actually working off of different baselines.  Before one can begin to determine whether it is just to hold animals in zoos, one must determine how much harm doing so causes, since that determines, in turn, how much justification, if any, is necessary.  If imprisoning animals in zoos causes severe and irreparable harm to them, then I think it is extremely likely that no justifications for the existence of zoos exist.  If, however, zoos cause relatively little harm, or no harm at all, to their animal occupants, then little if any justification is necessary.

As for the second portion of my question, I think that it varies extremely widely depending on the animal.  Jellyfish, crickets, and beta fish probably sustain essentially no harm from being confined.  In fact, the latter two may benefit from it.  They are protected from predators, and their environments, while smaller, are still more than big enough for the range of movement they usually prefer.  I do not know if I can legitimately say that jellyfish benefit from confinement, since I am not sure that jellyfish are sentient at all, and as such whether they can benefit from anything.

Humpback whales, caribou, and geese, on the other hand, may be seriously harmed by confinement.  These animals are migratory, and as such have a very large range in their natural environments.  I am not sure how much the limiting of range affects them (geese, for example, may migrate purely out of practicality and as such derive no harm from the removal of the ability and necessity to migrate, although I am far from certain of that.  Humpback whales are quite a different story.  They usually travel in groups, and many aquariums and zoos deprive them of that state, since whales are very large and a full group might not fit in any tanks the institutions possess.  Furthermore, I would guess that they do, to at least some extent, value their ability to migrate and move about over a great area.  Thus, confining them probably causes them great harm, and so is almost definitely unjustified.