Zoo animals attack people

The argument

The ethical objection here concerns risk rather than confinement. There have been many instances where zoo animals have attacked trainers and civilians, causing serious injuries or death, and the argument's point is that these are not aberrations produced by negligence. Even when making great efforts to keep the animals and people safe, attacks still occur — which means the risk belongs to the arrangement itself rather than to how well a particular institution is run. The cases show how differently the failures arise. A 4-year-old boy ran into a gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, and the gorilla tossed the boy around until it was killed by the zookeepers — an incident that began with a child doing what small children do and ended with the animal destroyed for using the strength it has. A trainer at SeaWorld was killed by an orca that pulled her into the water, where she drowned; she was not a member of the public who had strayed somewhere but a professional working with an animal she knew, under conditions the institution had designed. And a toddler fell off an observation deck into the wild African dog exhibit and was immediately attacked and killed by the animals. Taken together the three cover the range of ways it can go wrong: a barrier crossed deliberately, an expert handler in a controlled setting, and an accidental fall. No single safety measure addresses all of them, because each failed at a different point in the system. That is why zoos can never be completely safe. Keeping powerful wild animals in proximity to the public leaves a residue of risk that no protocol eliminates, and people put themselves at risk each time they go. On this argument an institution that cannot make itself safe is one that should not exist.

Premises

Counter-arguments

All attacks by zoo animals are caused by human error. A majority of attacks occur when a person is in the animal's enclosure, within close proximity to the animal. The animal could feel threatened by having a person in their space, which provokes an attack. For example, a zookeeper was mauled by a tiger because the metal gate designed to isolate the animal was left open.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Humans provoke animal attacks. [Rejecting P3] Attacks at zoos rarely happen.