What's the collective noun for zoos?

Posted in: Comment, News and Updates

I wondered about this as I was browsing the recent flush of 'zoos are a problem – but we love them' stories in the media.  According to Wiktionary, there isn't such a term – yet.  But I think that NAEE might just have suggested a promising one.

Their recent blog suggests 'ambivalence' which is a nice even-handed, even neutral sort of term.  I'd have suggested something stronger myself – incarceration, perhaps – as I have little time for the half-truths about their role in conservation that zoos routinely tell the trusting folk who give them money.  Of course, it is the case that animals are physically much safer in zoos than outside – a point made with some force by a character in Peter Hœeg's The Woman and the Ape – and the best of care is often available, until, that is, animals become surplus to genetic requirements when fatal eugenic force can swiftly be brought to bear.  It's a tough life whether you're inside or outside the cage.

I think, 'ambivalence' might do nicely, as this seems to capture the prevailing mood.

 

Posted in: Comment, News and Updates

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