I don't see how I am putting human emotions on anything. Putting human emotions on animals is bringing them into zoos. If people didn't care about animal's in the case of some zoos having that is their purpose, then there WOULDN'T be zoos. Lmao. If Joe Vet didn't care about the fact that they just found an orphaned tiger cub and it will die unless they take it in, that would be nature running its course. Bringing it into a zoo is HUMAN EMOTION. Don't you get what I am saying? They don't make the decision, we do.
Since I am so off my rocker Vet, explain to me how having a polar bear in an outdoor enclosure in a city that reaches temps of 95 degrees + for weeks on end, is smart/humane?
Joe Vet? LOL.
I never said you were off your rocker. I'm discussing your opinions with you because I'm curious where you are coming from.
As far as the polar bear goes.... I will be the first to say that there are zoos keeping animals in inappropriate climates. A good example are elephants in northern zoos where they have to be inside on concrete through months of the year because of harsh weather. Polar bears are another example....to a point.
You need to consider adaptability of the species. I've got photos and video somewhere of cockatoos from an aviary I worked with in Ohio playing in the snow. The birds were given free access to the outside, they would go out and play and play and play and when they got chilled, go back in through their access hole into the warm inside and warm up. Then they'd go back out and play. Umbrella cockatoos are NOT a cold weather avian species, yet they did this year after year without problems.
The thing you need to consider with your bear example---which by the way, polar bears were NOT a hot topic at all until the whole global warming bandwagon started, the morning news reported over and over again that the species would be extinct, and the animal rights nuts went apeshit at the baby in Europe. I gaurantee you that the majority of the people who go to zoos wouldn't have made even the slightest polar bear argument without this media coverage. Think about it, Brown Bears share an overlapping habitat (northern most range of Brown, southern most of Polar----average temperatures very, very similar) No one says anything about those bears.
Now with the bear example you need to consider is the water moving and is it chilled? Is there access to an indoor chilled area? Are the bears times limited outside in that "extreme' (for a human) heat? Is the bear showing signs of heat stress? How is the zoo dealing with that heat stress? Is it effective? Those questions all need to be answered in my opinion before you can make the blanket statement that "polar bears shouldn't be in that climate".
Now, if the answer is the exhibit has mimimal water access, that isn't chilled, the sun shines down on it 2/3 of the day, and the bear shows signs of heat stress anytime the weather gets over 90F, the keepers hose the bear off without any cooling fans or ice misters to facilitate evaporative cooling, then yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly that that zoo shouldn't have polar bears.
Does that make sense? Basically I'm saying human nature is to change the environemnt. We've already done a great job of fucking things up. Its our responsibility to deal with those fuckups.