Animal Zoos should preserve endangered species

Userneeds has asked our panel members what they see as animal zoos’ main purpose. The majority believe this to be preserving endangered species, however, to educate the public is also seen as an important purpose.

On February 9, 2014 "Marius" an 18 months old male giraffe was killed by Copenhagen Zoo because of a duty to avoid inbreeding.

After an autopsy, "Marius" was dismembered in front of a zoo audience that included children, and fed to the zoo's lions. Bengt Holst, scientific director at Copenhagen Zoo, said the kids were very interested and asked good questions. "We are here to educate people and that is a good way to show people what a giraffe looks like," he said.

The event sparked international outrage and became a social media sensation, where people argued for and against the killing of the giraffe. Since then not much attention have been given to the zoos, thus we started to wonder at Userneeds what our panel members think animal zoos' main purpose is.

The results show that the majority in all countries except for Norway believe zoos' main purpose to be preserving endangered species. In Ireland 41 percent think so, in Finland the same figure is 31 and finally 28 percent of Userneeds' Danish members and 36 percent of Userneeds' Swedish panel members think the main purpose is to preserve endangered species.

In Norway the majority believe the zoos' main purpose is to educate and enlighten the public (37 percent), this option is the second most popular amongst the Danish and Irish members and the third most popular amongst Userneeds' Finnish and Swedish members, who have "Family activity" as their second choice.

A few people in each country have also chosen the option "To entertain". This goes for less than 5 percent in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Ireland, however, in Finland 12 percent believe entertainment is the zoos' main purpose. Finally, many people also think the zoos' main purpose is to be a tourist attraction. 20 percent in Finland have chosen this option and between 9 percent (Ireland) and 14 percent (Sweden) have chosen this option in the remaining countries.