Should there be a human exhibit at the zoo?

The zoo is for animals, so no.

I’m all for it. We can begin to cull the population!

Sounds good. Humans are animals too.

I’m not sure they should be voluntary. Seems unfair to the other animals. Maybe they should be humans who might not do well if allowed to roam free.

I would sign up in a minute to be part of the human display . . . just sayin’

Shit, I’d live in a zoo as display, that would rock lol.

Realistically speaking…how much would we really get to know about the human in a zoo? Being confined, and all that solitude would eventually drive them mad, I think. We might learn a lot about psychology this way. But humans usually don’t live that way, so we’d learn about psychological anomalies, rather than how a human, as we know it, lives. (unless you gave him or her something that resembles a modern state of life, rather than set the human in a primitive environment, which is what I’m imagining from this question) The point of a zoo is to represent the animal in its natural habitat, even if it’s a simulation…sometimes I wonder if we get the proper presentation of the animals themselves, probably not too much. An eagle is meant to fly, and a tiger is meant to hunt. :/
But then, perhaps I’ve the meaning of a zoo wrong, I guess it’s there to show all sorts of animals, instead of showing us how they are in the wild. A human could be a reasonable addition as any, depending on beliefs, in this case. I wouldn’t advocate that, but then, I don’t really like zoos to begin with, even if most of the animals they pick up, apparently, are ones that would have died in the wild, otherwise.

To put this issue in perspective, try to see the documentary, Project Nim, that was just released.

It’s the story of an initially adorable baby chimp, christened Nim Chimpsky, who is introduced into a noisy, fractuous and undisciplined household during the 1970’s. He is taught sign language and treated like a cute baby.But as he grows and matures and evolves into…surprise…a 500 lb. male chimp, the scientists and handlers abandon him to grim times and treatment.

I would happily cage the humans who behaved so shamefully.

No.

Potentially there already is one. People are the exhibit located outside all the other exhibits. Maybe the whole zoo is a people exhibit, including the animal cages. Depends how you look at it.

Oh Yes! They should have their food thrown in their cages, give the humans straw to sleep on, and allow visitors to bang on their enclosure, as they do at my local zoo with the Bonobos.

Do we get to fling feces at the public? If so, I have several friends who might be interested…

@gorillapaws…you don’t need to be in a zoo to do that…>_>

Every month take a select number of inmates from a different prison and put them in a zoo exhibit. It would certainly create a lot of hype as a new exhibit.

They could have them in there doing really cool stuff that people do. Like a jazz band one day!

Or a satellite stock market trading station.

A lot of the people I see walking around the zoo ARE the exhibit! lol

Are you sure what side of the glass you are on? Seems like it all depends on how you define the asylum.

It should only be the very rare human of true integrity on display as a representation of it’s endangered species status.

Can I just sleep? Big cats gotta sleep ya know.

Some humans are hardly distinguishable from non sentient beings so why not?

The zoo is for animals, so yes, if we are trying to be fair. Of course I don’t condone animal prisons, so no thanks to zoos as a whole. Give the money to David Attenborough instead.

Can I put my brother in the zoo? :D

You’ve heard of ‘people watching’ ? You don’t even have to build a park or cage to observe them in their natural habitat.. You can see people eating, sleeping, and carrying on their daily activities. Just go where people congregate. There’s no admission fee.

but just think of the habitat we could build if we did have an admission charge??!?!

No thank you. It sounds like something out of Slaughterhouse 5 or 1984, or perhaps it was both.

Zoos no longer provide the enjoyment that they once did, now that television and the internet exist. The efforts of naturalists who desire to assist in maintaining the habitat of animals, be it human or any other species, is much more admirable.

Zoos still provide the entertainment they did before. I remember the first time that I behold a rhino. I had seen tons of them on TV programs, but when I saw it at the Toronto Zoo, I was in awe.

Why bother? We’ve got the fluther zoo right here.

Let’s call it “the Mall”. Oh, wait, there are Malls in every city. hahahaha

[mod says] This is our Question of the Day!

Some zoos e.g. the Singapore Night Safari try to present animals in as natural a setting as possible & provide night tours to allow visitors to view animals that come out to feed at night. I suppose an equivalent would be a human safari i.e. to show humans in as natural a setting as possible – but then again, we already have that through tourism when we travel to visit other places and cultures, right?

I think the only way I’d look at that is if there was a pedophile in the tiger cage.

It’s called the modern office cubicle layout.

Yes, I volunteer. I would love to be able to live at the expense of other people.

I look like an animal so I’d volunteer.

Maybe we are the human exhibit when we are at the zoo!

@Ltryptophan you might be right!

That could be a way to pay off the cost of human prisons. Put them on display as a warning to others.