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Full-Text Articles in Nature and Society Relations
Is There A Place In The World For Zoos? / Another View Of Zoos, David Hancocks, Richard Farinato
Is There A Place In The World For Zoos? / Another View Of Zoos, David Hancocks, Richard Farinato
State of the Animals 2001
We human animals make rapid technological and cultural advancements because we have the ability to pass definitive information to succeeding generations. But we also accept too much from the past without challenge. The good, the bad, and the indifferent are muddled together, accumulating in layers that smother each succeeding age. Cultural mores ranging from the silly to the profane, from charming to dangerous, clutter our world. They exist only because, as the British are wont to say, “We have always done things this way.” One very troubling example is the public zoological parks found in almost every city: they are …
Urban Wildlife, John Hadidian, Sydney Smith
Urban Wildlife, John Hadidian, Sydney Smith
State of the Animals 2001
Despite the potential for difficulty, there are several reasons why urban wildlife should be valued and better understood. First is its scientific and heuristic value. Urban wildlife populations are essentially parts of ongoing natural experiments in adaptation to anthropogenic stress. How urban animals are affected by human activities— and how they cope with them— can represent, on a highly accelerated scale, a model of what is happening to species in other biomes. No other wild animals live in such intimate contact and under such constant constraint from human activities as do synanthropes. Second, urban animals are exposed to many environmental …