Science Fiction Today – Zoos

Zoos are a place where there are good things and bad things happening; some of it depends on the zoo that you visit. Progress keeps being made with zoos and the knowledge that we gain for how it is best to care for and treat these animals is constant.

There is some question of what will become of zoos in the future. There are already problems of animals only being available to even be seen in a zoo, but at the same time how much knowledge do we gain from zoos about animals and allowing people to be able to really see these animals up close in a safe environment? Some might say that zoos should disappear altogether because it is just encaging animals for our own amusement. Then there is some thought that with the advancement in technology, is there a point where we can interact with these animals in a virtual world that is just as good as real life? Meaning would the zoos as we know them really need to exist anymore?

Less Animals in the World

One of the big directions with zoos is the thought that the number of animals in the world will drop as humans keep trying to expand. In so many of the futures the landscape is bleak for the thought of the environment, which includes the animals.

It is not as though many of the stories that we read specifically look at what a zoo would be in these futures, but a lot of times if there are not animals anymore it can go a couple directions. At what point does the physical space that zoos take up be too much potentially? One direction is that we have less zoos in the world and that seeing a live animal either becomes a myth or something only for the rich. Who knows if zoos will even exist or if we will transform to small patches of land where we allow the animals to roam?

Virtual Zoos

The other thought is that we have somehow found a balance with the environment and with nature. There are people who question the effectiveness and the necessity of holding animals in cages, even in zoos. Also, the rate at which technology is growing there could be a day where we no longer need zoos to be able to see how an animal lives in the wild.

Part of the desire to keep zoos is to be able to educate people on the needs for these animals. At the same time there is only so much we can show with an animal in a cage. Some of the best things to experience is an animal in their natural habitat. With advances in virtual reality people could experience the animals without seeing them in real life. The technology is far off, but at the same time imagine an entirely virtual zoo where you feel like you are walking around a zoo on a sunny day seeing the animals!

This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge, and also part of our occasional series on Science Fiction Today. You can read an explanation of both here. We are striving to keep these posts short, and know that we have not covered every example or angle – plenty of room for discussion!