I hate all zoos, circuses and animal amusement parks, such as Sea World.

[DirkGently]

28. I think "enslave" is a bit too anthropomorphic a term.

You keep using it, so I'm thinking it's central to your thoughts here. I don't think it's entirely applicable.

It's true we're still learning the extent of intelligence among other species, and there's no question there are great depths of emotion and familial ties and "culture" in a lot of species. And there's no question cruelty is wrong.

But the inhabitants of the ant farms and bat houses are not composing essays on their years of cruel imprisonment "against their will." Their psychologies, however dignified and meaningful, are not the same as ours. They do not necessarily perceive living in a human-created habitat as "enslavement" any more than they they think of killing a competing animal's offspring as "infanticide" or chasing a weaker creature away from a meal as "stealing."

I've heard people suggest that domestic animals like dogs and cats and cows are "enslaved" as well. Do you think that's true? Does the cat in the windowsill, or the dog running in the backyard, who would likely run away if given a choice, resent her confinement the way a person captured and shackled would?

I think we can empathize with our fellow creatures, and understand that cruel treatment is an evil unto itself, without taking the added step of imagining that every species we encounter is imbued with exactly the same concerns about self-determination and free will that we have.

Animal intelligence is alien to ours. We learn more all the time about the complex needs of various animals -- for space, for familial and friendly contact, for stimulation -- but we are not the *same.* All creatures do not share all of our sensibilities or moral or philosophical imaginings. They live closer to basic survival than we do. A goat in a pasture with good food and water is probably a pretty happy goat. A spider in a well-appointed terrarium or a fish in a spacious aquarium is probably living as good a life as it could want. And in many cases, the world we have left them outside the enclosure is likely far less benign. No one poaches a captive rhino for its horn.

An Orca in a 35-ft deep tank, cut off from familial ties and forced to breed and perform? No. Big cats confined to a few dozen square yards, or great apes in cages or small enclosures? We know better now.

But "enslavement" is probably not the issue. Enslavement is a concept for people, concerned with motivations and freedom of choice and a lot of other ideas specific to our culture and our psyche. We know things the animals do not. We impact the world in ways they do not. We are in a position to study and protect and conserve and educate, and have responsibilties that do not concern the other creatures around us.

Our job is to be more aware and more sensitive and to be better caretakers of the world than we have been. If that means elephants "confined" to hundreds of acres in Tennessee, or captive breeding of the last handfuls of great cats, or trying to understand just exactly HOW smart apes or cetaceans are through experimentation and study, we need to do that, and not confuse their reality or ours with ideas drawn from our specific way of experiencing the world.

We are animals ourselves, but we are unique in our impact on the rest. They may be better than us in a number of ways. But we don't do them any favors imagining they think and feel exactly as we do. We have to try to do right by our environment, and it's far too late to approach that job by not interfering at all.