The Care of Culling Zoo Animals, and How It Can Open up New Speculative Futures of Care

By Maico Mariën

The culling of surplus animals, animals which are considered to exceed the required number, is a common practice in many zoos around the world (Parker). Usually, this is a practice about which many zoos are not as forthcoming, and the killings themselves are usually not publicized about in high numbers. However, there are a couple of prominent exceptions to this rule, such as the infamous case of the culling of Marius the Giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo. This event led to a major discussion on the goal and aims of the modern zoo, a discussion which one could say is still ongoing today. One thing it made especially clear, which is that there exists a significant gap between what the general public believes the care of animals in the zoo entails, versus the way the zoo actually cares for and considers its animals.

The aim of this paper is to investigate this discrepancy in further detail, in order to explore where this difference comes from, and how a new notion of care can be applied to the zoo to elucidate new ways of caring for zoo animals. Which will be done by first explaining the arguments from each side, to then move on to an analysis of the inherent power structures at play in both of them. These structures, “pastoral power” and “biopower” respectively, will then be compared. To show that these on first sight antithetical powers are actually very intertwined and interconnected. Finally, the act of killing an animal in a zoo will be looked upon as the opening of a new speculative space to rethink care in the zoo, by asking questions on how things could have been different. A speculative thinking made possible by using María Puig de la Bellacasa’s concept of “alterbiopolitics.”

The Killing of Marius the Giraffe and Public Reactions to It

As stated above, the killing of Marius the Giraffe was heavily publicized, and both opponents of the culling (animal activists, and a large part of the general public) and the zoo (and general proponents of the culling) were very vocal in their condemnation or defense of it.[1] The main argument for the culling of Marius was that the animal was not genetically valuable enough (Rincon). The lack of genetic diversity would heighten the chances of inbreeding in the general giraffe population of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). Members of EAZA, of which the Copenhagen Zoo is one, have a shared breeding agreement through which they can exchange animals, to strengthen the population of endangered animals in their zoos (Parker). Marius’s genes were already highly represented in this pool since his brother was already being used for breeding at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park (Rincon). That is why the zoo decided to put him down since a more unique specimen could better fill the space left by Marius’s passing. This was the scientific reason why Marius was killed. Furthermore, the culling also had its educational purposes, since the autopsy that followed the killing was conducted in public. According to Bengt Holst, the director of the Copenhagen Zoo, “schoolchildren can actually learn a lot from seeing this,” since they were able to get a look on the inside of the animal. Furthermore, children and adults can learn something about nature in ways previously unseen by them (Parker). According to Holst, the event also counteracted the “‘Disneyfication’ of nature,” which, according to him, is prevalent at many other zoos (Holst in Parker). Death is not glossed over but rather shown. Finally, the zoo rejected several alternatives, such as castration, due to the high risks in sedating a giraffe, and contraception, because of the damage it could cause to the female giraffes (Rincon). Also, it can be argued that being able to reproduce is vital for an animal and that the quality of life would be significantly diminished if it is unable to do so (Maple). Finally, it should be noted that the culling of Marius was special, because of the high media coverage it got, but that it certainly is not an isolated case, be it in Europe or the United States (Barnes; Parker).

This is the zoo’s side of the story. Opponents have a very different take on the killing of zoo animals. There was much emotional opposition to the killing, as Marius was a young and healthy animal, who could have lived a long life (Parker). According to Terry Maple, a manager at the San Francisco Zoo, the killing of Marius “is counterintuitive to the mission of the zoo community globally.” The zoo teaches their visitors about the conservation of animals and killing those same animals seems to prove the exact opposite. Abigail Levin echoes this point, arguing that the zoo tries to make each individual animal “special” in order to garner more attention to their conservative plight (3). This “specialness” creates a dissonance between the message of the zoo and the actual practices of the zoo. The “specialness” of a zoo animal entails, for Levin, that an animal, usually a large and charismatic animal, is imbued with individual uniqueness. This uniqueness can be brought on by naming the animal, mediating to the public with that name, and giving an animal a “quasi-personhood” (11-15).[2] This “quasi-personhood” is brought on by naming them, and it also opens the way for an emotional connection, or friendship, between the visitor and the animal (11-15). The emotional bond that follows should foster “pro-conservation beliefs” (Levin 17). This moral tension is why Levin argues that the killing of Marius was wrong, since the specific animal should weigh above the species. From an animal ethics point of view, one can also argue against the killing. According to Crystal Allen Gunasekera, one has a “prima facie” duty towards animals. This duty entails that one has a moral obligation not to kill animals, at least at face value, since animals can suffer, which is morally wrong and should be prevented (94-96). Gunasekera follows Peter Singer here, who argues that the capacity to suffer creates interests in animals, equal to those of humans, and that these interests should be taken into account when morally justifying actions against animals (Singer 7-9). Killing an animal on the grounds given by the Copenhagen Zoo would, according to Singer, be morally impermissible. Moreover, the killing of an animal deprives it of its future (Gunasekera 94-95). Furthermore, it can be claimed that animals have some moral rights, albeit weaker than those of humans (95-96).[3] Clearly killing an animal would deprive it of those rights. Moreover, Gunasekera argues that zoos have an extra duty to protect their animals since the zoos run and instigate the breeding programs (100). After all, if “a zoo chooses to allow its animals to mate, it must be willing to commit the resources to look after the well-being of the offspring and allow them to have relatively long and healthy lives” (Gunasekera 100). These are some ethical stances on why the killing of Marius, and other “surplus” animals, is morally wrong.

Inherent Contradiction?

These two views, of course, stand in direct contradiction to each other. However, they also point to a deeper misunderstanding between the zoo and the general public, which is about the duty, or care, the zoo has towards its animals. One can argue that the zoo, if the arguments in favor of culling are followed, has the species at large, and not the individual animal, in mind. Whereas, the opponents of the killings have the interests of each individual animal in mind when discussing the duty of the zoo. This creates a conflict, one which this paper wishes to explore in further detail, by mapping the power structures detailed in both approaches to the duty of the zoo. Since, as pointed out by Levi earlier, zoos propagate that they care for individual animals, so the public view is informed by the zoos willingness to do so. Therefore, it is interesting to see how the power of care and the power over the gene-pool are interlinked, to which the names of “pastoral power” and “biopower” will be connected. First, pastoral power will be discussed, to then move on towards the biopolitics (the systematization of biopower) in the zoo. In order to conclude that the two are not as different as may seem on first sight, but rather are very closely connected.

The Zoo as Shepherd

The power of care can be defined through what Michel Foucault has called “pastoral power.” According to Foucault, pastoral power is a power brought forth in the world through the introduction of Christianity by the Catholic Church, and this power was wielded by pastors “to assure individual salvation in the next world” (783). Important qualities of the “old pastoral power,” old as in “the ecclesiastical institutionalization,” or in other words, the Church, were that:

This form of power is salvation oriented (as opposed to political power). It is oblative (as opposed to the principle of sovereignty); it is individualizing (as opposed to legal power); it is coextensive and continuous with life; it is linked with a production of truth—the truth of the individual himself. (783)

Pastoral power was directed in getting, and guiding, people to the Christian afterlife. This was an individual task, which had to be done through a certain way of living, a living towards the truth. Or, to put it differently, the priest exerted a power which was guiding and caring in nature, since this was the nature and the goal of Catholicism, which can be compared to the shepherd guiding the flock. It differs from “sovereign power” in that “pastoral power” prepared for sacrifice. One must be willing to sacrifice herself in order to save the group. Whereas, “sovereign power” commands this sacrifice from the sovereign’s subjects. However, the function of pastoral power has spread outside of Catholicism towards the state (783). The state, just as the priest, also cares for its inhabitants, making sure that they are healthy and happy. This is also done on an individual basis (784). Think only of certain health care organizations, which monitor the health of the population and whose job it is to maintain it. They do this through individual assessment of people, which they track and monitor when their health is atypical compared to the rest of the population. It is not a large step to also see this kind of power being used on the animals by the institution of the zoo, even though Foucault himself never made the step to include nonhumans in his notion of “pastoral power” (Wadiwel 110). This definition of power is what the opponents, and probably some zoos, believe the zoos should wield.

Biopolitics at the Zoo

As can already be gleaned from Holst’s arguments in favor of the culling, the care of the zoo is not entirely focused on the individual animal. As the case of Marius shows, the highest priority is given to the survival of the entire species, or at least the species that are incorporated in the breeding programs of the association the zoos are part of. This care is beyond the scope of pastoral power, instead it could be said that what the zoos are exerting here is a power derived from their biopolitics. This is again a Foucauldian concept, and it involves “a set of processes such as the ratio of births to deaths, the rate of reproduction, the fertility of a population, and so on” (Foucault, Society Must Be Defended 243). It is not the individual citizen anymore which biopolitics deals with, instead objects now stand in for those citizens, such as the numbers in statistics (243). The numbers which statistics provide are a substitute for each individual citizen. This is also what is currently happening at the zoo, and it can especially be applied to the role zoo animals play in international breeding programs. It negates the individual animal, and instead posits something else, such as genetics, in its place, usually informed by scientific models. As Matthew Chrulew puts it: “the discourse of the ‘postvital’ life sciences of genetics and molecular biology, the somewhat nebulous object of ‘species’ is provided with a remarkable coherence and efficacy as ‘life’ (and its extinction and protection) is relocated to the virtual zone of information” (Chrulew 147-148). The animal does not exist anymore, instead its being has been relocated to a different plane—and has become information. In this way, the caring for animals in the zoo became more a scientific enterprise than anything else. Animals were thoroughly researched to make their stay at the zoo as close to their ‘nature’ as possible (Chrulew 144).

Furthermore, the caring of zoo animals, in an age of mass extinction, is ultimately bound up with conserving them (Chrulew 141).[4] In order to conserve one has to keep track of the genetic diversity of the animals, since inbreeding could cause massive health problems across the whole zoo-bred population. Furthermore, the catching of new animals is currently frowned upon, so zoos have to get by with the current population being held by all the zoos (Chrulew 138). While biopolitics, and the breeding programs of the zoos, have as their main aim the creation and flourishing of new life, they are also ultimately bound up with death, as the case of Marius exemplifies (Chrulew 139-141). Science has a certain idea of what nature is and entails, and therefore what is good for an animal in zoos, which in their turn try to mimic nature as closely as possible. When the creation of new life is deemed more natural than sterilization or contraception, even though there is a surplus of certain animals, then the zoos, at least those aligned with the EAZA, will follow that model (Maple). Of course, the surplus animals have to be dealt with due to restrictions on space and resources, and one way to do this is by killing those animals. It could be argued that this is still an infringement on the ‘naturalness’ of the zoo. Thus, at its core biopolitics deals with death, as well as with life.

Cloaked Violence

It seems that biopolitics and pastoral power are directly opposed to each other, such as the positions outlined in the Marius debate were. However, as outlined above, the zoo exerts and practices both pastoral power and biopower. So, in what way are these two conceptions of power interlinked? According to Dinesh Wadiwel, the violence, which is so clearly apparent in the reduction of biopolitics, of care in pastoral power has been forgotten because care is usually associated with the possible love through which it is enacted. There is nevertheless a certain brutality inherent in the care of (zoo) animals and humans, for example those cared for in psychiatric units and retirement homes; since pastoral power “encloses and demarcates the relationship between shepherd and animal, a relationship of domination” (112). To care for a being is to exert a difference between one and that being, since a being possibly ‘needs’ to be cared for and you can give it. In other words, care is an “affective concern,” something that calls to you to care for it (Puig de la Bellacasa 163-164). Furthermore, this relationship always “maintains some form of instrumentalisation that guides this practice of pastoral power” (Wadiwel 112). For example, the animals in the zoo are instrumental for that zoo to exist, since they are their primary source of revenue, be it through the funding they get through their breeding programs, or through the entrance fee visitors pay to see the animals themselves. This is also echoed in the Feminist tradition of care. According to María Puig de la Bellacasa, care is never innocent, and this is inherent to the care of nonhumans:

Far from being an innocent activity, care in nature-cultures cannot be purged from its predicaments: for example, the tendency to pastoral paternalism, the power it gives to care takers, and the unequal depletion of resources it implies in existing divisions of labor and exploitation of nonhumans and humans (164).

This inequality means that the care for nonhumans, and of course also for some humans, is asymmetrical in nature. Puig de la Bellacasa also posits that killing can be a form of care (164). This aspect of care, and pastoral power, usually remains hidden.

This leads Wadiwel to ask himself the following question: what if “the pastoral model of power is essentially about deception; that is, a technology of careful violence that hides a brutal instrumentality within a logic of beneficence? A means of covering war with peace?” (114). To Wadiwel this question can be answered by stating that: pastoral power, and in extension care, has this inherent violence to it. Especially in the zoo, where care means regulating “every need of the animal—dietary, territorial, social, behavioural and sexual—exercising total management of their lives, from birth and prior to death and beyond” (Chrulew 144). And what is this, if not closely connected to biopolitics? Where biopolitics deals with abstractions, pastoral care deals with concrete individuals, but both are informed by each other. The population of a species is made up of members of that species, and in order to maintain that population the members must not die for the population to survive and vice versa. In the zoo one is cloaked by the other. The biopolitical side, and the violence inherent to care is something the public is not shown. Instead, the zoo shows how the animals are happy, it focuses on the bonds between keepers and animals, and on how their institutions are vital to the eradication of extinction. These traits of the zoo are shown in their extreme in the case of the polar bear Knut (Engelhard 19-29), and they are painfully revealed in the event of the killing of Marius.

Mediating the Conflict

It has become apparent that both sides in the debate around Marius exhibit different views on what a zoo should do and what its ultimate purpose is. Holst, the director of the Copenhagen Zoo, did not take into account how care was perceived by the public, and other people inside the zoo. Or maybe he did but did not care about it (Parker). Even at the Copenhagen Zoo, however, and probably many other zoos with the same practices, the image is still that the zoo is a place where Disney and real life come together, as evident by the fact that the Copenhagen Zoo “sells toys, surrenders to fairy-tale opinions about the preëminence of certain species, and creates fantasy habitats; the Copenhagen Zoo has placed thatched huts next to an icy field and called the area ‘Africa’” (Parker). The condemning reactions from the public to the killing of Marius seem to be a direct reaction to this view. Nevertheless, the opponents of the killing exhibit a naive idea of the care that is going on around the zoo. The culling was not in direct conflict with the message of the zoo, one could argue it was even an act of care, and as part of a species the “specialness” of Marius was not so special. Finally, a normative idea of the treatment and care of animals, as argued by, for example, Gunasekera, seems hard to maintain when a zoo is both obliged to care for the population as for the individual animals themselves. These two seem in direct conflict, but there should be a continuous mediation between the two, when one wants to maintain both the animal and the species. Therefore, a new ethics of care should be created, which is non-normative, and can change when the need arises. One model to offer this is Puig de la Bellacasa’s notion of “alterbiopolitics.”

Alterbiopolitics

“Alterbiopolitics” is informed by the practices of the “permaculture movement,” which is an ecological organization promoting care of the earth through the mantra “‘care of earth,’ ‘care of people,’ ‘return of the surplus’” (Permaculture movement as cited in Puig de la Bellacasa 125). This gave Puig de la Bellacasa the opportunity to think in a speculative non-normative way about an ethics of care, which remains closely connected to the matters at hand. Furthermore, the “permaculture movement” sets the human in a system with the earth and its other inhabitants, which means that the human is not at the center anymore (129). Or in other words, “permaculture ethics is an attempt to decenter human ethical subjectivity by not considering humans as masters or even protectors of but as participants in the web of Earth’s living beings” (129). It is more about interconnections, than about domination (141). It also distributes ethics, and care, across a wider plain. Not just humans can care, but other nonhuman beings can care as well. Puig de la Bellacasa uses the example of a worm taking care of the soil to illustrate this (146-147). Furthermore, it has to be noted that care is something highly personal, as also was stated in the discussion of pastoral power. However, keeping the phrase “the personal is political” in mind, Puig de la Bellacasa is able to state that what one does, and what one cares or not cares for, is also political (135). In extension to that need, “personal ethico-political practices of change” need to be “rethought as collective” (139). Each personal action undertaken can have an effect on a larger scale, or at least an affirmation or negation of a political belief, especially now when humankind is facing enormous ecological challenges.

Also, as stated before, Puig de la Bellacasa wants to think ethics in a non-normative way, since thinking normatively can close off many paths and contributions, whereas, a non-normative approach can leave many paths open (142). Furthermore, Puig de la Bellacasa’s ethics of care are speculative in nature, where possible worlds and futures are at stake (148). Finally, there remains a question what such an ethics of care could obligate people to do. Obligations, for Puig de la Bellacasa, are not something that comes from the outside, as would be the case in normative ethics, rather it is about what becomes “necessary to the maintaining and flourishing of a relation through processes of ongoing relations” (154). Meaning that it is about closeness, to seeing what the (non)human now needs and how one is able to care, or not care, for it. It can change, since what is necessary to maintain those relationships can change as well. Thus, the ethical obligation of care is that “it pertains to modes of maintenance, repair, and continuation of life through ecological practices that unsettle traditional binaries” (155). They are also ethical in the sense that one cannot force them upon someone, instead one takes an obligation towards a (non)human. This obligation is asymmetrical, as in that the being one obliges to care for cannot necessarily be in a position to reciprocate that care (156). To sum it up, an ethics of care is more about a calling with which one tries to engage (156-157).

So, where does (alter)biopolitics figure in this ethics of care? “Alter” as used in this instance, means: “a way of confronting biopowers by creating different forces of world-making relationalities” (165). It places traditional, or contemporary, forms of biopolitics against a different context, against, for example, the context of the “permaculture movement.” By starting with care, through the individual, one is able to change the biopolitics over the collective, since the personal and the political are closely intertwined with each other (166). These alternatives can invoke in people a will to care through the “affective potency” which care possesses (166). This “affective potency” is the joy that people feel when caring, or the need that they feel to care. Through this “affective potency” individuals are able to change, and influence, (bio)politics. By imaging new ways to life, to care, and to act (166-167). Moreover, this imagination is not just aimed at humans, but at all living beings, from the awareness that nonhumans, just as humans, are targeted by the “bio” of “biopolitics,” by virtue of being both biological beings who can be governed on a population level. This ontological levelling does not mean that we all share the same responsibility, some beings are reliant on human care, but that should not mean that one should not include these beings in their moral circle. To summarize, “alterbiopolitical interventions are about working within bios with an ethics of collective empowerment that puts caring at the heart of the search of transformative alternatives that nurture hopeful thriving for all beings” (167). It is a search for viable alternatives from the point of view of not just humans, but also nonhumans.

Conclusion

The question remains how an alterbiopolitical intervention, through an ethics of care, could be applied to the zoo, and specifically, to the case of killing zoo animals. Such an intervention would make certain that the zoo has to take a new approach in their care of animals, since in such an intervention their practices should be informed not just by the human sciences, but by the animals the zoo they themselves keep. In such an intervention, it has to think about its own viability, and whether the life and death they impose on the animals they keep in cages are in the interest of the animals, or if it is in the interest of the zoo as an institution. Speculating about these new futures, and zoos, informed by Puig de la Bellacasa’s ethics of care could be a constructive way to reform the zoo in a place that does not exist through the contradiction of individual animals and specimens. This is why, a speculation like this could have deep impacts on the role zoos expect themselves to play in today’s world.

Notes

[1] Culling and killing have each a very different connotation inherent to them. Culling is directly related to planned selection (“Cull”), whereas, killing seems to be more random regarding the choice of the victim and puts more emphasis on the act of putting an entity to death (“killing”). This paper will, therefore, from now on try to refrain from using the word culling, due to its inherent connection to human superiority over animals. It will only try to use it in cases where it adds to the point being made, such as when discussing the proponents’ side of the debate and in the upcoming discussion of “biopower” and “biopolitics,” due to its connection to these terms.

[2] It should be noted that the Copenhagen Zoo only referred to the culled giraffe as ‘Marius’ in private, and that the name was never made public by the zoo itself. Instead, it was leaked during the media coverage of the culling. Marius was, by the staff of the Copenhagen Zoo, also only referred to as “the giraffe” in the media (Parker). So while it can be argued that Levin has a point, it should be emphasized that the public naming of the zoo animals is not a standard practice of, at least, the Copenhagen Zoo.

[3] The argument that animal rights are weaker than human rights is usually based on the psychological capacities of the animals in question. Generally, animals do not have the same capacity as humans and, therefore, cannot enjoy the same rights as humans (Gunasekera 95-96). Gunasekera follows the argumentation of Mary Anne Warren 166-170 in this regard; for a contrasting view, see chapter eight in Tom Regan.

[4] Another interesting angle is the effectiveness of the final goal of these conservation practices, which is reintroducing those animals in the wild. This has become increasingly difficult due to both habitat loss, and the extinction in the wild of the species that are being reintroduced (Chrulew 146). Also, a lot of the survival skills animals need are learned in the wild, whereas animals in the zoo are unable to learn them properly (Chrulew 151). A discussion on what this means for the practices of the zoo is beyond the scope of this paper, however; for this, see Chrulew 151-152.

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