Customer Reviews

The Welfare Ark: Suggestions for a Renewed Policy for Zoos

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I entirely agree with the praise by Jane Goodall, Marc Bekoff, Mary Midgley and Stephen Bostock. Margodt has performed an inspiring act of research. The Welfare Ark is a highly informative and intelligible text that can be recommended to anyone concerned about animal welfare and species conservation. Margodt's writing reflects on biodiversity threats and welfare conditions of zoo animals. Within this framework, he questions the indispensability of zoos. He gives elaborate evidence for his standpoint that zoos must be regarded as a last resort. He concludes his solid argumentation with an innovative proposal to adopt a policy that integrates both species preservation and individual animal welfare in all of its aspects. The Welfare Ark should be deemed very useful as a starting point for interesting debate on zoo related matters. Whatever one's position in the zoo debate, this book contains interesting argumentations and many relevant facts on zoos, animal welfare and wildlife issues!

Margodt presents the results of his ten year inquiry into the ethical implications of zoos. He carefully weighs the arguments for and against zoos, without denying the intentions actuating his research: concern about the welfare of animals as individuals, not merely as a species. The book is well-informed, subtly argued, and accessively written. I strongly recommend it to anyone concerned with the question of animal welfare.