What could possibly be wrong with taking your child to an aquarium? It seems like an innocent enough pleasure. Most children love watching exotic fish swimming behind glass, seahorses, sharks, rays, jellyfish, and turtles. A visit to the aquarium is a mixture of entertainment and education, and seems much less morally dubious than going to a zoo to gorillas, and probably much better than playing point-and-shoot video games.
True, recent publicity about the US theme park chain SeaWorld and the treatment of orcas make it clear that some aquariums step over the line when it comes to the humane treatment of aquatic animals. While the argument has been won for orcas, the moral situation for the other marine animals remains murky. New dolphinariums are opening around the world- dozens in china, but also in the United States, Thailand and Kazakhstan, with plans for more in Poland, Cyprus and Turkey- though nit all dolphinariums put their animals to work.
But what’s the problem with an aquarium that concentrates on fish rather than marine…show more content… Yet if a trip to the aquarium is supposed to be educational, it’s unclear what can be learnt about how fish actually live in the wild from viewing them in such unnatural circumstances. A documentary film would be much better.
Still, given the alternatives, isn’t this a relatively harmless way of passing the time? Not really. Certainly, an aquarium is nothing like a bullfight: there is no deliberate cruelty involved, and a well-kept aquarium focuses on the welfare of the fish. Why single out aquariums for this sort of criticism? However, even if the animals are well-treated, there are further hidden issues we should care