Captivity

Cannot consider "captivity" as a privileged category that resolves into a neat captive/free binary or a gradient. Need to take into account broader relationality.

Possible key tension:

How can we recognise and promote beneficial coculture and codependence without allowing relational language to conceal coercion, property relations and the unequal power dynamics?

Cf.

• Animal
• Domestication
• Pet
• Companionship, friendship, kinship
• Husbandry
• Vassal animals
• Prey/predator relationships
• Care
• Domination, oppression, exploitation
• Liberation, abolitionism, emancipation
• Self-determination, autonomy, agency

See also: Relations, Multispecies Cohabitation, Paternalism, Rights, Zoo, Companion Animals, Critical Animal Studies, Animal Studies, Freedom, Justice, Participation, Representation, Power, Thriving, Health.

Relational Profile

Consider several lumpy and partially independent gradients:

• Coercion: imposed control and inability to refuse.
• Dependency: reliance on another for the conditions of life.
• Agency: capacity to initiate, choose, negotiate and withdraw.
• Reciprocity: mutual responsiveness and distribution of benefits.
• Institutional asymmetry: unequal legal, economic and epistemic power.
• Flourishing: opportunities to develop individual and species-related capabilities.
• Historical responsibility: obligations generated by capture, breeding, domestication or habitat destruction.
• Collective belonging: participation in animal, human or multispecies communities.
• Reparative orientation: whether care merely maintains captivity or attempts to redress harms.
• Transformability: whether animals can modify the terms of the relationship.

As an example, this makes several combinations discernible:

• High dependency, high agency: a companion animal in a responsive household.
• High care, low agency: an intensively managed zoo animal.
• High constraint, reparative purpose: an unreleasable animal in a credible sanctuary.
• High mobility, high dependency: a free-roaming but provisioned urban animal.
• Low direct confinement, high structural domination: wildlife living in fragmented, polluted or intensively managed landscapes.

Complementary Methodological Aspects

• Experiential: what this animal appears to feel, want, avoid and enjoy.
• Relational: what humans and animals (as well as other beings) make possible in one another.
• Structural: who controls territory, resources, reproduction, representation and death.

Frameworks for Representative/Illustrative Settings

Sites and settings vary:

• Exclusion areas to protect wildlife from introduced predators, disease or human disturbance.
• Animal hospitals.
• Pounds, shelters and rescue centres.
• Zoos, aquaria and wildlife parks.
• Sanctuaries.
• Companion animals in households, farms and workplaces.
• Wildlife in urban, agricultural and industrial landscapes.
• Working animals in kennels, stables, farms and laboratories.
• Etc.

Relating to the distinct situations of captivity, the complementary setting might be:

Animals at Zoos

Contemporary zoo scholarship identifies weak evidence around reproduction, social bonds, visitor effects and behavioural diversity.

• Five Domains and preference testing for individual welfare.
• Biopolitics for breeding, contraception, transfer and population management.
• Political theory for legitimacy and representation.
• Critical geography for enclosure, display and visitor surveillance.
• Conservation science for evaluating whether captivity delivers defensible conservation outcomes.

Animals at Sanctuaries

A sanctuary might remain a site of captivity while also constituting a reparative response to prior exploitation.

• Sanctuary studies and abolitionist ethics;
• Ethics of care;
• Multispecies community and justice;
• Trauma-informed care;
• Analysis of institutional dependency and succession;
• Animal participation in everyday governance.

Companion Animals

Companion animals (or pets) can invoke many relations such as property, kin, dependent, co-worker, captive, and consumer object. Concepts such as guardianship, supported agency, shared household membership and interspecies family should not conceal control over movement, reproduction and death.

• Companion-species theory;
• Domestication and coevolution;
• Relational autonomy;
• Animal citizenship;
• Family and kinship studies;
• Labour studies;
• Disability and dependency theory.

Fenced Havens, Exclusion Zones and Soft Release

Fenced havens and predator-free islands are a distinct position on the landscape of captivity: the fence confines and the managers govern, yet inside the fence animals have spatial, social and behavioural agency that zoo exhibits rarely allow. In the relational profile above, havens score low on direct confinement and high on structural domination, with exit impossible and dependency hidden in fence maintenance and predator control.

• Australia's network of fenced areas and islands protects the mammals most susceptible to foxes and cats.1 Conservation scientists call for its strategic expansion.2
• The fencing debate asks whether fences restrict evolutionary potential or answer threatening processes.3
• Predation decided the outcome of 10 reintroduction attempts in arid South Australia.4 Results of this kind help explain why many reintroduction programs focus on excluding introduced predators.5
• Researchers have proposed in situ exposure of prey to low densities of predators inside exclosures as a way to let the animals' own responses and selection shape management.5 This approach makes the exclosure a site where prey lead the design of their release. A field trial reports that predator exposure improved anti-predator responses in a threatened mammal.11
• A survey of Australian livestock producers found that guardian dogs protect livestock from predators.6 The same arrangement adds a working animal to the housing system of another species, so one captivity regime, that of the working dog, can protect animals held under another. A 2017 review of the eastern barred bandicoot recovery program reported, however, that nobody had yet used guardian dogs to protect Australian native mammals and that trials with bandicoots would follow in western Victoria.9

Animal Choice in Conservation Breeding

Conservation breeding is the most tightly governed position on the landscape, because humans decide reproduction.

• The eastern barred bandicoot program shows that returning one decision to the animals advances the program's own goal: females given a choice of mates had better reproductive outcomes.7
• On the mainland, the species persists because of decades of breeding and reintroduction into fenced and island sites, which makes it a case with settings across the whole landscape.8^, 9
• Rock-wallaby programs used cross-fostering to accelerate breeding, which is the opposite move: humans take over more of reproduction.10

See Zoos for the PhD project that uses these cases, and Housing for housing across the captivity gradient.

References

Bovenkerk, Bernice. “Animal Captivity: Justifications for Animal Captivity in the Context of Domestication.” In Animal Ethics in the Age of Humans: Blurring Boundaries in Human-Animal Relationships, edited by Bernice Bovenkerk and Jozef Keulartz, 151–71. Cham: Springer, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44206-8_10.

Browning, Heather, and Walter Veit. “Freedom and Animal Welfare.” Animals 11, no. 4 (2021): 1148. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11041148.

Clay, Anne Safiya, and Ingrid J. Visseren-Hamakers. “Individuals Matter: Dilemmas and Solutions in Conservation and Animal Welfare Practices in Zoos.” Animals 12, no. 3 (2022): 398. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12030398.

Doyle, Catherine. “Captive wildlife sanctuaries: definition, ethical considerations and public perception.” Animal Studies Journal 6, no. 2 (2017): 55–85.

Fraser, David. “Assessing Animal Welfare: Different Philosophies, Different Scientific Approaches.” Zoo Biology 28, no. 6 (2009): 507–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.20253.

Garner, Robert. “Animal Rights and Captivity in a Non-Ideal World.” In Neuroethics and Nonhuman Animals, edited by L. Syd M. Johnson, Andrew Fenton, and Adam Shriver, 191–204. Cham: Springer, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31011-0_11.

Gruen, Lori, ed. The Ethics of Captivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Hutchins, Michael, Brandie Smith, and Ruth Allard. “In Defense of Zoos and Aquariums: The Ethical Basis for Keeping Wild Animals in Captivity.” In The Animal Ethics Reader, edited by Susan J. Armstrong and Richard George Botzler, 958–66. 2003. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Keulartz, Jozef. “Captivity for Conservation? Zoos at a Crossroads.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 28, no. 2 (2015): 335–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-015-9537-z.

Learmonth, Mark James. “Dilemmas for Natural Living Concepts of Zoo Animal Welfare.” Animals 9, no. 6 (2019): 318. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9060318.

Minteer, Ben A., and James P. Collins. “Ecological Ethics in Captivity: Balancing Values and Responsibilities in Zoo and Aquarium Research under Rapid Global Change.” ILAR Journal 54, no. 1 (2013): 41–51. https://doi.org/10.1093/ilar/ilt009.

Sauve, Drew, Jane Hudecki, Jessica Steiner, Hazel Wheeler, Colleen Lynch, and Amy A. Chabot. “Improving Species Conservation Plans under IUCN’s One Plan Approach Using Quantitative Genetic Methods.” Peer Community Journal 2 (2022): e50. https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.163.

Footnotes

1. Legge, Sarah, John C. Z. Woinarski, Andrew A. Burbidge, Russell Palmer, Jeremy Ringma, James Q. Radford, Nicola Mitchell, et al. “Havens for Threatened Australian Mammals: The Contributions of Fenced Areas and Offshore Islands to the Protection of Mammal Species Susceptible to Introduced Predators.” Wildlife Research 45, no. 7 (2018): 627–44. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR17172.˄

2. Ringma, Jeremy, Sarah Legge, John Woinarski, Jim Radford, Brendan Wintle, and Michael Bode. “Australia’s Mammal Fauna Requires a Strategic and Enhanced Network of Predator-Free Havens.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 2, no. 3 (2018): 410–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0456-4.˄

3. Hayward, Matt W., and Graham I. H. Kerley. “Fencing for Conservation: Restriction of Evolutionary Potential or a Riposte to Threatening Processes?” Biological Conservation 142, no. 1 (2009): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2008.09.022.˄

4. Moseby, Katherine Elizabeth, John Leslie Read, David Charles Paton, Peter Copley, Brydie Margaret Hill, and Helen Ann Crisp. “Predation Determines the Outcome of 10 Reintroduction Attempts in Arid South Australia.” Biological Conservation 144, no. 12 (2011): 2863–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2011.08.003.˄

5. Moseby, Katherine E., Daniel T. Blumstein, and Mike Letnic. “Harnessing Natural Selection to Tackle the Problem of Prey Naïveté.” Evolutionary Applications 9, no. 2 (2016): 334–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.12332.˄

6. West, Rebecca, Mike Letnic, Daniel T. Blumstein, and Katherine E. Moseby. “Predator Exposure Improves Anti-Predator Responses in a Threatened Mammal.” Journal of Applied Ecology 55, no. 1 (2018): 147–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12947.˄

7. Bommel, Linda van, and Chris N. Johnson. “Good Dog! Using Livestock Guardian Dogs to Protect Livestock from Predators in Australia’s Extensive Grazing Systems.” Wildlife Research 39, no. 3 (2012): 220–29. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR11135.˄

8. Parrott, Marissa L., Annemarie L. Coetsee, Christine M. Hartnett, and Michael J. L. Magrath. “New Hope for the Eastern Barred Bandicoot Perameles gunnii after 27 Years of Recovery Effort.” International Zoo Yearbook 51, no. 1 (2017): 154–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/izy.12157.˄

9. Hartnett, Christine M., Marissa L. Parrott, Raoul A. Mulder, Graeme Coulson, and Michael J. L. Magrath. “Opportunity for Female Mate Choice Improves Reproductive Outcomes in the Conservation Breeding Program of the Eastern Barred Bandicoot (Perameles gunnii).” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 199 (2018): 67–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2017.10.008.˄

10. Winnard, Amy, and Graeme Coulson. “Sixteen Years of Eastern Barred Bandicoot Perameles gunnii Reintroductions in Victoria: A Review.” Pacific Conservation Biology 14, no. 1 (2008): 34–53. https://doi.org/10.1071/PC080034.˄

11. Taggart, David A., David Schultz, Craig White, Peter Whitehead, Geoff Underwood, and Kevin Phillips. “Cross-Fostering, Growth and Reproductive Studies in the Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby, Petrogale penicillata (Marsupialia : Macropodidae): Efforts to Accelerate Breeding in a Threatened Marsupial Species.” Australian Journal of Zoology 53, no. 5 (2005): 313–23. https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO05002.˄

• Housing
• Agency
• Zoos
• Victoria