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42: śramana, Vol 64, No. III, July-Sept. 2013
Ahiṁsā also extends into the workplace of Jains. Jains are prohibited from any occupation that intentionally causes harm, such as hunting, butchering, joining the military and trade in animals. Jobs in agriculture are not prohibited for Jains but are discouraged as many agricultural practices cause harm to living beings even when the most care is taken to avoid doing so. Additionally, many methods of farming include the ownership and subordination of nonhuman animals, which is prohibited both by the vows of ahiṁsā and aparigraha.
What About Zoos? According to Jain dharma, there are five ways one can violate the vrata or vow, of ahiṁsā.
Keeping in captivity (bandha) Beating (vadha)
Mutilating (chavi-ccheda) 4. Overloading (ati-bhārā aropaņa) 5. Depriving of food and drink (bhakta-pāna-vyavaccheda)* As we will now see, by their very nature, zoo while guilty most obviously of this first aticāra, or infraction, in the process violates almost, if not all, of the rest. By their very nature, zoos commit bandha by treating their animals as possessions, confining them, depriving them of their liberty and "cutting deeply" into their animals' autonomy or ability to do what they want. The unnatural environment of almost all zoos thwarts even the most innate, natural behaviors of many, if not all, of these animals, such as roaming or foraging. Some very social animals, such as elephants, whales, dolphins and primates, may be unable to develop appropriate social orders within captivity as well."
As a result of their inability to act out these natural individual and social behaviors, many inhabitants of zoos develop stereotypies or repetitive, ritualistic movements, such as headswaying and pacing, much like people confined in psychiatric institutions, trying to cope with their predicament in any way they can. If you have ever observed a lion or a tiger pacing back and forth in his or her exhibit at a zoo or seen an elephant dancing, you have witnessed an animal displaying a stereotypy and if you have ever noticed a bump on the lip of a piranha at an aquarium, you have seen the calloused result of countless hours rubbing against the glass. In addition to the psychological problems induced upon animals by captivity, many anthropogenic or human-caused, physical problems, such as deadly foot infections in elephants, occur quite frequently in captivity whilebeing exceedingly rare or never occurring at all the wild. Furthermore, elephants in all zoos in India and many still in the United States and abroad, are bound by short chains the majority of the time and beaten and threatened with bamboo sticks or bullhooks, which are long metal instruments resembling fireplace pokers on a regular basis. Very obviously, these zoos are guilty of both vadha and chavi-ccheda in addition to bandha. Similarly, zoos with a heavy entertainment focus, such as Sea-World and Marineland, which spend much of their resources on dolphin and whale shows, (which have just recently become illegal in India, and the Indian Bondola Zoo, which still gives elephant rides, are often guilty of both atibhārāropaña and bhakta-pāna-vyavaccheda, forcing their animals to let staff and patrons ride on their backs and often withholding food from them in order to entice them to perform.
