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52: śramaņa, Vol 64, No. III, July-Sept. 2013
Of particular importance to this question is philosopher42 “Nooz: Ending Zoo Exploitation." In this piece, she has written: Ultimately, captive breeding schemes have little to do with the individuals who are captured and imprisoned as pawns to our purposes. Captive breeding exploits reproductive abilities. Individuals are stripped of all that is meaningful in exchange for being manipulated sexually-in exchange for being bred by humans. Captive breeding stems from a human interest in genetic diversitya biological state that we deem beneficial to us. Furthermore, we enjoy having these species in “our” world.
If Lisa Kemmerer is correct in this assertion, captive breeding does not truly stem from the principles of ahimsā but rather from parigraha and should be discontinued, both for the sake of the animals and the sake of our souls. (Sincerely) For the Good of the Animals The category of animals that I can see justly keeping in captivity is exactly the reason I specified earlier that keeping "healthy, able-bodied and able-minded, wild" animals captive to protect them from disease, natural predators and poachers cannot be justified rather than saying keeping any animal captive cannot be justified for protective purposes. While nature certainly is not always or essentially, “red in tooth and claw,” there are certain animals that cannot survive in nature on their own for one reason or another and these animals can justly be offered protection, or sanctuary, in captivity if their quality of life in captivity can rightly be argued to be better than their life elsewhere. Under these lines, captivity no longer resembles a form of bondage but rather an avenue of liberation. Animals are seen as guests or companions, not prisoners or sources of wealth and power. No semblance of intent to harm and no semblance of ownership exist; therefore, ahiṁsā and aparigraha abound.
Examples of animals that may qualify to be justly sanctuaried are domestic dogs, many domesticated animals originally bred to be farmed and severely disabled animalswho can still be predicted to have a substantial quality of life in captivity. Animals who have lived all their lives in captivity and thus do not have the know-how to survive in the wild or have become too habituated to humans to be releasedto the wild may also fall under this category, however, only after all attempts at rehabilitation have been reasonably exhausted. Similarly, animals who have been injured temporarily, especially at the hands of humans, may be and should be, rehabilitated in captivity pending their healthy release. This exemplifies an active component of ahiṁsā that is crucial to Jain dharma.
Beyond Zoos; To Pinjarapoles Far from places I have just imagined, animal sanctuaries and rehabilitation centers exist all over the world. It can even reasonably be claimed that Jains were the first to start such institutions. Though Indians did not start documenting their own history until much later, the English merchant Ralph Fitch described pinjrapoles as early as 1583, writing of Jainas, "They have hospitals for sheepe, goates, dogs, cats, birds and for all other living creatures. When they be olde and lame, they keep them until they die.”:43
