REBRANDING OR REFORM?

The Moral Makeover of the Seneca Park Zoo

PRAISE MOKAYI

Throughout the past few decades, the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York, has undergone significant changes in its practices and mission. Initially founded in 1894, this zoo began, like others, as a menagerie where animals were caged with steel bars on concrete floors. Such practices were not unusual to Seneca Park Zoo in its early history as most zoos then aimed at providing a spectacle at the expense of basic animal welfare treatment. More recently, the Seneca Park Zoo has changed its focus to become an advocate for environmental conservation, promoting education and the loving care of animals. This trend correlates with global makeovers, partly due to a higher emphasis on ethical and ecological problems caused by animal captivity and conservation efforts. Although the updates to the zoo seem to be ahead of their time, such progress comes accompanied by an ongoing dispute about the sparking of animal welfare and whether conservation can ever actually take place in captivity before it is sponsored in the shape it is. While the Seneca Park Zoo has made progress in some ways, it still remains deeply engaged with the moral complexities of animal captivity. 

FIGURE ONE
A snow leopard in captivity
(Sweetnicks blog, 2017)

FROM IRON BARS TO IMMERSIVE HABITATS

The Seneca Park Zoo was started by local community leaders and donors; its early mission paid little thought to the welfare of the animals behind bars.¹ Animals in those days were imprisoned in bare, empty enclosures with little enrichment, the notion being that they mostly appealed to the public to educate and entertain. Initially, the zoo prioritized presenting animals as attractions for the public over moral considerations related to their confinement. In the 1980s, however, there was a slow shift in the views of society regarding the rights of animals. As more activists, especially those associated with organizations such as the Animal Liberation Front and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals argued, zoos needed to change their purpose from spectacle to the welfare of animals. Seneca Park Zoo applied for the Association of Zoos and Aquarium (AZA) accreditation, which is symbolic of its efforts to elevate animal welfare and conservation standards. This turning point brought the zoo from a mere tool for entertainment to an institution committed to animal welfare and educating the public on conservation. This announcement marked a higher level of public responsibility for animal well-being and the implementation of conservation initiatives.

Another milestone in the Seneca Park Zoo’s transformation came in 2017 when Monroe County approved a $13.5 million renovation plan. This moment was significant as it represented a major commitment to modernizing the zoo’s facilities and furthering its animal welfare and conservation goals. Monroe County greenlit a $13.5 million improvement plan that broadened the “A Step into Africa” tour. Monroe County Parks Director Larry Staub argued that the renovations aimed to house animals in more natural, mixed-species exhibits, aligning with modern animal conservation trends and enhancing visitor engagement with the Zoo’s conservation efforts. The renovation project was intended to transform the Zoo into something more humane for the animals and other people visiting it. People from animal rights organizations and the public tend to think that the renovations at zoos, including “A Step into Africa,” offer flimsy reassurances regarding the welfare of the animals rather than addressing the underlying ethical issues.² For instance, despite the more natural habitat afforded the giraffes, zebras, and rhinos to move within provided by the exhibit, they are still confined to artificial enclosures. These critics argue that such renovations enhance the visitor’s experience but do not take care of the actual issue of keeping animals’ captive.

FIGURE TWO
“Immersive habitat”
(Seneca Park Zoo, n.d.)

THE EDUCATIONAL TURN

One example of the Seneca Park Zoo’s move to focus on education over entertainment was the 2016 “My Genesee” project that it developed with the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute. This live exhibition entails an adventurous game that taught visitors about water pollution within the Genesee River watershed and helped them understand the general aspects of environmental conservation.³ Despite the positive educational impact of the “My Genesee” project, critics of similar initiatives argued that such initiatives can serve as an alibi for the continued confinement of animals, distracting them from the ethical issue of captivity. Therefore, while educational goals may benefit the animals’ freedom, they remain unsighted. In that respect, presenting captive animals as ambassadors or educators leads to placing them in roles meant to further human knowledge, reproducing a paradigm where animals’ concern is not paramount. Although educational efforts and “My Genesee” programs can raise visitors’ interest in environmental issues, the very animals are still captive, and their rights and well-being are ignored in favor of humankind’s interests. Despite their pivotal role in improving environmental consciousness, these educational programs do not address the underlying ethical issue of confining animals for human interests.

CONSERVATION OR PERFORMANCE?

The Seneca Park Zoo is a member of AZA’s Species Survival Plan (SSP) and the Saving Animals from Extinction (SAFE) program, which try to promote breeding and manage small populations of endangered animals. The zoo supports these initiatives by working on species like the Amur tiger and the California condor to ensure the preservation of their population and contribute to their habitat conservation efforts. These ideas hold their argumentative worth whenever connected to the need to increase public awareness and scientific cooperation.⁴ However, the initiatives for conservation within zoos are often restricted. Most of these animals bred under SSP programs cannot be released back into the wild as they have become domesticated, entirely dependent on human beings, or there is no space for their accommodation. Sometimes, conservation at zoos may turn into mere rhetoric without actual tangible impacts.⁵ Despite their appeal, conservation labels often camouflage the original idea that much of this work remains confined to managed care rather than restoration of wild populations._⁶ In this way, zoos present themselves as essential players in global conservation efforts, yet their impact may be limited to merely sustaining species within artificial environments.⁷ True conservation, which involves reintroducing species into their natural habitats, remains an ideal rather than a widespread reality in most zoos.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND SPECIES HIERARCHIES

Other community involvement programs include Zoo Mobile, which takes educational content to schools and libraries, and the Butterfly Beltway program, which began in 2002 to promote pollinator habitats in the Zoo’s operating region.⁸ Such efforts can create environmental consciousness and support local habitat preservation by familiarizing people, especially children, with different conservation concepts in familiar geographic contexts. By spreading its programs to schools, libraries, and neighborhoods, the zoo becomes an authoritative source of knowledge about the environment. 

These programs, however, represent human-centered perspectives, using animals such as African elephants and snow leopards to educate visitors or raise awareness about environmental issues. This approach, while educational, reinforces a model where animals are valued primarily for their utility to humans rather than for their intrinsic worth or autonomy. In the case of the Seneca Park Zoo, this dynamic exemplifies the broader critique of zoos as institutions that prioritize human interests over animal well-being. However, the philosopher Dale Jamieson has argued that, even in this model, the exploitation of animals for human education and even the improvement of their quality of life enforces an oppressive system where human benefits are first.⁹ While they are framed in terms of care and education for humanity, they are ultimately still about what animals can do for us, not what we owe them.  

WELFARE ENHANCEMENTS AND LIMITS

The Seneca Park Zoo has adapted its 2018 Master Plan to include behavioral enrichment—activities designed to stimulate the animal’s natural behaviors—and improvements to their welfare, such as providing more naturalistic environments and recognizing the animals’ agency or their ability to make choices and interact with their surroundings in meaningful ways.¹⁰ These improvements are promising and are frequently more advanced than what the AZA requires regarding area, enrichment, and quality of life. The zoo has implemented practices to enhance its animals’ mental and emotional well-being, showing a commitment towards evidence-based welfare standards which prioritize the animal’s interests. However, confinement is still a critical issue on the ethical agenda. Regardless of how advanced or thoughtfully designed the enclosures are, they cannot replicate the full complexity of an animal’s natural environment. The cultural critic Randy Malamud claims that one of the principal functions of zoos is entertainment. He contends that through the aesthetic and ethical transformation of cages, “modern” zoos entertain and inspire confidence in the public and obscure the inherent “crime” of imprisonment.¹¹ Thus, changes in living conditions that result in better treatment of the animals do not change the fact that the zoo industry is still based on the inferior living conditions of the animals. 

According to Harriet Ritvo, an environmental historian, one technique of modern zoos is the creation of an emotional history revolving around care and rescue.¹² This strategy helps zoos represent the animals as being preserved rather than exhibited, thereby continuing to justify capturing animals as the right thing to do.¹³ Through compassion, zoos shift focus from the captivity of the animals back to the good purposes of the captors. The Seneca Park Zoo has incorporated measures to improve the animals’ psychological and emotional well-being, aligning with current research in animal welfare, which emphasizes the importance of mental stimulation, environmental enrichment, and recognizing the emotional lives of animals in captivity.¹⁴ While such stories build support and resources, which is necessary and appropriate, they also can be used to obscure and stall more system-changing progress. 

CONCLUSION

The transformation of the Seneca Park Zoo illustrates a larger cultural movement toward environmental and ethical awareness. By creating awareness, enhancing its structures, embracing the concept of conservation, and carrying out outreach activities, the zoo has reinvented itself as a valuable social concern.¹⁵ All these efforts have yielded positive outcomes in enhancing public awareness, engagement, and animal welfare standards. But still, the Seneca Park Zoo’s identity is formed by contraries. Its conservation branding alleviates public guilt, which gives it a moral basis for its continued operations. However, it does not effectively address the ethical concern of captivity. As long as animals’ liberty is sacrificed for human purposes, zoos will fail to embody moral progress and compromise.

NOTES

1. Whalen, Maureen. A History of Seneca Park Zoo. 2020.
2. Malamud, Randy. Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity. New York University Press, 1998.
3. Seneca Park Zoo, My Genesee Game Exhibition, 2016.
4. Ibid.
5. Cornelius Holtorf and Oscar Ortman, “Endangerment and Conservation Ethos in Natural and Cultural Heritage: The Case of Zoos and Archaeological Sites,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 14, no. 1 (2008): 74–90.
6. Ibid.
7. Malamud, Reading Zoos.
8. Seneca Park Zoo, “Conservation Impact in Our Community & Around the World,” 2025.
9. Dale Jamieson, Morality’s Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature (Oxford University Press, 2002). 
10. Ibid.
11. Malamud, Reading Zoos.
12. Seneca Park Zoo, “Conservation Impact in Our Community & Around the World.”
13. Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Harvard University Press, 2010).  
14. Ibid.
15. Malamud, Reading Zoos.