Are Mobile Live Animal Programs Educationally Beneficial? A Critical Assessment of the Human Learning Component Underlying Traveling Animal Exhibits

Abstract

positive and negative education and to examine how and if these types of learning can be measured in regard to MLAPs. The conclusion reached is that there is no evidence of affective learning that results in increased conservation efforts from participating in MLAPs, and, furthermore, there is an accumulation of learning that occurs in the form of a negative emotional and intellectual perception of non-human species. Given the accumulation of negative educational value that outweighs any cognitive acquisition of facts regarding the animals being presented, the conclusion reached is that it is not recommended, based on their purported educational claims, that MLAPs be given special consideration when it comes to laws restricting or prohibiting animal use within municipal or provincial/state boundaries. This information can be used to help shape future legislation that works to protect non-human animals, and contributes to our perceptions of non-human animals as persons rather than commodities.Abstract: This paper assesses whether there is intrinsic positive educational value in travelling animal presentations and exhibits, referred to here as Mobile Live Animal Programs (MLAPs). Given that educational claims serve as the basis for allowing MLAPs to operate in many jurisdictions throughout Canada and the United States, it is essential to examine whether these purported claims are valid.This study takes a twofold approach of examining first, what constitutes an MLAP and how such programs are situated within the larger context of animal observation and tourism, and second, what constitutes both positive and negative education, and how such learning can empirically be measured in these settings. This approach provokes the ethical question of whether or not MLAPs should be allowed to operate given the high price paid not only by the individual animals used, but also to our psychological, emotional, and intellectual relationship with other species when we use non-human animals for our own knowledge, pleasure or comfort. The paper concludes that we must consider that the pervasive problem of negative education, that using displaced captive wild animals as learning tools that highlights human control over them, their objectification and their exploitation, is not justified by the purported positive educational claims of MLAPs.