no more concerts for you ever, it seems.

Their "breeding programme" ... oh well. They should mention that the object of their breeding programme is the typical "zoo animal": one that can never ever go back into freelife.

I doubt the zoo staff would like to go and live there instead, but loads of Palestinians most likely would. Still, who cares about them, eh?

I agree 100%...I'm all for large nature reserves but zoo's are not natural.Good on him.

If animals are more human than humans, what does that make Morrissey?

these animals are far safer as a species in these places than they would be in their own natural habitat due to hunting and all that stuff. They know nothing different and are safe, well fed and probably relatively content. What's more, the kids who enjoy visiting these places are doing so in the process of growing up to appreciate and love the other species we co-habitate the planet with. What else are we supposed to do next? Release every horse from stables and let them gallop wild around the country? Anybody that can say they prefer animals to humans is psychologically dangerous, being unable to function normally on a social level with one's fellow species, and probably not the sort of person you would want to have anything to do with. Get a life, Morrissey. They aren't being clubbed to death. Is it any different from having a cat or dog at home?? Morrissey has pet animals doesn't he? If we take it to the extreme on that basis he is a fucking hypocrite himself! No?? Stick to what you're good at, singing! Actually, no, you're not much good at that these days either, are you? The man pisses me right off sometimes, as is evident here.

I don't agree with Morrissey on this.

I have been to Edinburgh Zoo on many occasions and would go again. In general people who condemn such places will then self-rightously state that they have never set foot in one or haven't been for years. Zoos have come a long way since I visited them as a child and entered a a building with iron barrred cages round the walls each housing a solitary pacing lion. Over the years edinburgh has spent millions of pounds on making habitats as close as possible to nature for the various inhabitants. The proof that the animals are not miserable comes in the breeding programmes. Animals living in misery do not thrive and do not interact or breed. Edinburgh has had many successes with their breeding programme, which is necessary in these times of threatened extinction for many species.

I'm guessing Morrissey probably hasn't visited Edinburgh Zoo of late. I think if he did he
might be pleasantly surprised. As for the comparison with the abbatoir well, apart from the obvious fact that not every child who visits a zoo is a meat eater, I'm guessing that given the choice of a horrible death or living their life in a smaller version of their natural habitat with food in abundance most animals would opt for the latter.

Every one of us, Morrissey included, who owns a pet of whatever species is keeping an animal in our homes which was once a wild beast. If this is not cruel then why is it cruel to see them in a smaller version of their natural habitat in a zoo?

Morrissey is entitled to say what he wants of course but on this occasion I don't agree.

Please note. It is possible to disagree with Morrissey without calling him names, declaring never to see him again or rushing to put your entire collection on e-bay.

 

In the 4th grade, the kids were loaded up on a schoolbus and were taken to a LOVELY place called, "Talone's Meatmarket". We saw animals being slaughtered (pigs and cows.) all the girls, including myself, started to cry, and the *teacher* scolded us for doing so. What did she EXPECT, raucous applause from all of us? Then thankfully, the *tour* was over, and we went back to the school where the teacher wasn't through with our *lesson* as of yet. She had gotten a hold of a cows BRAIN, and some cows eyeballs. She put both on separate pieces of paper towel, and made us pass it all around the room. When they came back to her desk, she proceeded to take a sharp object and plunge it into one of the cow eyeballs.A purplish gel came squirting out. I ran to the bathroom with about five other quivering girls and I think one even hurled. And if I ever saw this so called teacher AGAIN, I would remind her of that day (but she's probably dead) and ask her what EXACTLY she was trying to TEACH us?

Why has he chosen this? Terrible decision, moz.

This is a brilliant story. When I read this kind of thing, it just makes me love him even more. Instead of mellowing with age he just gets nastier and more focused and less and less tolerant of the human race. His comments are just priceless...no one would ever have the balls to say these things. In a paranoid, emasculated, antiseptic culture obsessed with fighting such abstract things as "terror," Morrissey is the antidote to everything that has gone wrong in our world. He says what he means and makes no apologies. Whether you agree with him or not, let's all agree...this guy has guts.

www.myspace.com/morrisseysavedourlives

But has a habit of treading so far left of the line that his statements can't be read seriously within the mass media.

Obviously a zoo is wrong to those who believe in animal rights, morality, and rationality. On a smaller scale there was a story in the UK press this week where a parrot was stolen from some woman's living room;

"I just want it back!!" she cried.

"Back in it's cage where it belongs!"

There wasn't any irony attached believe you me.

But even as an animal DEFENDER, rather than 'lover', I think that Morrissey's intentions are pure but the whole abattoir thing - typically Moz - makes it all a bit laughable to parents who might have otherwise listened.

Still, if we change him, we ruin him.

Viva Moz.

Does it ever stop with this man? His ignorance on just about every single issue on Earth is truly depressing.

As someone who follows primate issues closely, simply claiming that keeping primates in Zoos is wrong sidesteps the complexity of the discussion entirely. Apparently Morrissey likes to see issue as black and white because it's much easier to address them that way.

There are good Zoos, and there are bad Zoos. However, employing the logic that it's bad to keep primates in enclosures, period, completely ignores why they're there in the first place. Some of these primates cannot return to the wild, ever, and breeding programs in captivity help to sustain the species, as well as provide the necessary social groups that many primates, and great apes need.

Does Morrissey know how many Gorillas, and Chimpanzees are left in the wild, and it's not because of Zoos. It's because of disease, loss of habitat, and the bush meat trade.

More importantly, I wonder what Morrissey thinks of PETA's culling of animals that they could no longer care for. I doubt that he's even aware of it.

It's further evidence that animal rights activists are simply out of touch.

What a hypocritical, ill-informed, anti-intellectual ass the man has become.

i agree with moz 100% but i didnt no he was a "Vegan", or is that wrong

It's true, as human beings, we can do a better job in how we treat one another and care for life on this planet. And we should continually try to improve this and join mindfulness with policy and practice.

But I take this article with a grain of salt because it doesn't quote any source. It just says Morrissey "said this" and "said that". There is no interview and no press release cited. It's just close enough in association with his known vegetarianism to seem believable(and terming him as "vegan" is another doubt to the article's veracity... I have a recording of Peter Gabriel from MTV 120 Minutes years back saying Moz likes his eggs & potatoes at the recording studio, and somewhere else, can't remember where, reading he likes his yoghurt everyday). And I don't doubt he gets these from free-range, humanely-raised sources (common Moz-fan sense).

It's believable he might've made some of these statements, but to me, it's also believable that he didn't and this is another case of a paper possibly twisting what he's said or putting words in his mouth or putting them in the wrong context. When one of the shows in the US was next to a fairground/petting zoo of some sort, there were no complaints there. I say, as Moz fans, as usual, we should be wary of the press.

Bravo, Morrissey! In the early nineties, it was the "We Hate Iams" claim; then the seal boycott (even if at the price of Canadian fans frustration); now the opposition to the enclosure. I hope the example you are setting invites more famous people to react against the mistreatment of animals. There is so much disregard towards animals; when I watched the Peta video (Meet Your Meat), I saw that the man cutting the piglet's tail was not doing it just because he believed it necessary; there was clearly a dose of sadism. I forced myself to watched the video until the end : I wanted to vomit my chicken sandwich and stick to vegetarianism for good, to look for ways to not keep coming in and out of it.

You have been doing a terrific job with animal defense. For a while, I thought you were focusing too long on seals only, but I see now you do think of other animals (sorry, I forgot your work I hate IAMS picture).

Gorillas are almost extinct - unless the situation has been reversed. And what about those thousands of bats that died this winter?

 

Je t'aime
Mi amas vin
Ich liebe Dich
Ti amo
taim i' ngra leat
Te amo
Tha gra
Kimi
  MORRISSEY

“If the Budongo Trail at Edinburgh Zoo is such a stimulating highlight, then why don't the zoo staff live in it instead?”

Honestly, this is the kind of intellectual commentary, and reasoning that you get from Morrissey.

The fact that he would offer up such a horrible analogy in defense of his position is all you need to know, really.

Of course, it should be obvious to any intelligent human being that the needs, and requirements of Zoo staff differ greatly from captive primates, who's native environments are predominantly within forests, and jungles.

I wouldn't expect the Zoo staff to enjoy living in the Jungle, either.

I can't get behind Morrissey on this one.
Any attempt to preserve an endangered species is alright in my books.

hates racism
hates meat
hates hunting for fur
hates edingburgh zoo for its primate programme

but he obviously doesn't has any problems playing in that facist state of Israel....

i agree on Morrissey most of the times, but lately he's getting arrogantly ignorant....

cool well maybe we should just release those few back into the wild and hopefully they can be killed by hunters :) Seriously sometimes Morrissey just see's in black and white. Ok maybe in a perfect world these few chimps would have more fun out in the whild but on the plus side this gaurantees them absolute protection to live in peace.

..........or is Morrissey starting to sound like he is thick as sh*t?

Or at best ill informed. So many casuses being championed without the 'holistic' viewpoit coming across (Seal Clubbing excepted) and then he announces he will play Isreal (and rumours of Iran gig)!!

This man is becoming increasingly hard to defend, so I no longer bother.

Morrissey should just shut the fuck up and quit being a little dramatic bitch about everything.

Morrissey is defs not a vegan. He had that great picture with the ice cream cone last year.

Does anybody else feel like a nice big bacon sandwich?

Yum yum!!

if chickens could eat humans, they would

Sounds like a gay bar. Are we sure he's talking about a zoo here?

Why can't you people spell the plural form of a simple word like "zoo"?

I've been seeing this one the forums and here all day; it's driving me... nuts.

The plural form of zoo is: zoos

1 zoo

3 zoos

READ A BOOK! OPEN A DICTIONARY! THERE IS NO APOSTROPHE IN THIS WORD, UNLESS THE ZOO OWNS SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW ABOUT!

(lol)

but damn, get it right

Do you think the plants scream when we rip them from the ground? Plants are living things too but their lives mean less than animals. I say down with the Vegans, they are cold heartless plant killers.

1) Coronation Street isn't as good as it used to be. Boycott Corrie

2) Gordon Brown is ineffectual and a tosspot to boot

3) War is bad.

4) Love Music,Hate Racism

5) Some Austrians are misunderstood (actually that could be a great song title!!!)

Edinburgh has a zoo,eh? Which means there's a zoo within a zoo,eh?. Those fences are to protect the primates from the radge locals,eh?Who all put an 'eh' on the end of every sentence,eh?
    Cheerio the noo,eh?
        King Weegie.

Thinking of animals as if they were humans.
They are completely different and should never be given human traits.
Animals deserve protection. They do not have "rights".
Moz's ignorance in comparing people to apes is absurd and completely embarrassing.

The man's turning into Billy Bragg! Give it a rest!
And how come he never turns these causes of his into songs. He just keeps writing about himself over & over & over!

I kind of disagree with Morrissey on this one.
I mean, the enclosure is big enough for them to be happier than in most other Zoo exhibits. Also, they are endangered, and if they are being protected, and encouraged to breed, and keep them from habitat destruction, poaching, and selling in their native lands, then I think this is pretty much one of the only alternatives we have for now, until these issues, back home in East Africa are resolved.

I want to hear morrissey talk about the habitat destruction/ poaching that these primates suffer in Africa. Totally ignored that.
Love you with all my heart morrissey, but I don't really quite agree with you on this topic. I am an ecology lover/student, and I do understand that animals need freedom, but some really need our protection more than anything.

I guess that means no more concerts in the UK!
Oh well, you'll get over it.

(How about it? In Dublin ,with Bono as star attraction).
Cough.
I find the whole thing a bit bizarre. If he had "called for a boycott", he would surely have told Julia first?

My guess is that the Sunday times wanted someone to say something interesting about the subject, but Jane Goodall was in her bath and missed that call.
Luckily, Morrissey was there.

Unfortunately, he is as unhelpful as ever. Where Jane could have talked extensively about the importance of tree-planting, education, roots, shoots, all that, all Morrissey has to offer is his animal activist's hysteria.
  Suppose people follow his advice, (doubtful) since the little monkeys are already there, the only result will be less visitors, so less money, so less bananas for the little monkeys. Really helpful, Morrissey.
  Maybe you should have done something *before* that project became a reality, if, after years of intensive research on primates, you decided it was the worst thing that could happen to chimps.

  It does sound as if it was Trail Abou Ghraib in your mouth. Did you even bother getting any kind of info before passing judgement by the way?
Oh? You? Didn't? That's a surprise.

Now it would be embarrassing if a little monkey declared to the press "I like it here, can I stay?" wouldn't it?
(Don't worry, Morrissey, animals don't speak to journalists. They're too clever for that.)

All you'll ever be able to do is react as if you were a caged, suffering animal yourself, which you're not. Problem is, chimps know that, human beings know that, only you don't know that. You're the only one who doesn't know what a brain is for, and what species you belong to.

I think most animal activists have a superiority complex.

There are billions of people who love and respect animals besides yourselves, guys. The challenge is not how to protect an orang-utan from the terrible weather conditions in Scotland (poor babies though, I feel for them), but how to live together better.

Living together better, now, Morrissey doesn't seem the perfect person to ask how to do that.

Hell, take baaaad "carnivorous" Jamie Oliver, didn't he promote healthy food in school canteens? Well, so he had the "better" aspect right, didn't he? I mean, trying to protect hundreds of kids from obesity is no small feat. He's obviously a well meaning chap, Jamie, not quite the ogre depicted.

He already explains stuff about chicken. Little by little, he might decide himself to reduce the amount of meat in his recipes...

All it takes sometimes, is a conversation with an intelligent, well informed vegetarian who combines great social skills and tolerance to difference, and a natural ability to convince...

Not someone like Morrissey then.

After all, I 've eaten meat only twice in 3 months, but I'm sure Morrissey'd rather die than pass me the salt. (Which suits me.)

All things considered, I'd rather eat with Jamie. I don't know why, but I'm sure he's nicer to meat-eating foreigners.

So, anyway...Dwindling circulation, the Sunday Times? Interesting intelligent reactions on msolo, but did you sell your paper, guys? No?
  Well, you know what they say: "if Morrissey can't help you sell stuff, nothing will!"