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The Zoo Economy
I recently learned that Jellyfish are the basic unit of trade used by the New England Aquarium, Boston. Yup, I’ve got some explaining to do. 👇👇
How Zoos Work?
Zoos and Aquariums attract visitors to fund wildlife research and breeding programs for endangered species.
To get more funding, zoos need to attract people by having an exotic & diverse display of animals.
In the past, if zoos wanted an animal for their enclosure, they could just pay a dealer to go out in the wild and capture it.
However, putting price tags on animals is unethical and encourages poaching & smuggling.
Then, the 1973 Endangered Species Act ruled that permits are required to buy/sell animals.
Here’s the loophole, a permit is not required if money is not involved.
The Trade:
So, zoos started adopting a karma-based barter system, they trade animals amongst each other.
Zoo A wants an elephant. So, A gives B its extra giraffe hoping that B would give A the elephant when it has bred an extra.
There’s a network of this “adopt / giveaway” list of animals amongst zoos and aquariums.
But bartering gets messy and involves many hands if say B doesn’t want giraffes but wants lions. C with lions would get involved but they might want something else and the chain goes on.
The Jellyfish:
Some aquariums took a more ‘capitalist’ approach, they have a reserve currency. For the New England Aquarium, it’s Jellyfish.
Aquariums will always want jellyfish, lots of it, so breeding its own jellyfish means that NEA has a reliable trading resource to barter with other aquariums.
For NEA, jellyfish are the perfect reserve currency as they have low individual value (eg. you can’t divide up a dolphin for a small trade).
Jellyfish are also easy to keep with stable populations year-round (No jellyfish inflation).
It’s interesting to see that in our heavily money-based buy/sell system, zoos and aquariums are the exception. Each zoo could be considered its own “country” with their own “currency” and the exchange rate varies between each zoo, it’s not always eg. 1x Bear = 50x Parrots. Most of these trades are still done by direct swaps of animals but throwing in a couple of jellyfish on the side smooths out the transaction and boosts karma.
Bonus Fact: 🐼
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