Getty A Black Howler Monkey in is seen its enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo in Los Angeles, California on May 10, 2016.
Joe Rogan recalled on a recent podcast a site that he says was one of the worst he’s ever scene. “I went to a zoo once, I can’t remember what city it was in, but I remember I was with my kids and we walked by this monkey cage, and this monkey was by itself, in a small cage, screaming,” Rogan, who then demonstrated the monkey’s yell, told comedian Nate Bargatze on the March 17, 2021, episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “Like a crazy person, like a person trapped. I remember thinking, ‘this is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.'”
Rogan and Bargatze had been talking about scientific and medical experiments that are done on monkeys and other animals before being tested on humans. Rogan added, “This poor monkey wants to be in the jungle, wants to be swinging around on trees and eating fruit and having a good time with his monkey friends. Instead, he’s alone in a cage, being stared at by people. All day long, just stared at.”
Bargatze weighed in, “You want to believe these zoos, a lot of them it’s animals that are hurt, that wouldn’t survive. They tell you that, so you want to believe that.” Rogan responded, “I don’t know man, I think there’s some endangered species that are kept in zoos and they can protect their numbers in zoos, but there’s probably a better way to do it though. They would need a lot of land.”
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Rogan Said ‘They Experiment With Makeup on Monkeys … Lipstick on a Monkey, Imagine the Indignity, You’re in a Cage … They’re Kind of Smart’
Rogan and Bargatze earlier talked about testing on monkeys, and how monkeys were sent into space. “They have them for medical research, they have them for all sorts of s***. Not good,” Rogan said. Bargatze added, “It’s tough being a monkey.”
Rogan said, “They experiment with makeup on monkeys. Put lipstick on a monkey, imagine the indignity? You’re in a cage, locked up, kind of smart. You’re kind of smart, you’re not like people smart, but you’re close. You have hands, holding on to the bars.”
According to KLKN-TV, four states in the U.S. have banned cosmetic testing on animals and also banned the selling of cosmetics that are tested on animals. Those states are Virginia, California, Nevada and Illinois. Virginia passed its Humane Cosmetics Act law in early 2021, and the other laws were passed in 2018 and 2019, with California being the first to do so. Advocates are hoping for a similar law to be passed by Congress federally.
Rogan Has Previously Called Zoos ‘Animal Prisons’
Rogan has spoken out about zoos and animals being kept in captivity on “The Joe Rogan Experience” multiple times. In 2019, Rogan told Canadian marine mammal trainer Phil Demers that zoos are “animal prisons.” Rogan said, “On one hand when you have children and you bring a child to the zoo, it’s really fascinating to watch this little person look at these different animals and freak out and see how amazing it is.”
Rogan added, “But that’s the only pro is introducing human beings, like little human beings to these animals. Everything else is a con. Except for the animals that are really endangered and they protect them and breed them. But other than that it’s an animal prison.”
Rogan also talked about how it is inhumane to keep dolphins in captivity. Rogan told Demers, “We’ve got to stop doing that with dolphins and orcas. It’s going to be thought of the same way we think about slavery today. That it’s horrific, we can’t understand it, we can’t believe that compassionate human beings would be willing to isolate members of a super-social, highly intelligent animal species and just put them in swimming pools. It’s f***** barbaric, it’s torture.”
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