Animal Rights
The book is unabashedly and unambiguously supportive of treating animals with respect and dignity. The very fact that Teddy and Summer treat the killing of Henry Hippo as a murder on the level of killing a human being and that they are not portrayed by as absurd or ridiculous for doing so is an assertive statement of this theme. When the culprits are finally exposed, they are revealed as genuinely villainous people who abuse animals in one of the most loathsome ways possible for one the most abominable purpose imaginable.
Animal Rights Activism
While the book is unambiguous about its support of animal rights, things get murkier on the on the subject of how best to go about expressing this support. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is a militant organization that is not above breaking laws and putting people in danger as part of their active engagement to protect the rights of animals and raise the issue for public awareness. The narrator is specifically the perspective that brings a sense of ambiguity to their good intentions. Teddy openly questions the effectiveness of their tactics when a large rally outside the FunJungle fails to deter visitors from entering the park. Likewise, he feels personally assaulted with ALF broad accusation of negligence by the theme park that insults hard-working and sincere scientists like his mother whose entire career has been in support of animal rights.
Animal Exploitation
The book is also rather ambiguous in its view toward the morality of zoos and attractions which depend upon the exploitation of animals for profit. Teddy is very defensive on the subject of the moral question of keeping animals in an unnatural state of captivity. He forwards the standard talking points about preventing extinction of species and the ability for visitors to see a creature they would otherwise have absolutely no chance to see for real. Much of this perspective springs, undoubtedly, from defending the role his parents have played in perpetuating the status quo or, also part of his defense, improving the ways animals in captivity have been treated. At the same time that he is providing this defense in his narration, however, events take place in the FunJungle which undermine those very arguments. Zoo animals are killed and the people involved also commit atrocities upon animals life outside the zoo to further their own malevolent purposes. Those atrocities come to be committed only because of the connections the villains have to the zoo in the first place.
