For as many visitors as zoos get, who knew such a main attraction and a family entertainment place could be so fun on the outside and terrible and depressing on the inside of the bars. Zoos pack in around 900-7,000 visitors a day, depending on how popular the zoo is. Thousands of people line up outside waiting to get a peek of animals that you wouldn’t see in your everyday life. While the animals are dreading another day-full of people laughing and staring at them, waiting patiently till they are set free in the wild.
Unfortunately for most animals that day may never come, statistics showing that in all zoos around 10-15 percent of animals die each year from captivity. How would you feel if all of a sudden, you would be roaming free then a week later be in a cage with random animals? I believe Zoos are unnecessary and wrong. People have just come up with different ways to entertain and make money for our own selfish purposes, not concerning the lives of once free animals that are now imprisoned for our own entertainment.
For example, elephants are trained daily to do tricks for the visitors for entertainment but, what we don’t know is that elephants are treated very harsh and cruel in the process, injuring them till they obey. This daily action fails to treat animals with respect they deserve, moaning and groaning through the night because of the wounds from a leather whip that are ever so painful. Captivity can not only hurt the animals emotionally but can hurt them physically as well.
Depending on humans for food every day and cleansing, animals bred in zoos may become dependent on human beings rather than members of their own species, preventing them fully experiencing their true identity. As well as, being placed into a cage that does not have enough room for the animal can physically hurt them as well. Imagine you are a dolphin, swimming rapidly in the ocean, feeling the cold water flow by your skin. Having the whole ocean to swim in, then being captured and contained in a pool, feeling more like a puddle compared to the ocean.
One day with your family and friends, the next with maybe no one. Captivity can also deprive them socially, many social animals travelled in groups before being captured and many are kept alone in the zoos suffering from boredom and depression. These social animals should be kept in their groups that they have adapted to before being captured, so their behavior is as natural as possible. Not only is captivity and animal entertainment wrong but, animals are also dying because of exposed things that are unnatural in their former environments.
For example, animals are exposed to a wide array of plants, insects, diseases, foreign objects, etc. by being in a foreign environment that they have not yet adapted to. For example, they’re many sad stories that have occurred at one of the most popular zoos in America. Story on Zoo cons from Animal Planet; Zebras at the National Zoo in Washington D. C starved to death because of insufficient or incorrect food, and the zoo’s red pandas died only a few months later after ingesting rat poison. You would be surprised on how many zoos are like that in the U.
S, supposedly meeting at least the minimum requirements spelled out in legal documents, like the Animal Welfare Act, unfortunately standards aren’t always met and enforced. The answer to these problems is that; Animals deserve more than what they are getting from us humans, they were placed on this earth just like we were, so they deserve the same treatment. Would you like to be taken from your home and put in a cage in a foreign place, lonely, depressed, and bored? No, you wouldn’t, so why do you think the animals do?
Since the animals have no voice, we need to be their voice for them and stand up for what we believe is the right answer. Concluding, all of these examples are good a reasoning why animals should no longer be kept in zoos, rather than being free in their natural habitats and environments. Not only is this fair but it is also a form of respect that we owe to the animals, because of our cruelty and selfishness towards them.
Works citied Page
1. Jamieson, Dale . “Against Zoos, by Dale Jamieson. ” The Animal Rights Library. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://www. animal-rights-library. com/texts-m/jamieson01. tm>. 2. “BBC – Ethics – Animal ethics: Animals for entertainment. ” BBC – Homepage. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://www. bbc. co. uk/ethics/animals/using/entertainment_1. shtml>. 3. “Reasons why zoos are bad for a debate? – Yahoo! Answers. ” Yahoo! Answers – Home. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://answers. yahoo. com/question/index? qid=20100913055055AAPDgwZ. htm>. 4. Horton, Jennifer. “Zoo Cons: Animal Facts: Animal Planet. ” Pet Guides and Wild Animal Guides:Animal Planet. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://animals. howstuffworks. com/animal-facts/zoos-good-or-bad2. htm>.
