The Fight Against Zoos (or Nature’s Animal Prisons)

Would you lock your child in a cage and charge others money to stare at him or her? Would you force your child to grow up in a small enclosure, never getting a chance to see the outside world? Just because animals are less evolved than humans, doesn’t mean they should have fewer rights. Zoos seem to be good - an educational place for people, but they are not worth what the animals inside must endure. First of all, zoos can never be a real substitute for an animal’s natural habitat. Second, zoo animals suffer from the stress of boredom, frustration, and wariness due to proximity to humans. And third, just because zoos appear to be clean and safe does not mean the animals are not being mistreated. Zoos are internment camps for animals and should be shut down. Once a person considers all of the reasons, it is not difficult to see why this is true.

First of all, even the most authentic enclosure cannot replace an animal’s true habitat. A cheetah running top-speed (as is natural for them) will hit a wall sooner, rather than later. This is not true when they are running free. Lionesses in captivity do not have the chance to hunt in packs the way they do in their natural Africa. Even penguins in their fake frozen tanks cannot dive to the depths they can in the wild. Denying animals the right to live in their natural habitats is cruel and unusual punishment that must be stopped, but it is not even the worst of what animals endure when trapped in zoos.

Forcing an animal into an unnatural habitat is bad enough, but allowing humans to be in such proximity is even worse. Many animals feel threatened when they are close to humans, and most zoos are open and crowded for very long hours. If, on the other hand, an animal considers the human prey, they will be anxious because they cannot hunt them. There have been multiple cases of an animal at a zoo being put down because the injured or killed a person who broke into their enclosure. It is not fair to kill an animal when it is just behaving on its natural instinct. Forcing an animal to engage with human beings in a zoo setting is another form of unjust punishment, but it is still not the worst of what these animals endure.

Just because a zoo facility appears to be clean and safe, this is not always the case. There are countless reports of animals being mistreated and poorly cared for at zoos. Even the best, most fully funded zoos have occasions where their animals are mistreated. Recently, a baby giraffe was shot and fed to lions at a zoo in Sweden, simply because they did not need him for breeding. This is no way to treat an animal whose only crime was being born into captivity. A quick Internet search will return dozens upon dozens of examples of treatment even worse than this. There is no reason that exotic animals kept in captivity should be treated so poorly, especially when they are there against their wills in the first place.

It is easy to understand why zoos are not to be celebrated. Animals who are forced to live in zoos are kept from their natural habitats, forced to interact with humans on a day-to-day basis, and are often terribly mistreated. Zoos are basically prisons for guiltless animals that are forced to stay unwillingly, and every one of them should be closed down for good. Anyone who feels compassion for other living creatures should understand that supporting zoos is condoning the mistreatment of defenseless animals. Anyone who thinks that zoos are acceptable should also be able to accept the idea that they themselves or a family member should be locked up forever for the entertainment of others. Obviously, this is an absurd demand, but keeping this in mind, it is clear that zoos should become an embarrassing stain on our world’s history.