Zoos Are Prisons for Innocent Animals
You Can Help Protect Captive Wild Animals in Your Community
Before that period, the only places I'd observed exotic animals up close--in a most unnatural habitat, the zoo--were in New York, Colorado, and California. Although I've always been attracted to animals of all kinds and used to make a point of visiting the zoos of big cities as well as smaller towns, I always came away with a wistful feeling for them and all they were missing as exhibit animals, locked away for life in cages, or separated from the public by deep, wide moats. But in those days I believed the hype that zoos were enlightened places where education, research, and preservation of endangered and exotic species took place, and that sacrificing a few wild animals in the pursuit of more knowledge to help save the others was a necessary evil.
Unfortunately, the truth is that even the best run and most well-planned zoos are simply prisons for wild animals. And most zoos are far from well run, because of a chronic lack of funding for improvements. In the smaller zoos, which include roadside menageries and petting zoos, animals are forced to spend their lives in a cold, sterile environment, walking on concrete, behind steel bars. They are exposed to extreme heat and cold, and travel from town to town in cramped containers. If they're lucky, they may receive some level of veterinary care and regular feeding. But often they don't.
Even the large modern zoos such as the San Diego Zoo can hardly provide a natural environment for all their animals, which come from varied climates all over the planet. Observing the normal behavior of these animals in a zoo environment is a joke. They cannot hunt, mate, or socialize the way they would in the wild. Animals who normally live in extended families or large herds may find themselves with at most one or two or three others of their kind. There is no privacy and very little mental stimulation, which is particularly important for the more intelligent species. As a result, a psychological condition called "zoochosis" often develops. Animals with zoochosis exhibit abnormal, self-destructive behavior such as turning in endless circles, picking at their own skin, facing the wall hunkered down in depression instead of interacting, continuously throwing feces and other objects at the public, and pacing back and forth. I'll never forget a horrific zoo I visited in Mexico, where the agitated wild cats were housed in tiny cages right next door to a busy freeway, and a baboon was hunched up, facing a concrete wall, alone in a barren exhibit surrounded by a moat.
The message that zoos convey to children as well as adults is that it's OK to grab animals out of their natural habitat and cage them so that the public can gawk at them. Did you know that ten adult animals may be killed to capture just one young animal for a zoo? Poachers love zoos, for obvious reasons. The little preservation that goes on is related to improving the birth rate and maintaining more captive animals. In fact, zoos do little to protect endangered species, because most captive animals are not endangered. Natural habitat release programs are practically nonexistent, and extremely difficult to engineer with animals bred or reared in captivity.
The World Society for the Protection of Animals reported that a mere 1,200 out of 10,000 zoos are registered for captive breeding and wildlife conservation, and only 2% of the world's threatened or endangered species is registered in breeding programs. The bottom line is that a zoo is an entertainment enterprise. It tends to breed whatever species the public takes a fancy to. And the surplus is often sold to smaller zoos, breeders, canned-hunt game farms, research labs, or even exotic meat and hide processors.
If there is a zoo close to you, visit it only if you think you can effect change by reporting zoo abuses to animal humane associations. You can become a "zoo checker", observing instances of zoochosis, inadequate housing, and unsanitary conditions. Otherwise, try to visit animals where they actually live, or watch wildlife programs and films, and learn more about them through books describing the various species.
I remember an old Twilight Zone episode in which astronauts crash land on a planet. One of them dies, and the other is rescued by the apparently friendly inhabitants. He's taken to a house that looks just like the one he left back on Planet Earth, and told he can live there. Then he notices the bars on the windows, and all the faces gaping in at him, and realizes he's about to become a permanent exotic exhibit for curious onlookers. You have now entered the Zoo Zone.
Published by Barbara Joan Baxter
Barbara Joan is a freelance writer/editor/publisher/webhead and the proud guardian of ten dogs and cats. Books of poems and a memoir are in the works. View profile
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14 Comments
Post a Comment(cont. #3) And these are the very animals who have the most trouble handling imprisonment.
Another argument I’ve heard is that although it’s sad that many animals have to live in zoos, their suffering is worth it because they serve as ambassadors for their species and they get visitors interested in wildlife conservation. It would be comforting if that were true, but there is little evidence that visiting a zoo makes an environmentalist out of a visitor. Most people go to zoos for entertainment, and some go to torment the animals (as happened at the San Francisco Zoo a few years ago, with tragic consequences).
(continued from previous remark) She was euthanized only a few months later because of severe foot and leg problems caused by her sojourn at the zoo. I believe Lulu is still alive, but was described by Pat Derby, who runs PAWS, as the most neurotic elephant she’s ever known.
People say that zoos should exist so that kids who can’t see animals in the wild will at least see them there. But why would you want a kid to be exposed to a traumatized wild animal living a highly unnatural life? The difference between a wild animal and a zoo animal is huge. It’s more educational for a kid to watch nature films of wildlife than to see zoochotic elephants rocking back and forth unnaturally behind a fence.
People also say that zoos help to preserve endangered animals, but the reality is that because they want to attract visitors and make money, zoos tend to breed and display the more popular animals (like big cats and elephants) while the less “sexy†ones fall by the wayside.
Ellen, a lot of people feel as you do about zoos (there are good zoos and bad zoos, but zoos themselves shouldn’t be condemned.) I used to think that way myself and even rolled my eyes whenever I saw anti-zoo protesters. But after many years of visiting zoos in different places around the world, and a memorable stint volunteering at the San Francisco Zoo, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that zoos are anything but prisons for wild animals. Some of the prisons may look a little prettier, but that doesn’t change their basic nature.
My AC avatar is Tinkerbelle (I took that photo myself back in the 1970s)), who was one of the four elephant inmates incarcerated on a small piece of concrete at the San Francisco Zoo for decades until two of them died prematurely at the zoo and the remaining two (Tinkerbelle and Lulu) were shipped to an animal sanctuary called PAWS, closing the elephant exhibit in 2005. Tragically, it was far too late for Tinkerbelle. She was euthanized on
A bad zoo is bad because it does bad things, but it is not bad simply because it is a zoo.
Your article portrays everything that is wrong with a bad zoo. And there are many, many bad zoos in the world.
The problem I have is that there is no room in your article for good zoos. While you may be of the opinion that there is no such thing, I would like to give your readers another perspective.
A good zoo:
A good zoo does not take animals from the wild. That actually become illegal in the late 70's
A good zoo houses animals in naturalistic exhibits
A good zoo houses animals in appropriate social groups
A good zoo Is very involved in conservation of wild animals. There are actually lots of sucessful reintroductions of endangered species being bred in captivity and released into the wild. Golden Lion Tamains in Brazil, several hoofstock species in Asia, and condors and black-footed ferrets in the US. These are only the most well-known.
A good zoo spends a lot of time and money making sure the animals have lots of mental stimulation through enrichment and t
Animalover, zoos are awful by definition. They started out as collections of imprisoned exotic animals by the wealthy to impress their friends and there hasn't been any improvement since. Zoos could be turned into animal rescue facilities, as was suggested with the San Francisco Zoo, and the animals moved to sanctuaries where they have plenty of room, more natural living conditions, and are not forced to be circus side shows for popcorn-chomping tourists.
I couldn't agree more with your point, many of there living conditions are aweful! However, i do think that under the right scheme and providing a larger space a zoo could be completely changed and actually changed for the uses they apparently provide. It is easier for us to say how terrible zoos are, but its much harder for them to be changed!
No i dun agree, nub.
zoos are nothing but sanitised prisons for animals. you guys agree? why?
lololol/