Should zoos be banned?

By:Marina S.

         How would you feel if suddenly you were swept away from your family, shipped off across the world, and locked in a jail cell for the entertainment of others? That's probably the last thing a human could want. In 2017, in South Lake Zoo located in England, nearly 500 animals died due to adverse conditions. It's time we think about the point of view animals have in zoos.

You might not think of zoos as being a big problem. However, zoos hold animals captive and force them to be who they aren't supposed to be. One of the biggest problems is captivity. Zoos are one-hundred times smaller than their natural habitat in the wild. An average cage in a zoo is twenty by fifteen feet, preventing the animals from roaming around as much as they could in their natural habitat in the wild. Captivity can also cause fundamental mental health problems like tension and abnormal behaviors. The zoo's habitat also doesn't provide the social health and animal needs.

Education. Zoo’s main purpose is to educate people. But what if I told you they have been spreading false information? Zoos are unable to witness the facts about animals and how they truly are, another major issue is animal abduction. Animals are being taken away from their families and held captive in zoos, which is why 80% of animals in zoos suffer from depression and anxiety. Many may think zoos are good for taking care of endangered animals, which is true. However, 82% of the animals taken into zoos are not endangered, meaning they are perfectly fine in their natural habitat in the wild.   Zoos are showing people animals in unnatural habitats, and it doesn't show how animals actually react in the wild. Researchers have found that 59% of kids have not had a positive educational outcome after visiting the zoo.

Zoos tend to take advantage of animals. Zoos often force animals to produce young  so there will be more animals to put out for show. But what happens when they get old? When the animals get old in zoos, they often get killed or sold.

It's time people stand for animals that are being held captive in zoos. “We built zoos because we are cruel, because we care not about the freedom of others, but only our own freedom, because animals are weak and we love to crush the weak, because we never understood and we are still not understanding that all living things have feelings like us!” says Mehmet Murat Ildan, a zookeeper in the Bronx. There may be pros of zoos, but the cons cancel them out. Many may think zoos are close to “homes” for animals, but these so-called “homes” for animals are much more like prisons; reality may not actually be what it looks like.