Its shocking the way we treat animals! Think about it, they have thoughts and feelings just like we humans do. It's not right to lock them up for our sick entertainment. They don't even get a say! It is in my opinion that keeping animals in zoos should absolutely be banned. There are loads of reasons hat support this and I will be talking about their loss of natural instincts, the damage to their mental health and the extra cost for the government.
It is obvious that animals loose all natural instincts when kept in captivity. When I say natural instincts I mean their prior knowledge on how to survive and feed themselves without relying on their zookeeper. Lots of people believe that zoos are great for rehabilitating endangered species, but this is not true. They will not have the knowledge required to survive outside the environment of their enclosure and can therefore never be released to repopulate the wild species. Not only can they never be released, captivity also has a damaging effect of their minds.
Imagine that these weird aliens tranquillise you, then shove you onto a trailer before taking you to a brand new environment were you can't roam free and have to eat an entirely new diet at specific times. Well that's what it's like to live in a zoo. If born in the wild the animals will be taken away from family often into an isolated enclosure with no peace because of the constant human activity around their cage. They are forced to live out their life in artificial, stressful and downright boring places. Would you like to live like this? Well they don't get a choice. On top of this zoos are extremely expensive to run.
An investigation was done of all the zoos in America in 2010. This investigation showed that they spend an average of $150 million dollars each year to provide food, shelter and clean enclosures for all the animals. On top of this is the annual cost of hiring staff and zookeepers along with the original cost of clearing land and building the facilities. This money could instead have been used to save thousands of wild animals by retaining their habitats and uncovering unique facts about the species wild behaviours.
So the big question is, why do we put animals in zoos?its animal cruelty because they have to put up with disturbances all day long, it costs the government a heap of money and on top of that you unmeaningly tame the animal. A zoo is like a prison. You only put a human in a prison if they have done something bad. But now we think it is ok to put animals in 'prison'without them doing anything except helping the ecosystem. This has to be changed!
By Jennie Widing
Credits:
Created with images by Becker1999 - "Caged" • jdnx - "Elephant behind fence." • shankar s. - "Chimpanzee" • Shehan Obeysekera - "Crocodile" • Jazzyroses - "Animal Kingdom 602" • Sean MacEntee - "Dublin Zoo"