Persuasive Essay About Zoos

With wings aching to fly and feathers destined to be ruffled in the wind, a fraction of bald eagles can be found sitting in a depressing setting of enclosed walls. Ironically, this gracious creature provides the symbol for freedom in our country, yet some sit in cages their whole life. Unfortunately, enclosures and trained performances still exist. The taming and caging of animals in zoos, aquariums, and circuses needs to be discontinued because they strip the freedom and rights of animals to entertain people for money. Animals are not created for the sole purpose of entertaining the human race or to bring in cash; they experience pain, despair, and familial bonds too. Gracious birds need the sky to soar, not a box to clip their wings. King Henry I obtained the first known menagerie, his own personal zoo (Grech 2). Hopefully, he treated his pets as royalty. From then on, the love of exploiting animals for the interest of humans has only increased. However, with increased popularity of animal entertainment, comes an increased desire of more complicated acts to be performed, which means crueler training (Wilson 87). They could at least provide positive incentives. Wild creatures forced into performing

As if being caged in all his life was not enough, the Copenhagen Zoo again deprived Marius, the two-year-old giraffe, of a normal life. They considered him a “surplus” and murdered him with a shotgun in 2014. Marius’s perfectly healthy, two-year-old body, not even fully grown, fed the zoo’s felines. Not only was this choice irrational and ridiculous, the zoo even immorally declined offers from other zoos to adopt and an offer of over half a million dollars from a person to take Marius off their hands (Schwartz 1-2). In 1982, the same zoo cruelly killed three innocent tigers, saying no other zoos would give them a home (Stoner 36). Even with offers, they still killed Marius, so it sounds like nothing stops