Persuasive Essay On Zoos

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Recommended: Zoos are beneficial for animals

Leslie Miller
Professor Preisman
English 100
9 December 2015

Modern Day Sacrifice for Your Entertainment
We have all been to the zoo with our families, friends, or on an elementary school field trip. Zoos function today as amusement parks and use their wildlife conservation efforts to ward off the guilt visitors might feel looking at hundreds of caged wild animals. We remember seeing the tigers laying out in the sun or the monkeys swinging from branches. The information the zoo tried to teach us, like the daily calorie intake of a Siberian tiger or which of the animals we saw were endangered, are forgotten before we even leave the parking lot. The outdated practice of using zoos to display wild animals needs to end because of the unnecessary stress on the animals, the lack of educational benefit these institutions provide, and the …show more content…

Douglas Falk, the Assistant Curator of Education of the New York Zoological Society explains that throughout history, people have kept animals to show off their wealth, entertain people, or give as gifts (Falk). The first zoos to show up were around 3,000 years ago in China where a Chinese emperor collected animals to study. In Europe we see zoos emerging as early as 900 AD. The first zoos in the United States begin to appear in the mid 1800’s and the National Zoological Park was set up by Congress in 1889 (Falk). From here Falk, along with other organizations involved within the zoo community like the Saint Louis Zoo say that the goals of zoos today are of conservation, education, and research (Falk). Falk explains that zoos humanly acquire animals because they are no longer allowed to capture and display wild animals. Instead, Falk says that

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