Persuasive Essay Zoos

Lions roar in the ears of the bystanders while people are taking pictures with monkeys. Zookeepers sell bread to give to the ducks in the pond. This scene is typical in zoos around the world. Globally, zoos are meant to provide entertainment as they have been around for centuries, and there are more than ten thousand zoos around the world that house animals in captivity (“Animals Suffer” 12). Time after time they have been proven to provide the public with tantalizing spectacles, like how zookeepers teach seals to do simple tricks and host dolphin shows. Although zoos seem like they are only for entertainment, behind the scenes they are breeding animals to be released back into the wild. This process of species reproduction in a controlled

Deemed “captive breeding,” animals from a number of wild species are brought into captivity, bred, and then taken care of under the watch of wildlife biologists to later be let back into their natural habitat (“Why Captive”). Many reasons contribute to why zoos participate in captive breeding programs with the main goal being to save certain animals from extinction (“Captive Breeding” 69). There are many goals to captive breeding. When a suitable habitat does not exist for a species, zoos will bank them until they can be released. Also, zoos mix animals’ genetics to make them more adaptable in order to survive for when they get released (“Why Captive”). Even after considering all of these supposed benefits, captive breeding proves to be unethical and costly. Especially since it does not always provide animals with good health and repopulation, this type of breeding is too expensive. For example, female red pandas are only fertile for twenty four to thirty six hours per year, yet tons and tons of money is poured into the program. These small, hard to attain cubs often fall to disease (“Captive Breeding”). Because of the success rate, forcing red pandas into captivity and sticking them together to breed is violating their rights as