On the other hand, those who view zoological institutions as a harmful to wild animals concentrate on the captivity and mistreatment of animals inside of zoos. Dr. Hone even admits that there are bad zoos functioning to this day. He dolefully admits, “Not all animals are kept perfectly, much as I wish it were otherwise, and even in the best examples, there is still be room for improvement” (Hone). Numerous zoos are far from being considered good zoos. Some are ongoing improvements for animal well-being, while others have no care to better conditions for the animals. T.A. Blackett, C. McKenna, L. Kavanagh, and D.R. Morgan, authors of an article focusing on the welfare of animals in zoological institutions, reveal that zoos can certainly and …show more content…
In their studies Demartoto, Soemanto, and Zunariyah went on to conduct a research experiment on two zoos to find whether or not zoos are implementing their welfare commitments. Their results rendered more negative than positive results regarding the conditions the wild animals are living in. Although one zoo was found to be better in treatment of the animals, they both could undergo serious improvements. One of the zoos studied keeps the animals in undesirable living conditions. The animals in that particular zoo live in rusty, damaged, and small cages without partners. The animals are restricted from behaving normally due to the iron pillars on the cages. Moreover, some of the animals die due to poor maintenance. In the other zoo studied, many animals were often found sick. Freedom from stress, disruption, and pressure from passing vehicles was found in neither zoo. At times, animals experience stress from visitors distracting them whether it may be the loud scream of a child or a visitor luring them with a food that is not consistent with their diet. The research revealed that zoos are definitely in need of improvement and are currently not offering the best environments for wild animals to reside in …show more content…
PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, exploits numerous actions zoos partake in that may be unknown to many. PETA strongly asserts, “Despite their professed concern for animals, zoos can more accurately be described as “collections” of interesting animals than as actual havens or homes” (PETA). According to PETA, zoos stand as prisons rather than a place where animals can live in contentment and safety. Firstly, most zoos are operating under unfavorable financial circumstances. Some zoos are spending their funds on landscaping, gift shops, and landscaping to draw in more visitors instead of spending them on providing better and more humane environment for the animals. Secondly, the workers are not always invested in the protection and supervision of the animals. For example, Tatiana, a Siberian tiger, escaped out of her zoo habitat at the San Francisco Zoo. As a result, she managed to kill one victim and injure two others. Tatiana was also shot to death after doing so (PETA). According to PETA, that was one of the numerous incidents that occur in zoos due to little investment of animal care. Additionally, zoos use the wild animals for entertainment, not education. PETA states, “Animals’ normal behavior is seldom discussed, much less observed, because their natural needs are rarely met” (PETA). Visitors are not being fully educated due to the
Considering the many challenges animals face in the wild, it is understandable that people may be eager to support zoos and may feel that they are protective facilities necessary for animal life. In the article “ Zoos Are Not Prisons. They Improve the Lives of Animals”, Author Robin Ganzert argues that Zoos are ethical institutions that enrich the lives of animals and ultimately protect them. Statistics have shown that animals held in captivity have limited utilitarian function resulting in cramped quarters, poor diets, depression, and early death for the animals thus, proving that Zoos are not ethical institutions that support and better the lives of animals as author Robin Ganzert stated (Cokal 491). Ganzert exposes the false premise in stating
It’s always fun to go with your friends and family to see cute and exotic animals when you go to the zoo, right? You may think that they have the best life having people to give them things that want and to protect them, but some of them are actually suffering just for our amusement from being in that small enclosure all day and all night. Animals should not be put in zoos because they can develop many mental and physical health problems due to the absence of some natural necessities and they are not always treated as nice as you think.
Zoos have been with us throughout our history, and can provide a good barometer of public beliefs and values at any given time. Therefore it seems necessary to explore whether in today’s society contemporary zoos are a means of educating and conserving or still seek to control and exhibit animal others for human benefit. In order to make this assessment there are a number of contributing factors. Firstly it is important to establish context by considering the history of zoos and looking at the changes from the early menageries to contemporary zoos who strive to be institutions of refuge for animals facing twenty-first century global challenges. This links into how the physical space of zoos has changed over time and whether these advancements have made any crucial difference to the welfare of animals. Following this conservation, education and scientific research will be explored in detail in order to assess whether they provide good enough motives for keeping animals in captivity. I will seek to argue that although attempts have been made to point zoos in the direction of conservation and education, in my opinion the concepts of dominance and human superiority are still at the core of modern zoos.
The debate on storing animals in zoos became controversial, and I came to the final decision that animals do not deserve to live in zoos. Animals are meant to live in their natural habitat, just as humans thrive in their naturally industrialized environment. Living in captivity can also cause the animal’s lifespan to decrease, and it may be due to the failure to satisfy their emotional needs. Human interaction to wildlife and its animals is every expanding, and this probably makes manmade disasters the main cause of the transaction of wild animals from the wild to zoos. On the other hand, zoos have the potential to raise awareness and the support from public donations to fund animal conservation projects, but people do not need to physically see an animal provide their support. Since there are many solutions to this debate, there is no direct answer. From a wild animal’s point of view, humans may be seen as immoral beings with countless evil intentions. What they do not realize is that we have the potential to do good and make big, positive
Animal cruelty is the abuse or failure to care for an animal. Before the past couple of years, people did not have to worry about how the animals in zoos were treated. For centuries, families have gone to zoos to be educated on the different species of animals. As years have gone by, zoos have become a trending topic of animal cruelty. While zoos do not physically abuse the animals, they have been known to not properly care for them. “According to the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA), there are over 10,000 zoos worldwide” (Fravel 2). Of these 10,000 zoos, only some of them actually care about their animals. Caring for wild animals is extremely hard because zoos have to recreate the animals’ natural habitat. Zoos believe that they are protecting the animals’, yet; they tend to forget how it affects the animals. In reality, the animals are depressed and bored. These wild animals are being taken out of their natural habitats and are enclosed in small cages and habitats. Wild animals should live in their natural habitats, the wild, not in a zoo for the entertainment of zoo visitors. Therefore, banning zoos will end the horrible cycle of animal cruelty.
Since the recent event with a gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo, people have questioned ethics. The author wrote this argument to explain why the safety of animals, as well as their survival in the future, depends on these enclosures. Some readers would accept that zoos and aquariums conduct a lot of research, but for those who are skeptical, the argument discusses that the “Zoological Society of London, for instance, is developing innovative methods to assess the risks of animals contracting disease when they are reintroduced into the wild” (2016, p. 2, para. 7). The effective evidence Ganzert brings in shows readers the benefits of zoos and aquariums in order to appeal to the value of the animals being well contained and protected while they are in the enclosures. Another strong example of Ganzert’s appeal to an audience that wants the facts is “The Phoenix Zoo helped lead the ensuing breeding and reintroduction programs, which ultimately birthed more than 200 calves from just nine individuals. Now between Oman and Jordan, there are about 1,000 Arabian Oryx living in the wild” (2016, p. 2, para. 4). In result, the audience receives information about an existing program as well as what has happened due to the creation of this program at the Phoenix Zoo.
There are many places where people can go to see live animals such as aquariums, zoos, and safari parks. A pleasant way to define a Zoo is to call it “an establishment that maintains a collection of wild animals”. (Google def) Another way to say that is a facility in which animals are “enclosed in cages for public exhibition”. I believe zoos are ethical; however, changes need to be made to eliminate problems I have discovered. In this argumentative essay, I will be arguing the ethics of zoos and certain problems that need to be addressed that people are not aware of. Zoos are great places to take the family out for the day to have entertainment; however, problems such as captive breeding, length of life, and animal stress need to improve.
The first point of view from this issue is the side that believes humans, zoos and other facilities should be allowed to keep animals. The places that captivate animals believe that they are doing a favor to the creatures. They believe that they are saving them from being killed by humans. They say that if they would not have taken in these animals they would have died in the wild. They say they’re giving them a fresh new start and a place to live without worry. For example, in this article they state that zoos try and h...
Citizens visit thousands of zoos worldwide to admire and satisfy their curiosity of the beautiful wild animals that mother nature has to offer. Zoos have been around for hundreds of years and have become a known tradition for numerous school field trips and family outings. The ongoing debate between animal rights activists along with zoo officials remains to be a question of concern, should wild animals be removed from their natural habitats to live in city zoos for education and entertainment purposes?
However, there is another side to the educational perspective. A critic of zoos, Yourofsky argues against the positive education experience others believe zoos provide, supporting his opinion with how the animals are in their unnatural habitats. Yourofsky writes, “one cannot learn about animals who are in an UNNATURAL habitat displaying UNNATURAL behaviors from the stress of confinement and lethargy of captivity” (Yourofsky). Hence, from this logic the educational experience is minimized because the animals are in an inaccurate environment, impacting behavior and differentiating from how they would truly behave if they were in their natural habitats.
Animals should not be held captive in zoos because it is inhumane and unfair to the animals. There are so many records of terrible things that have happened to animals in zoos over the past few centuries, the go under the radar too often. Too few people even know about these animal care atrocities, and therefore the New York Times decided to bring light upon this situation. The Times did a first-of-its-kind analysis of 390 elephant fatalities at accredited U.S. zoos over the past 50 years (Berens 3). It found that most of the elephants died from injury or disease linked to conditions of their captivity, from chronic foot problems caused by standing on hard surfaces to musculoskeletal disorders from inactivity caused by being penned or chained for days and weeks at a time.
Even though some zoos have an endangered species exhibit with the intention of protecting and rehabilitating animals, many do not do an adequate job of protecting the animals. Zoos have been harmful to the very animals they have sworn to protect. Animals in captivity often suffer from anxiety, boredom and other severe issue related to prolonged confinement. Most animals are unable to thrive in small enclosure with unnatural weather and climates. For example elephants are known to walk as far as 30 miles per day, but the association of Zoos and aquariums only require a space the measures $0 feet by 45 feet, which is about the size of a three car garage, to house these large animals. (peta.org) the drastic difference in the amount of space their allowed ...
Going to the zoo for the first time is very memorizing for many people, the weird animals , big animals that gather the most attention; all help create a premature interest in the animal kingdom for kids. Recently zoos have been put through more scrutiny for supposedly treating animals like prison mates. Despite the negative psychological effects on animals in zoos, zoos should still exist as they help bolster conservation efforts and educate the public, thus having a net benefit towards the animal kingdom. Zoos have helped restoration efforts of critically endangered species through their sophisticated breeding programs thus producing net good for animals.
Since the time of the early cave paintings, humans have been fascinated by the animals around them. Humans flock to zoos in order to see the animals that are not near them, enjoying themselves as they observe the encaged, often out-of-place animals. To most humans, these animals are merely objects. In this way, the human fascination for zoo animals is limited to how entertaining and exotic the animal is; thus, there is no interest in the wellbeing of the viewed animal. It is without doubt that a great portion of the zoo animal population is grossly mistreated, examples of which will be given within the essay.
Supporters of zoos argue that they help to conserve endangered species, but in fact they are not very good at this. Even the world famous panda-breeding programme has been very costly and unsuccessful. Also, zoo life does not prepare animals for the challenges of life in the wild. For example, two rare lynxes released into the wild in Colorado died from starvation even though the area was full of hares, which are a lynx’s natural prey.