Zoos are created to keep animals for study purposes and to protect endangered species. However, it is observed that earning money has become sole purpose of zoo owners. Zoos take all steps to attract public and to increase their revenues without considering safety, comfort and physical and mental health of animals. Advocates of zoos claim that zoos should not be removed because it allows people to understand and study animals. Opponents of zoos claim that zoos should be banned because zoos are not animals’ natural homes and captivity upsets animals physically as well as mentally. This paper discusses that zoos are internment camps for animals and should be shut down.
Animals do not belong to zoos and keeping them in zoos is like taking their freedom away. Keeping animals forcefully in zoos is violation of animals’ natural rights. In zoos, animals are prohibited from gathering their food, socialising, and behaving naturally. Does not matter how hard zoos are trying to replicate natural surroundings, zoos cannot become forest. Taming and caging of animals is cruel as it impacts their health and lifespan. Zoos also get involved into practices that are unethical and illegal in order to achieve profit. For example zoos are involved in trade of animals and treating animals as commodities. The primary purpose of zoos has shifted from education and protection of rare species to entertainment and money making. Various disadvantages associated with zoos generate a need of shut down of all zoos.
Claim 1: Zoos should be banned because keeping animals in prisons increase their exposure towards various physical and mental illnesses, and also decreases their life spam.
Evidence: Clubb et al. (2008) in their research study conducted on 4500 elephants found that imprisonment of animals causes different deceases in animals and reduces their life. The authors analyzed that elephants located in European zoos have lifespan of around 19 years, which is even less than half of average lifespan of animal i.e. 42 years who live in natural habitat. Transportation of animals between different zoos and removal of young animals from their mother at early age also causes various development problems, which makes survival of young animal difficult. In Zoos, animals suffer from obesity, stress, mood and health disorders, which sometimes make animals wild (Clubb, Ros, et al). PETA also claims that restricting animals from natural behaviour such as digging, climbing, hunting, swimming and choosing a partner, develop abnormal and sometimes self-destructive behaviour (PETA).
