Straightforwardly, I do not think zoos are a good thing. However, it’s less of a question of good or bad, but whether the benefits they reap are worth the consequences. Presented here is my internal, now made public, personal debate of whether zoos are good or bad.
Firstly, the main debate made against zoos is that they are “prisons for animals”. Two thoughts come from this, the first being that a lot of animals in zoos are bred in captivity, meaning they have never been in the wild and so haven’t technically been stolen from their natural habitat. This does also mean that they never get to experience what life should be like for them, which is possibly worse. The second thought is that animals captured and taken to zoos don’t submit themselves willingly, they are tranquillised and brought there, and kept there without consent. The ability to get consent from said animal may be hard but either way it can be seen as unfair to remove them from an environment that’s suited them for hundreds of years.
However, a key argument for zoos is that they do a large amount of conservation work. As a result of human interference the natural world is failing in many ways, specifically habitats and environments are becoming unsafe for certain animals, hence they are dying out due to lack of food and conservation acts to repopulate that species before it goes extinct. It’s estimated that 500 species have gone extinct in the last 100 years, this number will rise without the vital conservation work that zoo profits and experts fund.
Moving forward in the process. Animals in captivity are often more stressed or bored, making their experience more miserable. There are some zoos that provide adequate facilities for animals, yet this isn’t true for every single one. Regarding the marketing aspect of zoos, at the end of the day they are still businesses, baby animals tend to bring in far more visitors therefore certain species are bread more actively, the surplus of these babies are either moved from zoo to zoo, splitting up families or on some occasion killed off. In my opinion the main fault with zoo culture is that animals are seen as expendable.
The ability to get consent from said animal may be hard but either way it can be seen as unfair to remove them from an environment that’s suited them for hundreds of years.
I can, however, see the fact that zookeepers often pursue this career to help and save animals. Interest in the career attracts empathic people and so the trust I have that most animals are kept with a team of people whose best interest is the welfare of said animal is strong.
Overall, I can see the beneficial work that zoos provide, but in the long run you wouldn’t want your mum, dad, sister, brother, uncle or aunt to be taken out of your home and put on display for paying customers would you? Zoos to me are just plain oppressive to animals that we as a society have dubbed unable to speak up or stand up for themselves to the point we speak for them and take away their rights as beings on this earth all together.
