As humans inhabit more and more of the earth’s land, some species of wildlife are more likely to be found in captivity than in their natural habitat. But is that a good thing? Keeping animals captive might not be in our best interest. Caging theses animals up for zoo can be compared to imprisonment for animals. It makes profits for zoos and aquariums while these wild animals suffer. They take away from these animals being free, just so they can entertain humans. Lastly it takes away these the freedom of animals, preventing them from being truly what they are, and that is wild animals. So these animals shouldn’t be captive to zoos and aquariums.
First and foremost, for zoo’s, keeping these wild animals help us humans research the lives of these, “wild” animals. Yet these “wild” animals are instead put in cages, making them not so “wild” animals. As stated in the article, “What’s Wrong with Zoos?” by Amy Whiting, “Research conducted in the artificial environment of the zoo teaches us very little about the complex lives of wild, free-ranging animals”.
This makes perfect sense because, zoo’s can not expect us to believe that keeping these wild animals in a cage away from their natural habitat is really going to help humans research the way they act, play, communicate, hunt, mate, live, etc. when they are no longer “wild”. One example to show that keeping these animals from the wild doesn’t help research their everyday life is hunting, these animals cannot hunt in a zoo. They have to eat on a schedule. That right there is an indication that keeping these animals locked up is nothing more than a way for our world to make a profit.
In addition, locking these animals up from their real home will just make them more into city pets, and less wild animals. In the political cartoon by Dave Granlund is shows an image of a gorilla saying, “No more escapes…. It’s a jungle out there”. Even if it was a reference to the city itself being a jungle, being a wild animal raised in a zoo with no worries can make your home look like a danger unfamiliar place.
While these animals are being nurtured and cared for by the zoo they’ll never get to be truly wild animals unless sent back to the wild. Even then, these animals have grown up and been raised in zoos. That’s like having a newborn baby immediately taken from Chicago, Detroit, or Camden ( which are predominantly dangerous areas ) be raised in a perfect world with no violence then sending them back off to when they are older expecting them to know what’s to come and how to survive.
However others may disagree. Others think that the zoo is a great place to view mother nature’s creatures for a reasonable price. In the excerpt, “Zoos Connect Us to the Natural World”, it states, “Only a small percentage of our nation’s citizens can afford to travel to exotic locations to view wild tigers, elephants, or giant pandas”. But, that right there states wild tigers, elephants and pandas, and they are called wild animals for a reason they are supposed to be free and well wild. So instead of keeping these animals caged up we should let them be what they are meant to be and that is wild animals.
As one can see, wild animals shouldn’t be anything other than wild animals. Keeping these animals caged up takes away from the way they should live. They shouldn’t be captive for us humans to see, while they suffer. And in the midst of it all the zoo’s are the ones happy, making large profits everyday. Taking away your child freedom. Does that sound like something you’d want to happen to your child?
