When growing up most of us visited the local zoo’s in our area, probably on a school field trip. When we were still learning what most of these animals were, we probably didn’t realize that the paint on the back walls that make it look like a desert doesn’t mean it is one.

I know personally when I was growing up, I loved the polar bears my mom used to catch me playing pick-a-boo with them or singing to them at the walls. I loved them, I loved being able to see them. It wasn’t until I returned to the same zoo years later that I was heartbroken, their area was dirty, rundown, and the glass wall was even broken. The glass was shattered like a phone cover case when you drop your phone. And behind the shattered glass was a passed out polar bear who looked like it was asleep. To the children at the zoo, it looked like that, however to the disturbed parents and adults all knew something was up. We discovered later they had to shoot the animal with a tranquilizer in order to calm it down after it began to attack the glass case. I was frustrated with the reality of a zoo before I saw this, but this sent me over the top. I began doing more research and discovered the reality of zoos. They aren’t for rehabilitating animals; no, they are for the exploitation of animals for money. For money and money only

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So, what are the zoo’s doing to the animals?

Many argue that zoos are used for maintaining and educating the public on species. However, “even under the best of circumstances at the best of zoos, captivity cannot begin to replicate wild animals’ habitats.” The reality is these zoos do not replicate the exact same space as the wild. Many animals are put into small, caged/walled areas to be seen by the public with little to no information about the animals or interest in their welfare. Although many zoos do provide some educational opportunities for the public most visitors spend a few minutes at the ‘educational display’ and instead spend the majority of their time staring at the animal instead. This is teaching children from a young age that “it is acceptable to interfere with animals and keep them locked up in captivity, where they are bored, cramped, lonely, deprived of all control over their lives, and far from their natural homes.”

The reality of zoos is that they aren’t good for visitors or the animals, they don’t teach children about the animals any more than a book would, and they don’t help the animals live a ‘better’ life then they would in the wild. “A curator at the National Zoo followed more than 700 zoo visitors and found that “it didn’t matter what was on display … people [were] treating the exhibits like wallpaper.” He determined that “officials should stop kidding themselves about the tremendous educational value of showing an animal behind a glass wall.” Instead of learning about animals, it instead shows more psychology than reality. The animals’ behavior is rarely discussed in the texts, and almost never observed within the actual zoo because their natural needs are rarely met. The birds kept in the zoo typically are “clipped so they won’t fly away, aquatic animals often go without adequate water, and many animals who naturally live in large herds or family groups are kept alone or, at most, in pairs.” As seen in the famous scenes of Jurassic Park movies natural hunting is instantly eliminated by regulating the feeding much like in modern-day zoos with animals.

“Animals are closely confined, lack privacy, and have little opportunity for mental stimulation or physical exercise. These conditions often result in abnormal and self-destructive behavior, known as ‘zoochosis.’” Seen in a PETA investigation about bears within zoos discovered, the “species exhibiting neurotic, stereotypic behaviors. These frustrated animals spend much of their time pacing, walking in tight circles, swaying or rolling their heads, and showing other signs of psychological distress. In some bear enclosures, paths worn by the bears’ constant pacing could be seen; in others, there were actual paw impressions in the soil where bears had repeatedly stepped in the exact same spot. This behavior is symptomatic of not just boredom but also profound despondency.”

But what about the zoos that claim they are for maintaining close to extinct animals?

It is primarily a lie, once an animal is brought into a zoo, they are next to never released from it. And although they are used for keeping animals in danger of extinction from going extinct most of those animals will never ever get the chance to leave their cages, neither will their kids, or grandkids. Most zoos are much less for protections and far more for profit. “Zoos claim to want to protect species from extinction, which sounds like a noble goal, but zoo officials usually favor exotic or popular animals—who draw crowds and publicity—rather than threatened or endangered local wildlife. The Chinese government, for example, “rents” pandas to zoos worldwide for fees of more than $1 million per year, but some question whether the profits are being directed toward panda-conservation efforts at all.”

Instead of a final photo, I decided to include this upsetting list of animals that have gone extinct in the last 150 years. 

What should we do then?

• Don’t go to zoos!
  • Clearly they aren’t using their money for the right things so why give them more.
• Don’t hunt/support hunting of animals going extinct
  • This does not include deer, since any hunter will argue they will overpopulate the place. This is a different conversation man.
  • Don’t support stores that hunt animals for fur and fabric
  • Be careful of what you are buying it could come at the cost of an animal.

Sources:

• Michael Satchell, “Cruel and Usual: How Some of America’s Best Zoos Get Rid of Their Old, Infirm, and Unwanted Animals,” S. News and World Report5 Aug. 2002.

• Todd C. Frankel, “Zoo Suffers 2nd Polar Bear Death in 5 Weeks,”  Louis Post-Dispatch 2 Jul. 2005.

• Mark Derr, “Big Beasts, Tight Space and a Call for Change in Journal Report,” The New York Times2 Oct. 2003.

• Ros Clubb and Georgia Mason, “Captivity Effects on Wide-Ranging Carnivores,” Nature2 Oct. 2003.

 

I am also including the song that made me sob like a little girl while doing my research for this blog in the library.