All over the world, wild animals are confined to cages, pens, and enclosures for the entertainment of paying visitors. But increasingly, we are understanding just what this means for the animals themselves and asking ourselves whether it’s time to rethink zoos and aquaria.
When Did Zoos Begin?
For centuries, wealthy “collectors” have travelled the world to capture animals from the wild and bring them home for their own amusement. Inevitably, countless animals were killed during capture and transportation, with babies stolen away from their mothers or left orphaned when their parents were killed for trying to defend them. And many more animals died in the appalling conditions they were forced to live in once they reached their destination. Zoos as we know them today emerged in the eighteenth century when they became businesses and started charging visitors to see the wild animals they had stolen from the wild.
Are Zoos Important for Conservation?
Today’s zoos argue that they do important conservation work, but the truth is very few animals are ever returned to the wild and most of the species displayed are not endangered. However, zoos do keep alive a few species that are otherwise extinct. Some people say that protecting their habitats from wanton destruction would be better than incarcerating the few remaining individuals and ask us to spare a thought for all those non-endangered animals who are held in captivity only because they are popular with tourists.
Zoos Kill Healthy Animals
Everyone loves baby animals, right? And so zoos breed them as a way of keeping the crowds coming back. But what happens to the babies when they grow up? Often, they are either traded with another zoo or they are killed. The UK’s prestigious Longleat Safari Park killed perfectly healthy lion cubs after breeding too many in order to keep a steady supply of baby animals. And in Copenhagen, Marius the giraffe was not only killed but his body was dissected as a public spectacle, because he was too closely related to other captive giraffes to be considered suitable for breeding. After Packy the elephant was killed at Oregon Zoo in 2018, campaigners together with ethologist Dr. Marc Bekoff, created World Zoothanasia Day to highlight the tens of thousands of animals who are killed by zoos.
Artificial Environments
Is there anything more incredible than seeing a wild animal in his or her native environment? And yet zoos often keep animals in tiny cages and enclosures to allow customers the best chance at seeing them up close. That means tigers and lions have around 18,000 times less space in zoos than they would in the wild and polar bears have one million times less space. Not only are the animals unable to roam as they should, often they are not able to eat what or when they should, choose their own mate, or live in the family or social groups that are natural to them. These deprivations have devastating psychological impacts.
Mental Torture in Zoos
Many wild animals forced into captivity suffer a severe psychological toll. You may see this in big cats pacing up and down, up and down, at the edges of their enclosure. You may see it in elephants swaying from side to side, in the same way that traumatized children rock back and forth. When you recognize these actions as ‘stereotypic behaviors’ you can see just how much distress confined wild animals are in. And it’s no better in aquaria, which really are just underwater zoos. A report by Freedom for Animals found that 90 percent of aquaria in England hold fish who display stereotypic behaviors.
Animal Neglect and Suffering
Investigations routinely reveal horrendous suffering and neglect inside zoos. In one British zoo, 486 animals died in just four years, including an African spurred tortoise named Goliath who died after being electrocuted by electric fencing and a squirrel monkey who was discovered decomposing behind a radiator. At one zoo in Iowa, animals appear to have been left to starve to death, while at least 120 dolphins and whales died at the Miami Seaquarium.
Zoos Are Dangerous for People, Too
The psychological, emotional, and physical suffering of animals in zoos is so severe that some will do anything to escape. Inevitably, there have been many fatal attacks by lions and other animals who take their stresses out on the people who keep them incarcerated. In Orlando, Tilikum, an orca who was born in the wild waters near Iceland and forced into captivity,
killed his trainer after years of stressful confinement and being forced to perform tricks. Most of the animals who manage to escape are captured and returned to the confinement they risked everything to leave. Sadly, a significant number are shot, including two brown bears in England, three chimpanzees in Sweden, four wolves in France, and a black bear in Florida.
Alternatives to Zoos
Wild animals do not belong in captivity. It is not good for them and nor is it safe for us. Those of us who love to see animals can instead visit sanctuaries, volunteer at wildlife rehabilitation centers, spend time in the natural world where we live, watch wildlife films, get up close and personal with a virtual reality safari, or book an ethical wildlife-watching trip at home or further afield. Our love of seeing wild animals should never be at the expense of the wellbeing of those animals. It’s an hour of fun for us but an entire lifetime of misery for them.
