Animal Captivity Research Paper

In the world, there are over 10,000 zoos. Every day, thousands of people go to one of these zoos to spend a day as a family or educate their children. However, no one ever really learns anything from visiting a zoo. Some people do, but only those passionately interested in animals. Going to a zoo can be a very fun experience, for people. Not for the animals held there. The animals do not receive a quality life in captivity, yet, people never grasp the fact that this is true. Animals receive such poor care and no one truly realizes the harmful life they are living. Animals should not be kept in a zoo for many reasons. A few reasons being: they are not treated properly, zoos do not provide the animals with proper living conditions, and animals …show more content…
In the wild, an animal can roam thousands of miles without running into a fence. In a zoo, they may have a few thousand feet, maybe only a few hundred feet. Cages do not meet the standards of an animals living quarters. In an article titles “SeaWorld is Dealt a Blow,” by Hugo Martin, SeaWorld is under fire due to the small enclosures a whale is kept in. A suggestion to make the enclosures larger is made, yet no enclosure will be large enough. “These new tanks do not meet these basic requirements. No facility ever will.” This statement is very true. A whale needs to swim in the ocean, not in a large tank. The tanks, even if they are enlarged, will never truly be big enough. No enclosure for any animal will ever large enough. Due to the small enclosures, there is never really enough room for all the animals. Many zoos run out of room for all the animals they hold captive. The little ones grow up to take the place of the preexisting adults. Many of the older adult animals get warehoused in off-exhibit buildings where they spend the rest of their days in small cages (O'Conner 1). This is horrible. An animal needs quality living conditions if they are not in their natural habitat. One cannot simply live in a cage for the rest of its life. These conditions are inhumane. Also, it seems that if an animal gives birth but the offspring happens to die, zoo employees do not attempt to retrieve the corpse for many days or even weeks. "At Frankfurt Zoo, a gorilla had lost her one week old baby. The mother was said to be so distraught she slept with her dead offspring and zookeepers could not retrieve the baby because she was so aggressive. The zoo director said this behavior is similar to a human's (Panahi 1)." Leaving the dead, rotting corpse can pose so many health threats. In the wild a human cannot help dispose of a dead offspring, but the mother will realize she

Show More