A Zoo Or A Murder Scene: Why Zoos Are Dangerous To The Animals

The air, hot and humid, climbs towards one hundred degrees, but unfortunately for you, you promised your child, a sweet animal lover, that you both would go to the zoo. Dreading the muggy trip, the only thing that can keep you excited is seeing your child’s eyes light up as she finally gets to see her favorite animal, a polar bear. When walking towards the polar bear exhibit, you feel as though something is wrong, but you continue anyways. Approaching the beloved exhibit, your daughter looks at the polar bear and begins to bawl. She quickly asks you why the bear is not moving, and why he is grey instead of a fluffy white that polar bears are supposed to be. You then have to break the devastating truth to your daughter that zoos tend to harm animals in many ways, but trying to cheer her back up, you tell her that zoos are regulated to ensure safety in some ways, and she seems unamused.

The fact that zoos are dangerous to the animals that inhabit them is hard to believe, but it is very easy to prove, as you just realized. One look at the animals in a zoo is all it takes to realize that the animals that live there are in jeopardy. Although zoos are closely regulated, zoos are harmful to the animals that inhabit them because the animals are forced to live in harmful environments and constricted in cages, they are given drugs to calm them that can negatively affect their health, and the animals can be harmed by people. Zoos can be harmful to animals of all shapes and sizes, but the first reason zoos are considered harmful is due to the constricted areas that the animals are limited to. In an Indonesian zoo, the Subaraya Zoo, a recent death of an endangered Sumatran Tiger has drawn attention to the various questionable deaths caused by this zoo, in fact “nearly a hundred animals have died at the facility in less than 12 months”, all deaths varying in bane. Although the causes of these awful deaths have varied from choking, strangulation and injuries, scientists and any person with common sense would realize the overpopulated, cramped and trash-ridden cages are not good homes for the animals.

These cages or “exhibits” have restricted animals in areas much smaller than the deciduous forests and grasslands that these animals are supposed to live in. In an article posted by the Captive Animals’ Protection Society, the experts elaborate on ten facts about zoos that people do not often realize, including “tigers and lions have around 18,000 times less space in zoos than they would in the wild. Many people do not understand how small that really is, so imagine cutting a house into 18,000 pieces and only getting to live in one minuscule piece. If that is not bad enough for the tigers and lions, polar bears are found to live in an even smaller fraction of the land that they get in the wild when they are in zoos, in fact “polar bears have one million times less space”. Zoo animals, including the animals from the Subraya Zoo, are living in areas much smaller than they should be, so of course they are going to die not only to how awful the cages are maintained, but also due to the lack of area to exercise, play and have fun. Zoos unkempt cages have harmed animals in many ways, but another way that zoos are harming animals that people are not as aware about are by the drugs that they prescribe animals. Zoos, known for giving drugs to animals to help with depression, zoochosis, and to help calm down the larger more vicious animals, are trying to help the animals, but instead the veterinarians have been hurting the animals.

Many zoos have been killing animals by overdoses and complications with dangerous drugs; these deaths could be easily avoided if the animals could run freely. In the Dubbo Zoo section of the Taronga Western Plains Zoo, at least 22 mammals or birds have died due to man-made slip-up, and in one scenario “life sciences manager Andrew Thorne said the peccary died because a veterinarian did not read a label on vial of the tranquiliser ketamine, assuming it contained 1mg/ml when it actually contained 10mg/ml”. Although a veterinarian's job is to keep the animals healthy, she easily skipped over her job because she thought it was always the same, causing the death of a rare mammal. Accurately showing how deathly these drugs can be, a rare animal can become extinct with one mistake. In other cases, these “experts” have had little to no idea of how much of a drug is too much of a drug for these large or small animals, and one situation that proves this includes “in 1962, the director of a zoo in Oklahoma had the bright idea of firing a syringe dart containing almost 300 milligrams of LSD – about 3000 times the normal dose a hippie would take – into one of his elephants. Sadly, the animal went crazy, then died”.

The director of the zoo, one who knows very little about drugs and their effect on animals, should not have a say in this situation; only a certified veterinarian should control this, but as shown before even that could lead to the death of these animals. One more example of animals being overdosed at zoos includes “the rodents were spiked with doses of speed equivalent to those taken by addicts on a binge. Researchers found long-lasting changes in key communication pathways in the brain”. The insane amount of drugs prescribed to zoo animals, like rodents, has become a serious problem that can result in death and mental instability. Giving animals such lethal amounts of drugs is not a good idea, so instead of sending the animals to zoos where they need to be calm, need to take drugs to be happy, or take away the symptoms of zoochosis, animals should be allowed to run happily and freely in the wild. Lastly, people can also harm animals in various ways other than slip-ups with drugs. During the summer, people love to go watch drugged up animals as they walk around in their cramped exhibits.

According to Good in Zoochosis:what really happens to animals in captivity, “Over 175 million people visit zoos a year, causing animals to become stressed, bored or frustrated, a term called ‘zoochosis’”. Zoochosis is described as the abnormal actions of animals due to being held in captivity. Because zoochosis is caused by the terror people bring, the children and families that visit are harming the animals. Zoochosis brings many symptoms to the animals, including “fur plucking, rocking and pacing”. Zoochosis, caused by people, hurt the animals mentally, but people can physically hurt the animals too. At many zoos, lids of water bottles are not allowed because people were throwing them into the cages, causing animals to choke. People have hurt these animals in bizarre ways, including in one circumstance, “an eclectus parrot, a brightly coloured rainforest bird, died in November 2003 after a keeper accidentally closed a caged door on its head”, this accident was caused solely by a person making a clueless decision. Circumstances like this one are happening far too often, killing many rare animals. Overall, people bring mental and physical pain to the animals that are being kept in the zoo. Although many people believe zoos are extremely harmful to the animals that inhabit them, zoos are closely regulated to ensure animal safety.

The AZA or the Association of Zoos & Aquariums has put in accreditation basics that each zoo must meet to become accredited. If a zoo is accredited, more people are likely to visit those zoos over non-accredited ones. The AZA checks on more than five aspects when a zoo is trying to go through the accreditation process, including living environments, veterinary programs, safety, security, nutrition and the quality of the zoo’s staff members. According to the AZA, the accredited zoos have to keep up with these standards, or they will get their accreditation evoked. To ensure that these zoos follow all accreditation rules, “each zoo or aquarium must keep up with these changes to remain AZA-accredited. And to prove it, they must go through the entire accreditation process every five years”. The AZA is working hard to ensure that animals are being kept as healthy as possible when they are in the zoos with the help of their strict accreditation process that zoos must go through to become accredited and get more visitors, so they can stay in business. Although the AZA is trying to make zoos a healthier environment for the animals, zoos will never be the healthiest option for animals. One way to make sure that animals remain healthy, unlike they do in zoos, is by allowing them to run free in their natural habitats.

Many animals, including but not limited to elephants and tigers, live happier and more physical lives while in the wild. When elephants are living in the wild, they “walk up to 40 miles a day. They play, bathe in rivers and engage in constant exercise. In their natural environment, they can live up to 60 or 70 years, elephants in captivity often die before the age of 40”. This example proves how animals that live in the wild are happier and more physically active which makes them healthier, making living in the wild a great solution to the problems animals go through when living in the zoo. When animals live in the wild, they are provided with proper diets, living space and mates, so they tend to live healthier and happier lives in their natural habitats. Tigers, large cats that naturally subside in the grasslands, can prove this to be accurate because tigers are also healthier when they live in the wild just like elephants. Tigers are known for being large territorial animals, and “they often live and travel across a habitat that can span across 7.7 square miles for female tigers, to 23 to 39 square miles for male tigers”.

If tigers continue to be kept in small exhibits, they will maintain poor mental and physical health, causing them to eventually die. Keeping animals of any shape or size, differing anywhere from tigers to elephants, in zoos where they are given little spaces, prescribed harmful drugs, and harmed by people is not the answer to maintaining proper animal health, so instead animals should be allowed to run free in the wild. Another way to solve the problem of zoos being degrading towards animals and their health is to make it harder for zoos to become accredited by the AZA. If zoos are unable to become accredited, their number of visitors will drastically decrease which in some cases might put them out of business, allowing the animals to be moved to a more desirable zoo or even returned to the wild. Right now, the AZA requires zoos and their staff to become reaccredited occasionally, the AZA stating “they must go through the entire accreditation process every five years”. Although putting zoos through the accreditation process again is a good idea to make sure they keep up with the requirements, the AZA should be checking to make sure that the zoos are following requirements more frequently because a zoo could not be following their requirements until right before they become reaccredited which can bring danger to the animals and their well-being. The Accreditation Commission, the group that decides whether a zoo will become accredited, should also meet for each individual zoo because right now “the Accreditation Commission meets twice a year to consider all candidates for accreditation”.

If the Accreditation Commission met individually, the members would be more likely to pay attention to the minor details of each zoo, and these minor details could cause an animal to die, so the Accreditation Commission could save multiple lives of the animals they love to go see at the zoo if they spent more time on each individual zoo. Changing how frequent the AZA meets could positively affect the health of the animals at the zoo by making sure that the accredited zoos stay up to date with their requirements at all times. Zoos, full of harmful environments, dangerous drugs and inconsiderate people, have negatively affected the animals that live there, causing many animals to become mentally and physically ill. People still continue to visit these murder scenes because they believe that the AZA makes sure that zoos are in great conditions, and they love to see the rare animals, but unfortunately the AZA does not keep the best track of zoo conditions. Putting animals in dangerous conditions can not only harm the animals but also the people because seeing animals being slowly killed can bring emotional pain to the children that used to love to go visit the zoo.

Connecting this to the real world is very easy because the truth about zoos affect everyone who has ever attended the zoo or has a love for animals. Continue to imagine how you would have reacted if you had brought your child to see their favorite animal only to see their heart shatter into a million pieces because the animals are not being protected, but instead, they are being tortured. This is a situation that no parent ever wants to witness with their animal-loving child, so to prevent this topic and to protect the animals, we should fight for the AZA to regulate zoos carefully or fight to let the animals live in the wild, the wildlife living a happier and elongated life. Zoos should not be a place where a child’s heart is broken; zoos should be a place that brings joy to the visitors, and delivers safety to the animals.