Why Animals Should Not Be Kept In Captivity
What do you first see in a zoo and what haven’t you paid any attention to? Zoos, a bunch of kids running around tourists taking pictures, sounds normal; except it doesn’t. No one realises that these animals are put up to this and are truly dying on the inside. Animals suffer from depression and start to develop abnormal behavior because they are out of their natural environment. Sure it might be saving endangered species but the number of cons heavily outweigh the pros.
Animals are tortured and deprived of the lives they can have in their natural habitats. Zoos hardly care about their animals they’re put there in a cage for the rest of their lifetimes and for what? So that zoos make a couple of bucks a day, wait no they make. What are these animals getting out of it!? Our society just thinking that this is comprehensible and there is no issue whatsoever with it is disadvantageous not only to us but for generations down the line. We humans are becoming harsher and more violent every day. If you ask me we’re the true animals out here in this world, even what’s happening in the world nowadays; all we needed was a virus outbreak to prove it. Now imagine if you or your children were in the animals’ spots and had absolutely no privacy and no place to call home other than that 5 x 5 cage you’re stuck in with others sticking their hands between the bars and teasing and messing with you. Where’s your self-respect and dignity? Huh, yes take for example you fight back just like any animal at a zoo. They develop anger and take it out on people who supported the idea of them stuck in the cage.
Another reason is that most zoos only get one animal per species meaning animals get lonely and eventually start to develop depression. They are given anti-depressants and psychotic drugs to control their behavior. What that also does is endanger the population of the species because it would make it harder to find a mate for animals in the wild. Take for example polar bears, they get taken into captivity often with no mate this supports the endangerment of the species and even closer to extinction. On this track animals around the world will vanish in the next decades. We take mottos seriously like ‘Treat others how you like to be treated’ animals are living things and have emotions too. They also develop physical issues. A British study was conducted on 77 elephants at a zoo in Britain only 11 of whom were able to walk properly.
Zookeepers, people that are payed to portray happy people and make it seem like the animals are truly enjoying being trapped. What are we doing? We’re just paying for those poor animals to be tortured. We are supporting animal captivity! The San Diego had a record of over 4 million people visiting the zoo in 2018. One ticket costs $50 meaning they made roughly $200 million! Animals in zoos are often not fed only when they are about to put on a show so that they display some sort of cheer for the crowd. Have you hear of ‘Flipper the Dolphin’? People around the world thought it was the happiest and luckiest animal on earth. No one knew that it was put up for show. These animals have a smile on their faces all the time that you can’t even tell whether they are happy or suffering deep down. That’s why places like SeaWorld make so much money. How did Flipper the Dolphin die? Oh yeah it committed suicide it took a deep breath and never came up for another. For an animal to be that sad in captivity is concerning.
Animal put into captivity is extremely cruel and harsh for these animals to go through. Yet they survive every day with a smile on their faces and ready to put on a show and still be appreciative of what they have rather than think about what they could have. There are plenty of other ways we can view animals in a more ethical way than behind bars. Although some animals live slightly longer in captivity it doesn’t make up for the unethical conditions in which they are kept. They try to figure ways out of their prison because it is truly a prison. Should we really be keeping these animals from the place they call home for our own entertainment?
