Opinion Essay

Are Zoos Really a Good Idea?


Imagine some stranger storming into your house and into your room. I bet you would feel very uncomfortable. Now, imagine you are forced to move out of your home to a place were you barely had enough space to move and you are isolated from human civilization. How would you feel? Probably homesick, and you would go crazy after being there for a while. Well, that’s how animals feel when they are captured and forced to live in a zoo. Some people believe that this position is very radical and they claim that zoos help research but also they keep the animals safe from threats such as deforestation, illegal hunting, and pollution. Maybe to some extent zoos protect animals, but the truth is that animals need to run free in their own environment. I support the idea that humans and animals should learn to share the Earth, because it is the home of all creatures, and not exclusively of mankind. Through this text I am going to tell you why animals shouldn’t be kept in zoos.

The first reason is that animals suffer when they are separated from their group and their habitat. Like humans they don’t like change. Research on Dolphins proves that these animals suffer traumas after being captured and taken to an aquarium. Their memory is able to remember the way they were captured, and when they recall the events they get sad. Dolphins feel homesick and miss the members of their group.

Another reason is that animals may suffer genetic because they are forced to live in a smaller place than their habitat, and they also need to adapt to the climate conditions of their new home, which may be very different from their natural environment. A good example of this is our “Centro Ecológico.” It is located in a very hot and sunny city in a dessert environment, and there are a lot of animals that don’t have this kind of whether back home. If these species are able to reproduce, their descendants may suffer genetic alterations in order to adapt to the new environment.

Although there are many signs in the zoos, a lot of people don’t respect these warnings and they throw trash to the animals’ cages and dare to reach their hands into the cages. There are many accidents in the zoos in which the visitors and the zookeepers are affected, by aggressive behaviors from part of the animals. The truth is that the animals are not guilty, because they just follow their instinct, and this aggressive behavior is some sort of response to the frustration of not being in their natural habitat hunting for their own food.

And last but not least, a very interesting fact that is against keeping animals in zoos is that there are many viral diseases that may be acquired in zoos. These viruses may be transmitted from one species to another, and humans may get infected with these diseases. Among some of the viruses that may be acquired in a zoo are rabies and tuberculosis. This is a threat to both the animals and humans’ health.

So maybe next time you visit the zoo, you could take a moment to think if keeping animals locked in such small spaces is fair, and if there will still be zoos we should at least not disturb the animals by throwing trash or trying to get a rise on them.