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Like visiting the Zoo? Then read this...
Despite their professed concern for animals, zoos can more accurately be described as "collections" of interesting "specimens" than actual havens or simulated habitats (real homes). Zoos teach people that it is acceptable to interfere with animals and keep them locked up in captivity where they are bored, cramped, lonely, deprived of all control over their lives, and far from their natural homes.
Virginia McKenna, who starred in the classic movie Born Free and received an Order of the British Empire in 2003 for her work in behalf of captive animals, says that her participation in Born Free made her realize that "wild animals belonged in the wild, not imprisoned in zoos. … Freedom is a precious concept, and wild animals suffer physically and mentally from the lack of freedom captivity imposes."(1)
Cost-Cutting Hurts Animals
Zoos vary in size and quality—from drive-through parks to small roadside menageries with concrete slabs and iron bars. Although more than 135 million people visit zoos in the United States and Canada every year, most zoos operate at a loss and must find ways to cut costs or add gimmicks that will attract visitors.(2) The Wall Street Journal reported that "nearly half of the country's zoos are facing cutbacks this year … [a]ttendance, meanwhile, is down about 3% nationwide."(3)
Ultimately, animals are the ones who pay the price. Precious funds that should be used to provide more humane conditions for animals are often squandered on cosmetic improvements, such as landscaping or visitor centers, in order to draw visitors.
Animals suffer from more than neglect in some zoos. Rose-Tu, an elephant at the Oregon Zoo, suffered "176 gashes and cuts" inflicted by a zoo handler wielding a sharp metal rod.(4) Another elephant, Sissy, was beaten with an ax handle at the El Paso Zoo.(5)
The animals on exhibit are not the only ones who suffer. Most zoos have an area that the public never gets to see, where rabbits, rats, mice, baby chicks, and other animals are raised and killed to provide food for the animals on display. According to one zoo volunteer, killing methods include neck-breaking and "bonking," in which zookeepers place "feed" animals in plastic bags and slam their heads against a hard surface to induce fatal head injuries.
Propagation, Not Education
Zoos claim to educate people and preserve species, but they usually fall short on both counts. Most zoo enclosures are very small, and rather than promoting respect or understanding of animals, signs often provide little more information than an animal's species, diet, and natural range. Animals' normal behavior is seldom discussed, much less observed, because their natural needs are rarely met. Birds' wings may be clipped so that they cannot fly, aquatic animals are often without adequate water, and many animals who live in large herds or family groups in nature are kept alone or, at most, in pairs. Natural hunting and mating behaviors are virtually eliminated by regulated feeding and breeding regimens. Animals are closely confined, lack privacy, and have little opportunity for mental stimulation or physical exercise. These conditions often result in abnormal and self-destructive behaviors or "zoochosis."
An Oxford University study based on four decades of observing animals in captivity and in the wild found that animals such as polar bears, lions, tigers, and cheetahs "show the most evidence of stress and/or psychological dysfunction in captivity" and concluded that "the keeping of naturally wide-ranging carnivores should be either fundamentally improved or phased out."(6,7) A PETA investigation of numerous zoos across the country found that several bear species, including sun, grizzly, Kodiak, spectacled, black, and sloth bears, were exhibiting neurotic, stereotypic behaviors. These frustrated animals spend much of their time pacing, walking in tight circles, swaying or rolling their heads, and showing other signs of psychological distress. In some bear enclosures, paths worn by the bears' constant pacing can be seen; in others, there are actual paw impressions in the soil where bears have repeatedly stepped in the same spot. These behaviors are not just symptoms of boredom, they indicate profound despondency.
As for the claim that zoos provide educational opportunities—consider that most visitors spend only a few minutes at each display, seeking entertainment rather than enlightenment. Over the course of five summers, a curator at the National Zoo followed more than 700 zoo visitors and found that "it didn't matter what was on display … people [were] treating the exhibits like wallpaper." He determined that "officials should stop kidding themselves about the tremendous educational value of showing an animal behind a glass wall."(8)
The purpose of most zoos' research is to find ways to breed and maintain more animals in captivity. If zoos ceased to exist, so would the "need" for most of their research. Protecting species from extinction sounds like a noble goal, but zoo officials usually favor exotic or popular animals who draw crowds and publicity rather than threatened or endangered local wildlife. The Chinese government, for example, "rents" pandas to zoos worldwide for fees of more than $1 million per year, but some question whether the profits are being directed toward panda-conservation efforts at all.(9)
Most animals housed in zoos are neither endangered nor being prepared for release into natural habitats.
Born Free, Sold Out
Zoos continue to capture animals from the wild to put them on public display. In 2003, the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Lowry Park Zoo captured 11 African elephants, a species designated as threatened, from their natural habitats in Swaziland. Experts, scientists, and researchers who study elephants in the wild strongly opposed the capture, stating, "Taking elephants from the wild is not only traumatic for them, it is also detrimental to their health. ... [W]e believe the time has come to consider them as sentient beings and not as so much money on the hoof to be captured and sold and displayed for our own use."(10)
Zoos are also pressuring the federal government to weaken the Endangered Species Act to make it easier for them to capture and import animals who are on the brink of extinction.
When Cute Little Babies Grow Up
Zoo babies are crowd-pleasers, but when they get older and attract fewer visitors, many are sold or killed by zoos. Deer, tigers, lions, and other animals who breed frequently are sometimes sold to "game" farms where hunters pay for the "privilege" of killing them; others are killed for their meat and/or hides. Other "surplus" animals may be sold to circuses or smaller, more poorly run zoos.
A chimpanzee named Edith is one example of a discarded zoo baby who fell into the wrong hands. Born in the 1960s at the Saint Louis Zoo, baby Edith was surely an adorable sight for visitors. But just after her third birthday, she was taken from her family and passed around to at least five different facilities, finally landing at a Texas roadside zoo called the Amarillo Wildlife Refuge (AWR). During an undercover investigation of AWR, PETA found Edith in a filthy, barren concrete pit. She was hairless and had been living on rotten produce and dog food. For more information on this investigation, please visit WildlifePimps.com. Another example involves Twiggs and Jeffrey, two giraffes born at the Cape May County Zoo. When they got older, they were sold by the zoo to a broker who subsequently sold them to a traveling circus.(11) The director of the Cape May County Zoo actually admitted to seeing the animals' pitiful living conditions in the circus but did not have a problem with the situation.
Zoos across the country sold animals to the now-closed New Braunfels Zoo and continued to do so even after one of its owners "quit in disgust at the animal neglect."(12) The director of an Arizona zoo sold several exotic goats to a dealer who was known to supply animals to trophy-hunting ranches.(13)
Beyond Zoos
Ultimately, we will only save endangered species by preserving their habitats and combating the reasons why they are killed by people. Instead of supporting zoos, we should support groups like the International Primate Protection League, the Born Free Foundation, the African Wildlife Foundation, and other groups that work to preserve habitats. We should help nonprofit sanctuaries that are accredited by The Association of Sanctuaries, such as the Elephant Sanctuary and the Performing Animal Welfare Society. These sanctuaries rescue and care for exotic animals without selling or breeding them.
With all the informative television programming, our access to the Internet, and the relative ease of international travel, learning about or viewing animals in their natural habitats can be as simple as a flick of a switch or a hike up a mountain. The idea of keeping animals confined behind cage bars is obsolete.
What You Can Do
After recognizing that zoos cannot adequately provide for the complex needs of elephants, several zoos have made the decision to close their elephant exhibits, setting a positive precedent for zoos worldwide. The Detroit Zoo sent two elephants to a sanctuary because in the words of the zoo's director, "Just as polar bears don't thrive in hot climates, Asian elephants should not live in small groups without many acres to roam. They clearly shouldn't have to suffer winters of the North."(14) Please visit SaveWildElephants.com for more information on zoos that have closed their elephant exhibits.
The Baltimore Zoo, Detroit Zoo, Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, North Carolina Zoo, and others have taken in polar bears who were rescued from a traveling tropical circus, but progressive zoos like these are the exception rather than the rule.
Zoos are covered by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which sets minimal housing and maintenance standards for captive animals. The AWA requires that all animal displays be licensed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which must inspect zoos once a year. However, some zoos that have passed USDA inspections with flying colors have later been found by humane groups to have numerous violations. Read Beyond the Bars edited by Virginia McKenna, Will Travers, and Jonathan Wray, for more information.
Never patronize a zoo unless you are doing so to monitor the animals as part of your zoo campaign. Contact PETA for ZooCheck materials.
Encourage your local zoo to stop breeding animals and make space available for animals in need. Report poor conditions to the USDA, leaflet at the zoo, write letters to the editor, and pressure local officials to avoid subsidizing the zoo with taxpayer money.
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