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Virginia Chavez
Professor Batty
English 113B
10 May 2016
Caging Animals for Entertainment
We all have gone to a zoo before to see those cute wild animals up close. But come to
think of it, we do not realize that these innocent wild animals are being caged for our own
personal entertainment. We never think of what these poor animals are feeling or the way they
are being treated. Our problem is that we choose not to think of these animals being mistreated
because then we would not want to let our kids share the amazing experience of going to the zoo.
All zoos do is make profit off these poor animals by keeping them trapped and it is not fair. Zoo
should let these animals be free and enjoy their life. Although many people think zoos benefit
wildlife animals, I strongly believe that zoos should be banned because the reality of zoos are
that they take away these animals from their natural habitat and cage them in small spaces where
these animal develop mental problems.
To begin with, have you ever thought of how these wildlife animals are bring brought
into zoos. Most of the animals that are brought to zoos are captured from the wild by unknown
men to sell to the zoo. Zoos buy these captured animals because they know it will create more
business. Animals today are still getting captured in the wild and put in zoos. Dave Neale, a
director from Animals Asias Animals Welfare, wrote an article called, Stolen Lives: Animals
Captured in the Wild, Neale argues that certain type of wildlife animals are being targeted.
Neale expresses, Animals such as chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, elephants, whales and
dolphins are in high demand to supply both government run zoos/ocean parks and private

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collections (Neale). Neale point is that these poor innocent animals are getting harmed just so
they could be caged. The only reason they are even getting captured is become people are
amazed by these animals and zoos take that opportunity to earn plenty of money. Wildlife
animals are not property; we do not have a right to sell these animals only. Zoo should just leave
these poor animals animals and let them enjoy their life in peace.
Furthermore, zoos do not give these animals the right amount of room to roam around in.
When you go to a zoo all you see is the resemblance of what the animals habitat would look like
in the wild. However, a zoo can only provide these animals with a certain amount of space. Most
of these wildlife animals are not used to having a limited amount of space to travel in. In the
article, Wide Roaming Animals Fare Worst in Zoo Enclosures, Ian Sample compares the
amount of space an animal has in the wild to the amount of space the zoo gives them. Sample
states, In an average year, a wild polar bear can roam over an area as large as greater London,
yet their zoo enclosures are typically a million times smaller (Sample). This gives us a brief idea
of how small these animals new home is compared to the freedom they would have. It is like
they are being focused to stay in a small box for the rest of their life. We do not realize how small
their new habitat is because zoos make it look like they have so much room to be free in, but its
all a false picture. People have to keep in mind that these small spaces are usually shared for
more than two animals, which makes the matter worse. We are limiting their chance of being
free, just so they could be stuck in a small space for our entertainment. For this reason, I believe
that zoos should be shut down because they do not provide these animals with the right amount
of freedom they would usually get.
Simultaneously, keeping these wild animals caged can cause them to develop mental
problems over time. Wildlife animals are used to having so much surrounding, and being isolated

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from their natural habitat can lead these animals to self -harm or the harm of others. In the
article, Zoos in the 21st Century written by David Masci, he mentions a statement that was
made by Gary Francione, who is a professor of animal-rights law at Rutgers University,
Animals held in captivity for long periods often suffer terrible psychological abuseWhen you
confine an animal, you subject it to cruel stressAnimals in zoos engage in what is known as
stereotypical behavior, which means they suffer from neurosis. The bottom line to what
Francsione is stating is that zoos cause animals to go through a state of mental and emotional
abuse. Zoos do not help these animals; they make them worse by keeping them caged. Having a
hostile mind state can cause these animals to lash out on trainers or even try to escape. It is not
right to let these animals suffer and go insane just so zoos could make profit off them.
In spite of the fact that many people think that zoos help save endangered animals by
rebreeding in captivity and releasing them back into the wild. The truth of the matter is that most
of these cases fail, and the animals do not even get released back into the wild they just get sold
to other zoos. There have been only a few successful stories about rebreeding that zoos keep
referring back to. One of the successful story is about the gold lion tamarin that were rebreed in
the National Zoological Park. Fifty of the lion tamarin were released back to Brazil; where the
species has survived (Cohn). Despite this successful story, most of the animals have a trouble
time surviving the wild because they try to introduce the wildlife to an animal that was born
getting fed by a bottle. David Marci also mention Karen Baragona, in his article, Zoos in the
21st Century, Baragona is a species conservation program officer at the World Wildlife Fund.
Baragona gave her belief about rebreeding animals in captivity where she states, that only in the
wild can animals learn many of the behaviors that they need to survive A lot of this isn't
instinct, and it's hard to learn in a zoo where everything is provided for you (Marci). I agree

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with Baragonas statement because these animals are getting special treatment and they will not
receive special treatment in the wild. For that reason, a better way to save these endangered
animals is to put the money they use for rebreeding them to saving these animals habitat. This
approach will have a better outcome and save more animals because rebreeding in captivity only
helps certain species, the ones that can be sold to other zoos. Sometimes these zoos rebreed for
their benefit such as selling the other to another zoo to make money.
Even though zoos create the happy image of wildlife animals; the truth is that zoos are
taking away these animals rights to make money off them and use them to entertain them which
can cause mental issue for the animals. Humans see themselves bigger and better, but it does not
give them the right to take away these animals rights. Animals belong in wild, where they can be
free and enjoy their life. It is injustices and unfair to treat these living creatures as a piece of
property. Instead of caging these innocent animals, we should go visit their habitat, where we
could learn more by watching them in their own habitat, not the ones that zoos have created.
Make a change and help stop zoo imprison these innocent animals.

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Work Cited
Cohn, Jeffrey P.. Captive Breeding for Conservation. BioScience 38.5 (1988): 312316. Web.
14 Feb. 2016.
Masci, David. "Zoos in the 21st Century." CQ Researcher 28 Apr. 2000: 353-76. Web. 14 Feb.
2016.
Neale, Dave. "Stolen Lives: Animals Captured in the Wild." Animals Asia. 02 Oct. 2014. Web.
22 Feb. 2016.
Sample, Ian. "Wide Roaming Animals Fare Worst in Zoo Enclosures." The Guardian. UK News,
2 Oct. 2003. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.
"Zoos: Pitiful Prisons." PETA. Web. 22 Feb. 2016