The Dark Side Of Zoos

You are walking through a pathway of sadness, bars, cells, and animals roaring and trumpeting, screaming for help. Zoos, that's what they are. They are just big prisons for animals. What people see on the outside are exotic animals and cute little things. But what it is is a place where people take animals from their homes and lock them up for people's enjoyment. I think Zoos are bad because first, they take animals away from their family, then they have limited space and are becoming endangered, and lastly, they breed them unnaturally. Also, sometimes people think zoos could be good. But are they?

Some people think that zoos are good. Because zoos might be good because they could help some animals that are hurt or sometimes endangered and can give animals healthcare that they don't have in the wild. Zoos can also educate children and adults about animals they don't know or are not in their region. 

My first reason why Zoos are bad is because they take animals away from their family. People who go out in the wild and capture most of the animals kept in the zoos take the animals away from their parents, and yes, they target the kids the most because they will have a longer growth span than adults, who will die sooner. After all, it is older, and the kid still has time to grow into an adult and then die. When they think the animal is not helpful like an adult, they kill it and breed the others to make more babies (Megan Zhou posted 7/16/2020)  25% of bird species, 20% of mammals, 12% of reptiles, and 4% of amphibians are taken from the wild and put in zoos yearly.

My second reason why zoos are bad is because they take animals from the wild and put them in a limited space, causing them to lack the fundamental skills they need in the wild to survive. According to BBC Earth  Also, zoos have endangered animals. Zoos spend loads of time and money building enclosures for the animals, but they still need help. As I said before, zoos devote a lot of money to enclosures for animals, but they still need to meet the needs of the animals and match the animals' habitats. According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), nearly ⅕  of these animals in zoos are actually endangered.

When zoos do attempt to rewild animals, the animals lack the skills that a wild animal needs in order to survive. Also, some animals bred in the Zoo don't know the skills they should have initially. According to BBC Earth.

Finally, zoos are bad because they breed the animals unethically. Zoos breed these animals faster so that baby animals can be shown to the public (By Megan Zhou, 7/16/2020 Newsela) Most of these animals that you see in zoos are primarily bred and not from the wild,

In conclusion, zoos are bad for animals because they take them away from their family, have limited space, are becoming endangered, and breed them unnaturally.

Image: "Behind Bars" by suvodeb is licensed under CC BY 2.0.