The Modern Zoo | Teen Ink

The Modern Zoo MAG

By Anonymous

I would like to begin by defining “zoo.” It is a park-like area in which live animals are kept in cages or large enclosures for public exhibit. Hold on, large enclosures? More like tiny cages. As zoo funds are cut, cages become smaller with less foliage.

To many people it is obvious that keeping an elephant in a small enclosure is unkind. Zoos assert claims of conservation, research, and education, and most visitors buy it. They believe that keeping polar bears locked up in “sanctuaries” with fake ice is better than to have them out in the wild. This is understandable, since the polar ice is melting. However, both problems are caused by humans: global warming contributes to the ice melting, and the need for constant entertainment creates zoos. A survey taken by the World Society for the Protection of Animals found that 80 percent of people believed animals were not receiving proper treatment.

Zoos claim to educate visitors. Yet we’ve all seen the one-sentence signs that describe monkeys. What can be learned from this? Certainly not enough to justify inhumane captivity.

These animals are simply meant to entertain. For example, look at the red pandas at the Bronx Zoo. Are they treated with respect? No: these pandas are a few feet from hundreds of cars zooming by on the expressway, with only a fence to separate them. Are these fit conditions for an almost-extinct animal?

Zoo animals endure inadequate living conditions with no space. Captive populations are not large enough to provide a good gene pool to preserve their species, and they have too much interaction with humans. Yet people will still come to see these rare animals that belong thousands of miles away. It just shows how desperate we’ve become for entertainment. This is the ultimate disrespect to a species.

The claim that most zoos make to justify the captivity of animals is increasing destruction of natural habitat. The rainforests are being destroyed at the rate of thousands of acres a day. Animals have been breeding and migrating for a long time. And they’ve done it well. The destruction of the environment is a valid reason for helping them. But a line must be drawn between help and destruction.

Many zoos have the problem of surplus animals due to excessive breeding. What do you think the zoos do with them? Mostly they destroy them. Normally animals leave their parents and venture into the wild when they come of age, but zoo captivity does not allow for this. Woburn Safari Park recently admitted that they kill surplus monkeys. Sometimes the animals are packed like trash and shipped off to other zoos. Or they are what zoos call “recycled” (fed to other species in the zoo). Other surplus animals are given to laboratories for experiments.

By 2010 the world will have almost seven billion people. Thus the need for more zoos arises. Where will these animals come from? Certainly many will be bred in captivity, yet the majority are caught in the wild. About 35 species of animals go extinct every day in the rainforest. Perhaps taking these animals to zoos is better than allowing them to die in the diminishing wild, but clearly the conditions in zoos must be improved.

Is the power and beauty of nature apparent in zoos? This is what they claim to give you for your money. A zoo cage typically consists of a few animals sitting in confinement with nothing but plastic trees and brick walls. Their eyes hold a lifetime of sadness and emptiness. Can you blame them? Every day people stare at them, tap on the glass, and make faces to scare them or get them to move. Signs prohibit photography, yet tourists still take pictures. They don’t understand or care how much the flash terrifies the animals. A recent study found that, on average, visitors spent less than three minutes looking at each exhibit – some even as little as nine seconds. It is true that we get to see animals we otherwise wouldn’t. Without zoos we’d have to see them on TV or read about them. But is a minute of pleasure enough to justify a life sentence of confinement in a tiny cage?

Animals are tortured by zoos. Many lions will walk around in circles all day. This kind of behavior is especially apparent in tall animals like elephants and giraffes, which might chew the plastic foliage or bang on the bars of their cages. Some monkeys turn to self-mutilation after they have expended all the amusement provided in their cages. Birds are not able to fly in their mesh enclosures. Some stop trying. After a few years, most can no longer fly.

The night quarters are the worst. We do not see the tiny cages behind the chimpanzee enclosure where they are locked up with hardly enough room to move. But most animals just hide and sleep, like a never-ending hibernation.

More zoos will be created in the next 25 years. In captivity the once-proud creatures of the wild exhibit only shame. Shame on the human race for doing this to these animals. Perhaps the future of these animals does rest in zoos, but we can make zoos more humane. By doing simple things such as donating $5 to a project designed to stop zoo cruelty or increase the cage size, you can make a difference.



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This article has 111 comments.


on Mar. 3 2010 at 4:34 pm
swimmingfreak319 SILVER, Lakeville, Minnesota
6 articles 0 photos 8 comments
The Minnesota Zoo is not like this at all. All the animals are happy and they aren't kept in small spaces they are rather big. Barely any zoo's mistreat the animals and if there is a huge puplic zoo that is like that why would it still be running. Zoo's are a good place for people that want to have jobs when they grow up with or around animals. I want to be a shark biologist there is only one problem right now. I live in Minnesota no sharks in the lakes here. So until i am old enough to go to college. I go to the zoo to learn about sharks.

on Feb. 9 2010 at 8:31 pm
slightlymad BRONZE, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
1 article 0 photos 12 comments

Favorite Quote:
“I can't dislike you, but I will say this to you: you haven't got long before you are all going to kill yourselves, because you are all crazy. And you can project it back at me ... but I am only what lives inside each and every one of you.”

Animals are our little brothers and sisters, would yo do that (insert word of choice) to your siblings?

on Feb. 9 2010 at 2:32 pm
jesus_saves GOLD, San Antonio, Texas
10 articles 2 photos 57 comments

Favorite Quote:
You know somethings wrong when you can't share your thoughts with your self.
-Sadie P. Jackson

I wish that us humans took better care of the animals they deserve it

Well written by the way

on Jan. 18 2010 at 7:11 pm
TrainManTy BRONZE, Boylston, Massachusetts
2 articles 15 photos 7 comments
I agree completely. And remember, the zoos aren't evil. They often don't have the space or the money to expand cages. I work in science education so I can attest that oftentimes things are much more complicated than they seem to outsiders. It's a very moving essay nonetheless! Nice job.

on Jan. 5 2010 at 10:14 pm
WriterFanatic PLATINUM, DesMoines, Iowa
24 articles 0 photos 184 comments

Favorite Quote:
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
By Gandhi.

You are correct on that. But look, I have seen the DesMoines IA zoo. Its not bad, but conditions could be a lot better. Not all zoos are that bad though, there are a lot of in-betweens

on Jan. 5 2010 at 10:11 pm
WriterFanatic PLATINUM, DesMoines, Iowa
24 articles 0 photos 184 comments

Favorite Quote:
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
By Gandhi.

Its Terrible. You are so correct. What irritates me is that we don't treat these animals with respect do we? I mean, we are supposed to be the more intelligent race. So....why are we acting like savages? Yet these animals have no more places to go. Some of these animals have next to zip habitats. Thats whats frustrating!

on Dec. 12 2009 at 6:19 pm
Celair_Phoenix SILVER, Hue, Other
5 articles 3 photos 16 comments

Favorite Quote:
"All that glitters is not gold
Not all those who wanders are lost."

Consider this- when you keep fish in a bowl aren't you 'imprisoning' them? Their natural habitats aren't meant to be a bowl right? But look at the bright side, at least they have food, shelter, no predators and can live to a healthy old age unless someone forgets to clean the bowl. Same with animals in zoos. They don't have freedom as the wild animals do but they do live happy lives.

Runner12 said...
on Dec. 4 2009 at 10:42 pm
This author is right....how would some zoo owner like it if some alien abducted him and put him on display in some other worldly zoo and couldn't go back to Earth and treated him like he did to the zoo anilmals

Letters345 said...
on Nov. 16 2009 at 12:26 pm
whoops..... wrong place!! lol

Letters345 said...
on Nov. 16 2009 at 12:25 pm
EXATLY!!!!!!! Hs the author even BEEN to or even HEARD of the San Diego Zoo? The enclousers are HUGE!!!!!!

Letters345 said...
on Nov. 16 2009 at 12:18 pm
THIS IS NO TRUE!!!! I think the animals are very happy, and with all the polar bears in captivity, we have enough to save the secies when they go extinct in the wild!!!!!!

sscheibe said...
on Sep. 8 2009 at 1:46 pm
I agree with most of your stances you take regarding the treatment of animals in the zoo environment. But on the other hand, how am I supposed to believe many of your "facts" when they are not backed up with a source. You could be making half of these statements up, I don't know because you don't cite where you get your information from. I learned this in journalism class when I did an opinion piece on factory farms. I had to cite every piece of information I used- this makes it more or a reliable source of information. So next time remember to cite your sources, e.g. according to ___,

on Jun. 3 2009 at 12:11 pm
pipi

on Mar. 25 2009 at 4:12 pm
I think that some zoos are brill, coz they have big spaces and breed animals natrually to help them not to become indangered and then they release them when they think that they are healthy unuff and can cope.

on Feb. 15 2009 at 9:19 pm
hootiepippin BRONZE, Wayne, Pennsylvania
1 article 0 photos 10 comments
Zoos try to educate the public about animals. Educating people is important. If children didn't go to see the animals, they could grow up thinking certain animals should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Also, animals in the wild aren't as happy and proud as you think. For instance, would a person rather have a wide open space with little food and try hunting and gathering? No, we like everything near by and easy to get. Many wild animals never make it to be adults. Lastly, zoos don't take animals from the wild anymore. At least not good zoos. They get animals from breading programs.

Zoos do have to improve the enclosures, but they aren't all that bad.

26nessa said...
on Jan. 29 2009 at 11:51 pm
This paper was heart-breaking to read. A lot is true, but the author can't say all zoos are like that. There are good zoos and bad zoos, it depends. And also sometimes the animals can't live in the wild for some reason. But I its true that we imprison animals for our entertainment; it makes you-or at least me-feel ashamed. The zoo business is an endless bad cycle. Animals are caught, bred and then what? How do we send them off?

I think that the author should go to the Wild Animal Park in Escondido, California. Its a huge park with biiig cages/enclosures for the animals. One such enclosure is several acres for all the African herbivores! And it has programs for breeding wild animals and releasing them. All zoos should be like it.

on Jan. 21 2009 at 5:43 pm
i dont rlly have an opinion on this but i guess it depends. some animals are better off in zoos, like injured or unhealthy ones. but stronger and healthy animals are not. i know that humans are curious and wants to learn about animals, but that doesnt mean we have to lock them up. im sure that we dont want to be locked up.

SloopyMcCoy said...
on Dec. 19 2008 at 3:33 pm
Have you ever read 'the life of pi'? It's an amazing book that changed my views on zoos... you should totally read it.

i_hAtE~U-@LL said...
on Dec. 16 2008 at 6:27 pm
the zoos dat i go 2 dont be having dis it has way more better

Vedette9 said...
on Dec. 5 2008 at 5:56 pm
While I must applaud this author for their passion in shedding the light on an important subject, I must emphasize that this is not the full picture of zoos at all. In the first place, to call such neglectful zoos "modern" is grossly inaccurate, the true "Modern Zoo" works hard to research ways in which to further improve the care and keeping of their animals. It is the old-fashioned zoo that follows the examples of the past, in which zoos were either ignorant of or disregarding how to properly care for their animals. I have seen and heard of zoos where the animals are bored and kept in small quarters, but I have also seen them in places where they are happy, cared for, and living in an environment near identical to the one they'd be living in in the wild.

If zoos were purely for entertainment of humans, why would they spend so much time thinking of ways to entertain the animals? I have volunteered at Woodland Park Zoo for years, where the keepers truly love their animals and love looking for ways to enrich the animals' lives. This means popcorn hidden around the elephants' enclosure, pumpkins filled with honey and maggots for the sun bears to rip into, a pool for the jaguar to swim in, etc. Furthermore, when the animals are tired and want to get away from the visitors, each are provided with plenty of space to hide (as many visitors to WPZ will attest to when they can't find half the animals they're come to see). I don’t argue the statistic that many people believe that animals are not treated well-enough in zoos, but how many of that 80% are actually well-informed enough to know how the animals are actually treated? Exhibits, compared to natural habitat, are small. But does size of exhibit equate to happiness? Do you need a football field of space to live in in order to be happy? Or can you content yourself with a single 15’x10’ room as long as you are taken care of and have plenty to interest you? I do lament that animals in zoos do not have the space they’d have in the wild, but they are cared for and entertained, regardless of what people believe.

When animals have reached status of senior citizen, many are taken off exhibit and into retirement. The hyena was taken off exhibit about 7 years ago to go into peaceful retirement. She's still alive and still living in an environment that suits all her needs. Woodland Park Zoo does not stop caring about their animals.

Fairly recently, a young elephant at WPZ passed away, and not only was the elephant exhibit closed to give the elephants privacy while they mourned their loss, but the deceased's keepers were given time off to deal with their own grief. To paint all zoos as cruel is to insult those passionate and dedicated people who want only for their charge's happiness.

I would like to finish by again saying that this article does well to address the problem of neglectful zoos. But instead of condemning all zoos as evil, realize that it costs a lot of money to take as exemplary care of animals as in the Woodland Park and Cleveland Metropark Zoos. Many of those cramped and depressing zoos are severely lacking in the funding needed to be truly modernized, they need support from the public, not condemnation. If they have funding and still ignore the rights of the animals in favor of other interests, then they must be pressured to improve. But please, do not use such grand generalizations to sully the reputation of good zoos the world over who's interests are in the animal's well-being.