Yesterday, as we drove past the city zoo, my father asked me if I wanted to visit it, since I’d never been to that zoo before.
“No,” I said immediately. I did not even have to think about the answer.
“But you like looking at animals! Remember that park a couple of years back, where you gaped at the olive baboons for a full fifteen minutes, calling them absolutely beautiful? Have you lost your interest in uncommon animals?”
“No, daddy, I still love animals; it’s zoos I have lost interest in. As much as my love for animals has grown these last two years, so has my hatred for zoos,” I replied.
Yes, I believe that zoos unforgivably violate nearly all the fundamental rights that animals, as living beings, rightly deserve.
I detest that zoos imprison animals, like the harshest criminals, for a crime they never committed.
It is true, of course, that zoos have the prime ‘purpose’ of offering us an opportunity to view live specimens of rare species, which we may otherwise never get to see. But does that justify the whole lifetime that these animals have to spend inside a few hundred square metres? And is this real-time experience of standing a hundred feet from a breathing lion, separated by metal bars, so different from hearing it breathe on a 50-inch HD plasma TV? Is it worth snatching away the core identity of the beast and reducing it to a state of helplessness? I don’t believe so.
Another argument to support the existence of zoos is that they help to ‘protect’ endangered species from extinction by confining them in a shielded area, where they can breed.
It is true that well-maintained respectable zoos provide enough space, take great care of animals, and ensure that they are never bored. But how many zoos like that exist? Maybe fifteen or sixteen of the 751,931 in the world today. Therefore, it is obvious that animals are more miserable than happy living in a zoo.