THIS HOUSE BELIEVES WILD ANIMALS SHOULD NOT BE KEPT IN

CAPTIVITY
Zoos are premises for the captivity of animals, often in urban areas where
many of the animals would not otherwise be found, with the intention of
studying the animals and displaying them to the public at large. The
predecessor of the zoo was the menagerie, which involved the captivity of
birds typically for the entertainment of the aristocracy, and has a long
history running back to ancient times. The first modern zoo evolved out of an
aristocratic menagerie in Vienna in 1765. Many types of zoo now exist, from
the petting zoos that encourage the public to get up and close with the
animals to the large nature reserves that provide space for the animals to
roam around within and most famously the large, urban zoos like the London
Zoo which include elephants, lions and penguins and are usually notable
tourist drawcards for the cities concerned. Proponents argue that zoos are
beneficial both to the animals themselves, protecting endangered species
with specific breeding programs, and the public, as an educational tool to
increase both awareness and understanding. Opponents respond that the
removal of wild animals from their habitat is wrong, that they should be left
in their natural surroundings and not used as tools for public entertainment.

Government:
1. Wild animals in zoos suffer unnecessarily
2. Zoos encourage the use of animals as mere entertainment
3. States can have immigration regulations in place that protect
and conserve the populations of wild animals
4. Wild animals belong in their natural habitat

1. Wild animals in zoos suffer unnecessarily

POINT
Whatever the good intentions of zoo-keepers, animals in zoos suffer. They
are inevitably confined in unnaturally small spaces, and are kept from the
public by cages and bars. A study of British zoos found that elephant
enclosures were 1000 times smaller than their natural habitats1. Wild polar
bears are confined 'in spaces that are more than a million times smaller than
their arctic territory.'1 They suffer psychological distress, often displayed by

abnormal or self-destructive behaviour. Aquatic animals do not have enough

water, birds are prevented from flying away by having their wings clipped
and being kept in aviaries. Furthermore, the locations of zoos in urban areas
leads to incidents like the fox attack at London Zoo in 2010 that killed 11
South African and Rockhopper penguins2.

COUNTERPOINT
Wild animals do not suffer in well-regulated, well-run zoos.
There have in the past been many bad zoos and cruel zookeepers. It is
imperative that these are reformed and weeded out. The Animal Welfare Act,
enacted by the United States in 1970, is a good example of a step that can
be taken to ensure all animals are treated appropriately and not misused or
harmed1. Good zoos in which animals are well fed and well looked after in
spacious surroundings are becoming the norm and should be encouraged.
Zoos can exist without cruelty to animals, however, and so the fact that
there are animal welfare problems with some zoos does not meant that all
zoos should be shut down.

2. Zoos encourage the use of animals as mere entertainment

POINT
Adults and children visiting zoos will be given the subliminal message that it
is OK to use animals for our own ends, however it impinges on their freedom
or quality of life. Therefore zoos will encourage poor treatment of animals
more generally. People do not go to zoos for educational reasons they simply
go to be entertained and diverted by weird and wonderful creatures seen as
objects of beauty or entertainment. Dale Marcelini, a zoo curator in
Washington, conducted a study that found 'visitors spend less than 8
seconds per snake, and one minute per lion.'1Otherwise, 'most people
preoccupied themselves with eating, resting and shoppingpeople treated
the exhibits like wallpaper 1. As a form of education the zoo is deficient: the
only way to understand an animal properly is to see it in its natural

environment the zoo gives a totally artificial and misleading view of the
animal by isolating it from its ecosystem.

COUNTERPOINT
Zoos do not encourage the use of animals as mere entertainment. This
argument assumes that both the harm suffered by these animals is
tremendous and the only value gained from zoos is human entertainment.
However, the motives of the general public and the professional zoo keepers
are not one and the same. Zoo keeping is a trained profession. Animals in
the zoo have regular access to good food and vets on standby should they
fall ill. This is a far more luxurious lifestyle than they would have in their
natural habitat. Furthermore, within zoos animals have many benefits that
wild animals are deprived of, from human understanding to biological study.
To see zoos as pure entertainment is myopic.

3. States can have immigration regulations in place that protect

and conserve the populations of wild animals
POINT
States concerned with the protection and welfare of wild animals are able to
close zoos, release the animals back into their natural habitats and
thereafter enforce immigration regulation that would ensure they any live
cargo entering the country would be searched and checked. If found to
contain wild animals, they could be sent back to where they had arrived from
and hopefully re-placed in their natural habitat. To cut supply would be
inadvertently to reduce demand, and eventually ensure that the trade in live
animals would cease, to the benefit of the wild animal populations
themselves.

COUNTERPOINT
Sending the trade underground is not the most effective means to ensure the
protection and conservation of wild animals. A general populace with
previous first-hand exposure to wild animals will not lose their appetite to

them if zoos were closed, fostering a demand for a black market in the trade
of live, wild animals. As such, the most effective means to protect and
conserve the populations of wild animals is regulation of the zoos
themselves, not restrictions on their very entry to the state. Furthermore, the
release of previous-captive animals into their 'natural' habitats is not
advisable, they are not fit to survive in an environment where food is not
provided and predators not kept separate.

4. Wild animals belong in their natural habitat

POINT
Animals belong in their natural habitat, in the wild. It is a breach of their
natural rights to take them by force into captivity for our own purposes. They
are 'prevented from gathering their own food, developing their own social
orders and generally behaving in ways that are natural to them.'1 No matter
how we may try to replicate their surrounding in a zoo, we will never achieve
the full result. Predators need to hunt and taking from them their ability to do
so by taming/caging/drugging them is beyond cruel. A study by the journal
Science in 2008 found that 'Asian elephants in European zoos had a median
lifespan of just 18.9 years compared to 41.7 years for wild elephants in an
Asian logging camp.'2Excessive human involvement in the food cycle has
disrupted it considerably. Let nature take its course.
COUNTERPOINT
The truth is that these claims are based around the logically-skewed ideas of
animal rights groups. Their arguments have little or no factual basis/merit for
we cannot measure animal happiness. We cannot really say that they would
be best left in the wild. All we can do is review the information at hand.
Domesticated animals; treated well, would you say they were unhappy? Well
then how can we argue that taking animals out of the wild is wrong? We
cannot. So rather than banning zoos, we should ensure that relevant safety
measures are in place to ensure that these animals are as well looked after
as possible. Human beings are part of the animal kingdom thus food cycle
and our involvement is part of nature.

Opposition:
1. Zoos act as educational tools
2. Zoos help to protect endangered species
3. Zoos permit longer, more fruitful scientific research

1. Zoos act as educational tools

POINT
Zoos nowadays are not marketed as places of entertainment - they are
places of education. Most modern zoos have their main emphasis on
conservation and education - the reason that so many schools take children
to zoos is to teach them about nature, the environment, endangered species,
and conservation. As long ago as 1898 the New York Zoological Society
claimed to be taking 'measures to inform the public of the great decrease in
animal life, to stimulate sentiment in favour of better protection and to cooperate with scientific bodies.'1 Far from encouraging bad treatment of
animals, zoos provide a means to inform the public at large about proper
treatment of animals, how valuable they are to the ecological system and
how they can contribute to their conservation. Such direct experience of
varied and diffuse species will increase ecological awareness in a way that
television or documentaries could only hope to do.

COUNTERPOINT
Zoos do not act as education tools, or if they do, they fail at the role. The
average zoo-goer knows less about animals than those who claim an interest
in animals, like fishermen, and only slightly more than those who claim no
interest in animals at all1. Furthermore, we would not tolerate this view if it
were placed on humans. We would not force a human to be subjected to
inhumane treatment and captivity with the reasoning that they would be
saving future humans. We have something that is called integrity. Everyone
has it and there is no reason why animals should not be given this grace as
well. We cannot subject an animal, against it wishes, to captivity and
rationed foods by citing the future good for all animals. We should respect
every animal, even those in zoos and not offer them up as sacrifice. The

education lessons obtained from zoos could just as easily, and less
inhumanely, be presented in the classroom1.

2. Zoos help to protect endangered species

POINT
One of the main functions of zoos is to breed endangered animals in
captivity. If natural or human factors have made a species' own habitat a
threatening environment then human intervention can preserve that species
where it would certainly go extinct if there were no intervention. There are
certainly problems with trying to conserve endangered species in this way
but it is right that we should at least try to conserve them. The Australian
Government, responding to the 90% drop in the Tasmanian Devil population,
has precipitated a nationwide breeding program to ensure their future
sustainability1. And as long as animals are treated well in zoos there is no
reason why conservation, education, and cruelty-free entertainment should
not all be combined in a zoo. There is also, of course, a valid role for breeding
in different environments such as large nature reserves. Nevertheless, zoos
are unique in being able to balance public entertainment and therefore,
income, with the needs of their inhabitants.
COUNTERPOINT
There are two problems with the claim that zoos are beneficial because they
help to conserve endangered species. First, they do not have a very high
success rate many species are going extinct each week despite the good
intentions of some zoos. This is partly because a very small captive
community of a species is more prone to inter-breeding and birth defects 1.
Secondly, captive breeding to try to stave off extinction need not take place
in the context of a zoo, where the public come to look at captive animals and
(often) see them perform tricks. Captive breeding programmes should be
undertaken in large nature reserves, not within the confines of a zoo. Lastly,
breeding programmes also generate unwanted animals, in a herd of lions
only a few males are required to service the females; this leads often to the
sale of the excess males to inappropriate establishments 2.

3. Zoos permit longer, more fruitful scientific research

POINT
Animals can and should be studied in the wild but they can be studied more
closely, more rigorously, and over a more sustained period of time in
captivity. 'Zoos support scientific research in at least three ways: they fund
field researchemploy scientists as member of zoo staffs and they make
otherwise inaccessible animals available for study 1. For example, a 2011
study completed at zoos in the United Kingdom and United States of gorillas
found that happiness can extend their life-expectancy by up to 11 years, a
study that could only be carried out in an environment where zookeepers
could observe them constantly 2. That understanding can now be taken and
used to protect and conserve gorillas in captive and wild populations worldwide. Furthermore, the money raised by zoos can also be utilized to study
not just the captive animals, but fund field research, as exemplified by the
Smithsonian National Zoological Park 3.Therefore, zoos are the lesser evil in
the wider campaign to fund animal conservation projects and ensure
endangered animals do not become extinct for preventable reasons.

COUNTERPOINT
Zoos do not permit longer, or more fruitful, scientific research. Behavioural
research, as the research is termed, is felt by some to contribute little due to
the unnatural habitat in which the animals are observed1. Environments are
felt to 'trigger reactions', therefore there is 'no reason to believe that better,
fuller or more accurate data can be obtained in predation-free environments
than in natural habitats.'1As such, the Orangutan study carried out in 2011 is
only relevant to captive populations, and potentially only the population at
the zoos concerned. Research into animals (when it respects their rights and
is not cruel or harmful) may be valuable, but it does not need to happen in
the context of confinement and human entertainment.