Are Zoos Unethical?

  By Kaela Jia, LA 1 
 

Giraffes are popular animals in zoos. 

 You wake up with a blade of crusty yellow grass touching your nose, a 
flashback entering your mind. You remember when you first saw the sun, a 
comforting round ball of warmth-which is when reality hits you like a punch. 
Opening your eyes, you peer around to see the same exact thing, a cold concrete 
cage with thick wire mesh surrounding, a reminder that you would never see the 
outside world again. Clumps and patches of dirt cover the cruelty of the concrete 
floor, and a small swamp gurgles ominously in the left corner. A soda can floats 
slowly through the brown liquid, and you moan in disgust. Pacing around, people 
point and stare, talking like chittering birds in the neighboring cage.   
You can’t sleep, run, hunt, or hide freely in a cage in the zoo, and bars or 
wire mesh coat freedom. Animals are treated badly, zoo cages are horrible, zoos 
don’t help conservation, zoos might lie to you, zoos aren’t educational, and, finally, 
animals should stay in the wild. Even if you have fun at a zoo, do you think 
animals are happy and living in dreamland? What is so fun about watching 
animals suffer? Zoos are horrible places, so do you really think that zoos should 
take place every single day in this world? 
 
Many people think that when they visit a zoo, much of their money they 
spend is going toward helping animals. However, this is wrong, since captivity 
doesn’t help conservation. To me, zoos seem to be just for humans’ 
entertainment. The San Diego zoo holds a bald eagle when around 70,000 bald 
eagles live in North America alone. So why is this zoo holding this magnificent 
bird that deserves to be free, when you can easily go bird-watching and spot it? 
Of course the answer is jaw-dropping! Since people love watching great birds like 
these, people pay more just to see a bald eagle behind bars. With more money, 
conservation might just be the last thing on zookeeper's minds.   
In one website I found, 
https://www.peta.org/features/zoo-conservation-captive-breeding/, states,  
“A 2011 study found that North American zoos invested less than 5 percent 
of their income in conservation, but even that estimate may be too high. Today, 
among zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, almost half of 
all reporting organizations spend less than 1 percent of their revenues on 
conservation. Some zoos keep this information private, making it difficult to find 
out how much, if anything, they dedicate to these efforts.”   
Besides, what use is a zoo if most of the animals there aren’t being prepared for 
release for the wild...and aren’t even endangered or threatened species?  
Animals come from the wild, and should stay there. Zoos take animals from 
the wild. In 2003, the San Diego zoo & Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo imported 11 
captured elephants from the wild. I saw them myself, and in the cold weather, 
they were all huddling underneath a few tiny heat lamps. In Africa, elephants walk 
miles, while in their exhibit, they travel a a couple of yards. 

 
Consider how much elephants live in zoos to them in the wild. 
 
One the other hand, zoos treat animals almost like slaves, selling them as though 
they are objects instead of live creatures with feelings. People love baby animals, 
and when one is in a zoo, they’re a big hit. Sadly, once they grow up, they aren’t 
as cute anymore...and zoos sell them! For example, a chimpanzee named Edith 
was passed to a roadside zoo at the age of three. Clearly, taking animals from 
their home for zoos is not only cruel, but also unethical. 
Once an animal is shipped off to some kind of zoo, their new home appears 
tight and cramped. Zoo habitats are small and unnatural. In one website from 
ASPACA2, The text quoted,  
“Some enclosures have hard, poorly drained 
flooring.” Imagine being locked in a room with only 
a table or couch! One example is when numerous 
cubs die traveling, still DAYS old, according to 
peta.org. For instance, one zoos’ cage for prairie 
dogs died....because their tunnel collapse! The last 
example is that tigers-I saw in a zoo-are kept in 
cages with a few things like balls or toys. Tigers in 
the wild have territories ranging from seven miles squared to 39 miles squared. 
When you compare those numbers to a lousy 5 by 5 yards squared, it’s no wonder 
why they get affected by a stereotypical behavior: Zoochosis. When animals that 
are in captivity receive zoochosis, they may vomit, pace around, or sway. After all, 
who likes to be trapped? Therefore, I think zoos are prisons made to hold animals 
that have done nothing wrong. 
Zoos claim to be teaching you about animals but there are many examples 
they aren’t. Many times when I go to a zoo, I see people spend minutes to 
seconds at an exhibit, seeking entertainment rather than education. But then, 
how do you study about how a bird flies if it’s wings are clipped? Or, if a cheetah 
has no space to run? I think that the zoos are trying to hide the truth about how 
it is ‘so educational!’ whereas I 
never learn anything from 
captivity. 
Zoos might lie to you, or do 
cruel things to animals. One 
example is when the Mumbai Zoo, when all their animals were dying, 
taxiderminate their animals, and put them on display! One article, Animal Zone1, 
stated, “Unable to replace animals that die in its cramped and dirty cages, the zoo 
decided it’s better to stuff them and put them on display.” The final example is 
when the Gaza Zoo painted their donkeys to ‘zebras’ when their own zebras died. 
Imagine how you would feel if you were painted so you can pretend you are 
something your NOT 24-hours a day! Zoos can 
cheat, lie, steal, and be cruel to animals and you. 
Maybe you shouldn’t go to a zoo if you can’t 
trust them, since these are only some examples 
where zoos have had a bad idea. 
Zoos have existed for more than 3,000 
years, which is a long time. Who wants to be 
trapped in a cage all day? If you were an animal 
in a zoo, would you feel sad that you’ve barely 
even taken 5 steps out to the world? Zoos 
shouldn’t exist, because they are just prisons for animals. Animals shouldn’t 
suffer just for our happiness. 
 
 
Resources: 
 
https://www.freedomforanimals.org.uk/blog/10-facts-about-zoos 
 
https://www.peta.org/features/zoo-animal-abuse/ 
 
https://www.peta.org/features/zoo-conservation-captive-breeding/ 
 
https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/animals-used-entertainm
ent-factsheets/zoos-pitiful-prisons/ 
 
   
2
https://science.rspca.org.uk/documents/1494935/9042554/Live+hard+die+yo
ung+Z06.pdf/99aa1282-4484-5c6f-e5bb-83b57339ce5a?t=1553171442360 
 
1
https://www.animals-zone.com/saddest-zoos-world