As the human population is increasing, the development of technology and demand of life quality, humans are exploiting more and more lands to build community, develop business and entertainment. Moreover, people become rich and they are no more satisfied with current situation, so they pursue higher life quality. They search for new things to have fun and show their wealth. Humans try to improve their society and life which is completely reasonable, but sometimes they make poor decisions and do not consider cooperating with environment and other living creatures like excessive deforestation to make more products and cultivate food. As consequence, animals’ native habitats are destroyed and reducing because of human activities. Losing native habitats is equal to lose natural protection, which is lethal to animals. It is obvious that loss of native habitats causing animals’ quantity reducing, and those quantities drop sharply are called endangered animals. Recent years, the number of endangered animals rapid increase, they have become the topic that people concern about and actively show up on social media like newspaper, magazine and TV shows. These phenomena deliver an information that it is urgent to help those endangered animals out! They need our protection!  So far, the most proper solution is to put they into zoos where humans can give the best protection and facilities to bring them back from the edge of extinction prevent dangers from outside world. 

Before talking about zoos, it is important to understand what kind of tough situation that those endangered animals are facing. For example, John R. Platt who is an American physicist and biophysicist, professor at the University of Chicago, talked about a well-known animal named Tibetan antelope in his article called “Endangered antelope with fur more valuable than gold on its way to recovery”. Tibetan antelope is famous for their soft fur which is highly valuable and called “Soft gold” by poachers. Tibetan antelope’s fur can be made into shawls which also called shahtoosh and poachers sale for extremely high price which comes with incredible cost that 3-5 antelopes die for only one shawl. As mentioned before, people search for high quality life, and shahtoosh becomes a sign of high quality life and wealth. Because of high demand, Tibetan antelope population plummeted. Not only Tibetan antelope suffers such serve situation, but also incalculable animal species are facing same situation. Another example is white rhinoceros which are famous for their horn, poachers make money by selling their horns. Without horn, white rhinoceros will die. Now, there is only one white rhinoceros exist in the world. In order to protect it, human cut most of its horn. Currently there are more than 79800 species on The IUCN (International Union for Conservation) Red List, and more than 23000 are threatened with extinction. Therefore, saving endangered animals cannot wait!

Apparently, the most direct and fast way to save those endangered animals is put them in zoos. One of the advantages of zoo is that it can keep endangered animals from outside injury and ensure their safety, the most important is zoos can make their population stable at least. The main reason causes so many endangered animals and destroys their natural habitats is human activities. Carl Zimmer who is a popular science writer and blogger, pointed out that human activities play a significant role in making most primate species become endangered species in his article “Most Primate Species Threatened With Extinction, Scientist Found” which published on The New York Times. He believed that two reasons lead to primate species threatened, one is local activities. In some local communities where plenty of primate species lived are often hard to feed their families. It is easier to hunt and eat primates instead building fish farms. Hence there is a strong demand in local markets for primate meat. What is more, those communities also make money by selling primate meat to China where has a relatively big demand of primate meat because some people there believe primate meat is capable of healing which sounds ridiculous. The other reason is the wholesale destruction of forests which is also one of human activities. For example, palm oil plantations are gradually replacing forests which is one of the biggest living place for primates and are wide used in people’s life. As the result of human activities, most primate species will extinct due to disappearance of their native habitats. At present, there are 3500 individuals of primate species in the world but stable in population with the help of U.S. National Zoo. Thanks to those human activities, the best choice for those endangered species is to live in the zoo. Humans cannot take such high risk leaving them in the wild anymore. No matter hunting, selling or cutting forests, it is too difficult for people to refuse the temptation of money. Zoos enable endangered animals to have totally safe life and keep from everything that could hurt them. Circumstance like white rhinoceros should not happen again! Besides, it is those living creatures except human that bring diversity to the world. Earth likes a mother, all living creatures are like families to human and now families have problem of living and in the edge of extinction, it is humans’ duty to help and protect their families instead of keeping hurt them and occupying families’ native habitats. Protecting endangered animals equals to protect diversity of the world equals to protect families. If endangered animals stay in the zoo, like mention before, at least they can have a stable population which is an obvious advantage of zoos.

Another advantage of zoos is that not only zoo can prevent endangered animals from outside injury, but also it can bring them from the edge of extinction and reintroduce them to the nature. Kelly Traw published an article called “How Do Zoos Help Endangered Animals” on Scientific American, he presented one famous program is the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s Species Survival Plan program whose goal is to manage the breeding of the endangered animals in order to produce healthier  selfsustaining population and finally reintroduce the captive-raised endangered animals into their native wild habitats. The SSP indeed succeeds in helping some species back from the brink of extinction over last three decades such as black-footed ferrets and red wolves. This program has condition for those endangered animals to join in. The species that are selected in the SSP must be threatened and facing extinction in the wild so they can completely focus on helping them. This program not only protect endangered animals, but also succeed in reintroduce them to the wild. It is indeed helpful for endangered animals, and get the result which is exactly what people expected. It is nearly impossible for those endangered animals themselves to get rid of extinction without help of humans, this kind of work only can be finished by humans. In the zoo, endangered animals are able to live safely; besides, it is convenient for humans to study their gene pool and reproduction diversity which can be used to assist them to reproduce more offspring and finally bring them back from the edge of extinction. A video on the YouTube called “Endangered: Animals and Zoos Fighting For Survival” described about the endangered animals in the national zoo. The author Kojo Nnami, an American radio journalist, introduced that the national zoo brings endangered animals together to breed and provides them a safe place and even they are capable of mating to have more generations, people who working in the national zoo analyze genes of endangered animals to study their reproduction method gene diversity and fool so that they are able to bring those endangered species back from the edge of extinction. The theory of national zoo and SSP are same, both of them try to bring endangered animals back from the edge of extinction and help the whole species, either by reintroducing the captive-raised endangered animals into their native wild habitats or studying their gene pool and bring them together to

mate so that they can have more offspring and gradually they are able to recover from the endanger. Zoos have an obvious advantage that is people can use scientific apparatuses and facilities to study endangered animals and do experiments. Using science and technology to learn endangered animals in genetic level and designing a proper reproduction solution for is the fastest way to help them get their quantities recover from extinction. 

The most famous and common program used in most of zoos is the captive breeding program which is also the biggest advantage of zoos. In general, endangered animals in the zoos can be saved from the edge of extinction through captive breeding program. A successful example of captive breeding program is The Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit of Washington state presented in the article “Believing in the Pygmy Bunny” written by Juli Berwald who is a science writer base in Austin, TX. The main character of breeding program is the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits; the purpose is to make this endangered species reproduce enough offspring to back from the edge of extinction and then reintroduce them in the wild. Clearly, carrying out the plan was much more difficult than those biologists expected. Biologists found that genetic variation between the remaining quantities was too small which as the result of inbreeding within the rest population. Biologists found another solution that was let the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits mate with its cousin. It turned out that mating with cousin was successful. Their quantities indeed improved a lot around 100. The final step was reintroduction. First, captive-bred rabbits were moved to a six-acre enclosure, then the rabbits moved to smaller enclosures that they could further adjust to the wild. Biologists released individual rabbits until they got used to. This is a whole process of captive breeding program. Captive breeding programs make endangered animals recover their quantities and save the whole species instead the individual, also the program assists endangered animals to acclimate the natural environment at the same time. However, this famous program also disadvantages. Recent years, the use of captive breeding in species recovery, especially for endangered species, has increased fast. But there are several and main limitations of this program cannot be ignored. As mentioned in “Limitations of Captive Breeding in Endangered Species Recovery”, the limitations contain poor success in reintroductions, disease outbreak which could be lethal to endangered species, and establishing self-sufficient captive populations. Captive breeding program is supposed to be regarded as the last resort in species recovery and it should not replace those endangered animals’ own native habitats and ecosystem protection.  Captive breeding is not suitable for long-term solution because the inexorable genetic and phenotypic changes happened along with the captive environments.  Although captive breeding play an important part in some species’ recovery, the limited condition is it only in the short term because effective alternatives are not working. The best places for endangered animals is their own natural habitats which would give ecosystem protection. In their natural habitats, the inexorable genetic and phenotypic changes will not happen. Once those endangered animals move to a new environment, their need to readjust to fit into the current situation and some unexpected problems will occur.

However, nothing is perfect. Author Kate Morgan does not believe that zoos are the best solution for endangered animals. She claimed in her article “The Advantage and Disadvantages of Zoos” that though zoos are good place to protect the endangered animals and provide help like Species Survival Plan, but they ignore an important problem that is what if animals stay in zoos for a long time. The answer is they would lose their natural habitats which are their natural protection. Although the zookeepers do care deeply for the endangered animals, zoos can only do a lot to protect them by just breeding which is not very helpful for their protection. What is indeed need to be concentrated is the preservation of the endangered animals’ natural habitats and not only see them in artificial exhibits. In addition, endangered animals have sentience and therefore they have their own rights just same as humans. Keeping them in the zoo is identical to keeping them in the cage which means it infringes on their right to freedom. The main difference between animals and human is that animals cannot speak, therefore, without thinking about those endangered animals’ feelings and continue put them into zoos would only bring them disadvantages. Endangered animals will have mental health problems and possibly will get “Zoochosis” which is a mental disease of animals if they staying in zoos for a long time. In addition, a serious problem that zoos must deal with is that recreating the habitat which animals would have in the wild is extremely costly. Although, zoos are trying to conserve those endangered animals, this task is not easy. It is easy to understand that living in a place involuntary for endangered animals are same as living in a cage. Endangered animals have emotion, so they have right of freedom. Humans are supposed to ignore the emotions of endangered animals, for protecting. If some accidents occurred, the consequence cannot be afforded. 

There is no doubt that it is urgent to the bring endangered animals back from the edge of extinction and give them protection. Currently, the best solution is keeping them in the zoo where endangered animals can get comparatively better protection and can be reintroduced to the wild through some programs like captive breeding program. Although the famous captive breeding program also have disadvantage which might be lethal to endangered animals and staying in the zoo for a long time is not beneficial to endangered animals’ health. In my opinion, humans can conquer those problems as the improvement of sciences and technology. As time goes by, a better solution will be come up with. So far, the best humans can do is try their best to protect and save endangered animals and the most suitable solution is zoos. It can be ignored that zoos make a huge success in saving a lot of endangered species. Everyone should keep in mind that whether endangered animals move into zoos or not, understanding that the purpose of keeping them living in the zoo is getting protection and reintroduce into the nature is the most crucial. What we can do now is trying to protect our environment and nature, keeping them from being damaged which we can save those endangered animals’ native habitats at the same time.
