The captivity of animals is a notorious practice that has been allowed and overlooked for too long across the world. Zoos have glorified putting animals in enclosures against their will and while there are positives to having zoos the negatives heavily outweigh the positives. The measurements taken to ensure the prosperity of the animals living in zoos are not sufficient and therefore the practice of zoos should be banned to allow all animals to be able to enjoy their life naturally to their full potential.

One of the biggest reasons people support zoos is because they feel zoos are a great way for people who are uneducated on animals to observe and learn about different species. However, in today’s society there are so many different ways that people can learn about different species without ever having to go to the zoo. For example, people can watch documentaries on almost any species through things like Netflix, YouTube, or just by simply googling information about a specific animal on their smart phone or computer. A video made by SeekerNetwork talks about how supporters of zoos always mention how useful zoos are to learning about the behavior of different species of animals but every animal’s behavior shifts when they are taken from the wild and put into captivity in a zoo (SeekerNetwork). This is important because ethologists who observe the behavior of animals for a living are at a disadvantage when they are studying the behavior of an animal in a zoo enclosure because that animal will not be in the wild where it naturally would live. While ethologists who travel out to the natural habitat of whichever animal species they are attempting to observe will be better off and the information will be more valid since it is coming straight from the animal’s natural habitat. Another big problem about studying the behavior of animals in captivity is that whichever specific species you are attempting to learn from will not have the chance to interact with all of the other species of animals they would naturally have the ability to interact with. For example, if an ethologist is trying to learn more about the behavior of a spider monkey and the ethologist visits the local zoo, he will not be able to learn anything about how the spider monkey behaves when coming into contact with a bird or any other animal that the spider monkey would normally interact with on a regular day. This is a big problem because usually zoo enclosures keep each species separate from each other. The conditions of these enclosures do not meet sufficient enough standards to let observing animals be the reason for keeping zoos. 

It is a fact that not all zoo enclosures are capable of sustaining a healthy life for certain species. An article written by Animal Facts, a website that has detailed facts about almost every type of animal, titled Animals Kept in Zoos talks about various different facts about the pros and cons of the lifestyle for the animals held captive in zoos. This article goes into depth about certain species are simply unfit to be living in zoos. Elephants walk up to fifty kilometers a day and there is no way for a zoo to make an enclosure large enough to allow elephants to behave naturally (Animal Facts). Elephants also travel in packs of up to thirty or forty elephants and in most zoos they cannot travel more than a few acres pacing back and forth inside of their enclosure. Elephants in zoos have a lifespan 39 years shorter than elephants who live in their natural habitat (Zimmerman). “All zoos and safari parks have to adhere to guidelines laid down in the Animal Welfare Act. While these guidelines are extremely strict, many anti-zoo campaigners believe it is rarely enforced and zoos tend to follow a relaxed version of the rules (Animal Facts).” This is the sad truth about most zoo enclosures across the world. While there are specific guidelines that zoos are told to follow there is not a high amount of enforcement on these guidelines because it is hard to keep up with all of the zoos around the world. Another big problem with zoo enclosures is the staff and how many of the members of the staff at zoos do not actually care about the well-being of the animals they are responsible for taking care of (Carr). The unpredictability of the staff members can frighten some animals and lead to anxiety inside of their enclosure. 

Animals that are kept in enclosures have to deal with an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar people taking care of them. Lois Bassett and Hannah M. Buchanan-Smith, both members of the Department of Psychology at the University of Stirling, conducted a study to try to learn more about the stress put on animals in captivity by human interaction and the unpredictability of their environment and how it affects their welfare. The study is almost horrifying in what it exposes simply because of the fact that most people do not even think about the psychological factor when it comes to animal welfare in captivity. The study shows that the unpredictability of their environment causes extreme stress for some animals (Bassett). When animals are not given enough consistency in their enclosure they become anxious and will be nervous when staff members arrive to do things as simple as just trying to feed them. This study mentions predictability a lot and how it affects the way animals behave in captivity. Bassett and Smith found that the predictability of a stimuli is a major factor in how stressful an animal’s environment is. “For example, a positive stimulus, such as food, or an aversive stimulus, such as electric shock, might be delivered to animals at random times, which are irregular and therefore unpredictable. Alternatively, the stimulus could be delivered at fixed times, which are regular and therefore predictable. The second method involves preceding the stimulus with a signal. A regular signal preceding the stimulus by the same time interval will render it predictable, irrespective of whether it occurs on a fixed or variable time schedule. Variations in the predictability of the stimulus may be achieved by manipulating the reliability of the signal preceding it (Bassett).” This explains the two different ways that the stimuli given by the staff to the animals can be administered and either way they find there is going to be stress caused for the animal. Even if the animal is receiving their food or any other stimuli at a specific time and can cause the animal to be stressed. This is due to the fact that when in animals is aware that a stimulus is going to occur at a certain time there is anxiety that builds up the closer the animal gets to the stimulus. “One major difference between the environments of captive and wild animals is the reduced amount of environmental control available to them, and the increased amount of predictability (Bassett).” Their study shows that there is in fact a major difference between the behaviors of animals being held in captivity as opposed to those who are free in the wild. What Bassett and Smith mean by reduced environmental control is that the animals in captivity are unable of doing anything that would really change their environment because their environment is controlled by the staff of the zoo whereas in the wild they would be able to change their surroundings based off of where they travel and whatever niche each species naturally likes to create for their selves. 

A large problem with zoo enclosures is there lack of knowledge on how to properly take care of certain animals with the climate change in today’s environment. Ecological Ethics in Captivity is an article written by Ben A. Minteer, who is a Professor of Environmental Ethics and Conservation in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. In this article Minteer talks about how the changing environment and the climate change of the earth nowadays is affecting how we need to take care of animals in confinement.  “Global climate change, along with other drivers of rapid environmental transformation is increasingly being viewed as requiring a more proactive and intensive philosophy of conservation and ecological management (Minteer). Minteer makes it clear that global climate change is starting to shape the way that the people who set up the guidelines for how zoos are supposed to be ran think. Zoo ethics are definitely coming into question when dealing with climate change due to the fact that many animal’s enclosures are simply too hot for them and the measurements being taken to ensure that these animals are able to live comfortably are not sufficient enough. “Asian elephants and polar bears, are prone to problems that include poor health, repetitive stereotypic behavior and breeding difficulties (Clubb).” It is a well-supported fact that polar bears are unable to thrive in captivity. Even though this is a well-accepted fact people still support business that keep polar bears in captivity just so that they are able to profit off of people coming to see their polar bears. Even with water and a cold enclosure polar bears will still have major medical issues which is completely immoral. Zoos knowingly allow for animal’s lives to suffer just so that they can profit which is the definition of immoral. 

A press article was written by Outside called The Case for Closing Zoos and it brings up many valid points as to why zoos are unfit places for any animals. “If a Nature special can be so inspiring and educational, are there any good arguments for keeping animals in artificial enclosures that, at best, are only a fraction of the size of their natural habitats (Zimmerman)?” This article says it perfectly. With all of the other ways to educate ourselves about different species of animals we wouldn’t regularly see in our environment there is no need for zoos to even exist. The major reason why zoo owners try to advocate their zoos being so great for the animals is because they are making money by having the zoo stay open. It is obvious that the owners of the zoos are not going to admit all the shortcomings of ensuring all of their animal’s safety and health. It is unfortunate because a lot of the information that gets out there about the positivity of zoos is being spread by people the people who profit from zoos or those who are being paid by owners of zoos to lie about what is actually going on inside of their zoos when people are not around to see. While on the other hand the people who are trying to get out accurate information about the lives of different animals in zoos and how they are not being treated fairly are just people that are concerned with the fact that there are animals being abused and neglected. There is not really anything for anyone who is against zoos to gain from zoos being banned. The article written by Outside also talks about how advocates for zoos believe that zoos are necessary just to ensure certain species that are endangered can continue to live and reproduce. However, the zoos actually do very little to ensure that endangered species continue to breed efficiently. “The Association of Zoos and Aquariums reports that its 228 members are actively working to save 30 species. But that accounts for a small portion of zoo breeding; the reality is that most programs build and sustain zoo populations, not wild ones (Zimmerman).” In all the history of American zoos there has never been an elephant that has been taken from living in a zoo and put back into the wild where it belongs even though many zoos claim that is a big reason why they are keeping elephants in their zoo. In 2013 Costa Rica announced a plan to close all of their public zoos (Zimmerman). This is saying a lot for an entire country that is known for having some of the best zoos around the world to decide to completely close all of their zoos. Costa Rica has realized that zoos are immoral and that the reasons we justify the practice of zoos are usually there just to mask more selfish reasons of just wanting to make a profit out of the captivity of animals. Another press article, this time written by Vice, talks about the unjustified practice of keeping animals in zoos. This article talks about all of the instances where the animals have escaped their enclosures and ended up killing people or getting killed themselves. This article mentions a zoo having 12 of its 14 bears die and two of its three jaguars being dead mostly due to their escape and then them subsequently being shot (James). This article goes on to call the question of whether or not humans should be keeping animals in captivity as having an easy answer of no and that it is common sense to see the immorality of keeping an animal in an enclosure. “Thinking that all zoos have improved, then, would be a mistake. In Britain, there have been numerous incidents of abuse, like at Woburn Safari Park, where, in 2010, lions were discovered being left in cramped, unsuitable enclosures for 18 hours a day, and where staff were found training elephants with 4,500-volt electrical goads (Vice).” Zoos have been considered to be better nowadays but as we can see from examples all around the world that is not necessarily the case.

With all of the speculation over how zoos should be properly ran and which aspects of enclosures are moral or immoral there is no question that zoos as a whole need to be outlawed. History has shown throughout time that humans putting animals in captivity always leads to problems and abuse for the animals. There is no way of adequately assuring that all zoos are ran the way they should be and therefore should be banned across the world. 
