Should Animals be Kept in Zoos?

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Only those with limited compassion need to see animals up close in order to care if they live or die. Most of us have never seen a starving child firsthand, but we still want to help end hunger. Many people haven’t travelled to war-torn regions or natural disaster sites, but have still pitched in to help those in need.

Kind people realize that respecting and protecting animals means keeping them out of zoos.

When people see an animal in a zoo, they don’t see the animal’s true behaviors, habitat, and emotions. They see the shadow of an animal whose life and surroundings would be entirely different if he or she were in his or her native environment. There are no souvenir shops in the savannah, no carousels in the jungle, no restaurants on the arctic ice.       

In their homelands, elephants roam at least 30 miles a day, but in zoos they must stand in comparably miniscule enclosures for days on end. The American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) only requires zoos to provide elephants with outdoor enclosures that measure a meager 1,800 square feet, roughly the size of a 3-car garage. (Indoor enclosures must only be 400 square feet.) As a result, many captive elephants suffer and die from foot problems and arthritis.

There are no AZA “standards” against keeping elephants in frigid climates even though elephants cannot tolerate cold weather, and the AZA allows zoos to chain elephants by the legs overnight and to use sharp metal bullhooks to strike elephants.