Animals, charity and zoos

Let me start with the history of animal zoos. Animal zoos had existed before our common era. At that time, there were personal zoos, which they build to show their wealth. The first time the word “ zoo” was used in 1828, in London Zoological gardens. At first, it was opened for scientific reasons, then, in 1857, it opened for public.

Now let’s look at another type of zoo, human zoo. It has a long history starting from the late 15 century. As animal zoos, only a few people had human zoos, and there were different people from different races. In the early 19 century, it became more like a freak show, and freaks were people with some health problems. Human zoos became more popular in the 1870s, in cities like Paris, London, New York, Hamburg, Barcelona, and more. Not to go deeper, I will say that humans realized their inhuman treatment.

But why they still think that animal zoos are good? As humans, we believe that we are more important than animals; we believe that we have all the rights to keep animals in captivity. Imagine for a moment that you are an animal in a zoo. Would it be fun for you? In the same small place every day, lots of strange people make noises every day, bang on the fences every day, and you can do nothing. One of the first steps is banning animal circuses, and 25 countries did that. In 2013 Costa Rica announced that it would close its zoos and free all animals. But FUNDAZOO organization sued Costa Rica’s Environmental Ministry, and now the zoos of Costa Rica can’t be closed until 2024. Do you know what the arguments for zoos are? They say they help endangered animals, they are educational, they have such habitat where animals have big space and are never bored they say. Now let me give arguments against zoos.

Do they really help endangered animals? The answer is NO. ‘ Only 15% of the thousands of species held in zoos are considered ‘ threatened’ Let’s dig deeper. Zoos breed endangered animals, after that, they give some of them to the other zoos, some to circuses, and some they keep to replace the older ones, to attract more people. Eventually, they kill these “ surplus” animals. In 2016, an endangered gorilla named Harambe was shot dead, in Cincinnati Zoo. The reason is that a boy fell into his enclosure. Again in 2016, but this time in Santiago Zoo, a man tried to commit suicide and throw himself into the enclosure of lions. The result: two lions were killed. And these are not the only examples.

If they are educational, then why ‘ A 2014 study by the Society for Conservation Biology found that of over 2, 800 children surveyed following visits to London Zoo, 62% showed no positive learning outcomes’? In 2014, in Copenhagen Zoo, a giraffe called Marius was killed, since the zoo had other male giraffes with similar genes, and he was just two years old. He was publicly dissected in front of adults and children. Bengt Holst, scientific director at Copenhagen Zoo, told CNN, “ We have to tell a real story. If animals are born, they will also die in some stage, and this is part of life.” So people are also born, and they will also die in some stage, let’s kill each other, why not? I think what they teach is that it’s normal to keep, breed, and then kill the animal. They teach children how to become murderers. Murderers like a 7-year-old boy in an Australian zoo, who fed 10 zoo animals to the crocodile Terry, and smashed three lizards with rocks in 2008.

What about their health? Stress, anxiety, and boredom can lead animals to develop mental health issues as humans. The condition that zoo animals develop is called “ zoochosis.” It’s a behavior of swaying, pacing, self-hurting, and much more. The space of animals in zoos on average 100 times smaller than their natural habitat. These spaces are not enough to walk and exercise, which leads to premature death. Elephants in zoos die much younger, more than two times than in the wild.

To conclude, I will say that zoos should be closed, and the only place for wild animals is in wild nature. If people want to help animals, then the locations for that are true sanctuaries, where they don’t buy, don’t sell, don’t breed, don’t trade, and don’t have a profit from animals. Place, where is no direct contact with wild animals allowed. So say not to zoos.