Ringling Brothers Circus Protest

Zoo enclosures are typically inadequate for the animals needs. For example, the average enclosure size for mammals in UK zoos is one hundred times smaller than their minimum home range in the wild.

Confining animals in artificial and often small enclosures inside zoos is stressful and causes them harm. Animals in zoos are bored and lonely creatures who spend their days shuffling, swaying and pacing back and forth, their eyes sad and empty.

Other stereotypic behaviours displayed as a result of intense boredom and suffering include rocking, over-grooming, mutilation, neck twisting, chewing and bar biting, hyper-aggression, abnormal maternal behaviour and feeding disorders.

Instead of funnelling money into zoos, money should be redirected to wild animal conservation. For example the money could be better spent:

-Establishing protected reserves

-Funding anti-poaching patrols

-Educating people about wildlife and the need for conservation

-Lobbying for legislation to protect wildlife (from poachers and habitat destruction)

If you visit zoos you are contributing to this suffering. Today's wildlife programmes can give viewers a much greater understanding and appreciation of these animals than zoos ever could. If you truly care about animals and conservation turn on the T.V and make a donation to one of the many wildlife charities working to save animals in the wild.

If the possibility of re-introduction of the species into the wild is a farce, then zoos only exist to preserve those species in captivity. Keeping animals in zoos harms them, by denying them freedom to carry out their lives naturally. While humans may feel that there is some justifying benefit to their captivity, there is no compensating benefit to the individual animals. Should a handful of individual animals be forced to live out life sentences just so humans can simply satisfy their curiosity?