The Debate About Zoos and Captive Animals

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The debate around zoos and captive animals Like many other children, I have visited the zoo when I was younger. I have since realised that we, as humans, do not have the right to hold animals in cages and limited areas, often in regions very far from their natural habitat and climate. For example, how can you keep a polar bear in the heat of Africa? These animals spend their lives as prisoners, staying still or moving around the cage or fenced-off areas, slowly dying from boredom and frustration. They can’t mate and care for their young freely, they must eat only what man gives them, they don’t know how to defend themselves from their natural enemies, they can’t migrate. In short, animals are kept segregated in a limited and artificial space where they do not have the right to live as they could do in the wild. The space for them in a “modern zoo” or “bio-park” is not cages as such, but confined areas with vegetation, ponds and trees. This wider space could appear enough, but it is nothing compared to the vast natural territory available for a wild animal, in the presence of other wild animals, predators, prey or rivals. In most cases, this imprisonment causes irreversible damage to animals, resulting in them not being suitable to be re-introduced to their natural environment, because they don’t know how to survive there. It is something that man can’t teach them either. Zoos are presented to children as educational, a place where you can see the animals and learn more about them. It is in fact only a lesson in cruelty and hypocrisy, because there is nothing educational in making these kids think it is normal and amusing to see these animals in an artificial environment. Kids will learn a lot more about animals watching Animal Planet, where the animals are filmed in their natural habitat, and where they are born
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