Should zoos be banned? Are zoos bad or good?
This question is heavily debated and there is no definite answer for it. Shutting down all zoos goes against saving animals. But, stopping them from keeping certain animals or doing certain types of research isn’t wrong. It really boils down to how zoos use the money and what they teach people who come and donate.
Nevertheless, we are going to look at the pros and cons of zoos and explore whether or not they should be banned.
So let’s dive right into the topic!
The Pros & Cons of Zoos
Let’s first discover the pros and cons of zoos, evaluating both their positive and negative impact!
| Pros of Zoos | Cons of Zoos |
|---|---|
|
1. Zoos are protecting endangered species |
1. Zoos entertain humans at the expense of animals |
|
2. Zoos are educating the public |
2. Holding animals in captivity has questionable ethics |
|
3. Zoos are helping to fight extinction |
3. Zoos can be detrimental to the animals' physical health |
|
4. Zoos are conducting valuable research |
4. Zoos can be detrimental to the animals' psychological health |
|
5. Zoos are economic resources for many communities |
5. Lack of regulation & control in many zoos |
What are the Pros of Zoos?
1. Zoos are protecting endangered species
When ecological conservation emerged as a matter of public interest in the 1970s, zoos all over the world have embraced the mission of saving endangered species in the world. Zoos are not like the cruel animal menageries from the middle ages. They want to provide entertainment, but they are greatly concerned with the protection and conservation of animals and their natural habitats. Environmental protection is one of the biggest reasons why zoos should not be banned.
Zoos provide a protected environment for endangered animals, and also help in raising awareness and funding for wildlife initiatives and research projects. Therefore, zoos educate the public about animals and are contributing their part to the conservation of many species. In fact, should zoos be banned, many species would have gone extinct already. A good example are narwahls.
2. Zoos are educating the public about animals
Environmental education is definitely among the pros of zoos. Many children and adults in cities can only see wild animals in TV or the internet. Zoos offer them the unique experience of contemplating real animals. They can smell them, see how they move and listen their sounds in real life.
Visiting a zoo is a much more vivid and enriching experience than the one you can get through a screen. Thanks to zoos, kids and adults develop empathy towards animals. In addition, people don’t need to travel to exotic places to see the animals, which is beneficial to the environment.
Ultimately, zoos provide an affordable opportunity to see (exotic) animals, giving everyone an equal chance to experience wildlife first-hand and learn about nature. No matter what a person’s socioeconomic status may be, there is a chance to learn something new because of the work of a zoo. By educating about animals, zoos are also raising awareness about our environmental problems like climate change and illustrate how these impact ecosystems worldwide.
Should zoos be banned, an important educational resource would dissapear, which might lead to less future knowledge about animals and nature.
3. Zoos help in fighting animal extinction
Given that the mass destruction of wildlife habitats across the globe continues unabated and species such as elephants, big cats, birds, primates, rhinos, reptiles, and many others are at real risk of extinction, larger zoos have now stepped in with the hopes of stopping or at least slowing the decline of these endangered species.
Zoos study animal breeding and thanks to them many wild animals in captivity can reproduce. Should zoos be banned, we would certainly loose some species. This is particularly important in the case of endangered species. Due to the low density of the population of some animals in their natural ecosystems they struggle to find partners.
Some populations in the wild are weakened by endogamy too. In zoos vets and biologist help to prevent inbreeding. Fighting extinction is surely among the pros of zoos!
4. Zoos are conducting valuable research
Zoos are key for research. Being able to observe and study animals is crucial if we want to contribute to help them and repair the ecosystems. They also help in reducing human-animal conflicts and in better understanding the needs and psychology of animals. Zoos serve as laboratories to learn more about how to fight animal diseases and develop effective animal anaesthetics and other treatments to help more animals in the future.
Between 1993 and 2013, 228 accredited zoos published 5,175 peer-reviewed manuscripts. In 2017, 173 accredited US zoos spent $25 million on research, studied 485 species and subspecies of animals, worked on 1,280 research projects, and published 170 research manuscripts.
Because so many diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans, such as COVID-19, ebola, hantavirus, and the bird flu, zoos frequently conduct disease surveillance research in wildlife populations and their own captive populations that can lead to a direct impact on human health.
Should zoos be banned, we might not be able to conduct such research anymore, negatively influencing our ability to find cures to diseases and tackle issues like climate change.
5. Zoos provide income for many communities
Finally, the pros of zoos include their economic importance. Zoos play an important economic role, especially in the less developed areas of the world, where they are an important income source for many communities. Zoos do more than just providing a place for animals to reside. They are a place that provides jobs, creates tourism opportunities, and can even be an economic nexus for a community.
Should zoos be banned, we would need to find other economic resources for these communities. As of 2022, there are 27,267 people employed in the Zoos & Aquariums industry in the US only. Just imagine how many jobs they provide worldwide, especially in less developed countries.
What are the Cons of Zoos?
Unfortunately, the world of zoos is not as bright as you might think after reading the previous positive points above. Let’s take a closer look at the arguments why zoos should be banned!
1. Zoos entertain humans at the expense of animals
Environmental activists insist that zoos should be banned, despite their noble intentions. They argue that zoos are inherently immoral and primarily serve to entertain humans at the expense of animals. In fact, zoos exploit animals for the sake of profit generation.
Furthermore, zoos don’t educate the public enough to justify keeping animals captive. In fact, even a study widely cited to justify the argument that zoos educate the public stated that “there was no overall change in understanding of ecological concepts seen” because visitors know a lot about ecology before going to the zoo.
On top of that, there have been cases where zoos killed baby animals, for the sake of controlling the animal population of the zoo. For example, in 2014 the Copenhagen Zoo killed a young giraffe and four lions on the grounds of genetic purity and breeding.
We should ask ourselves whether the entertainment provided by zoos (especially by animals shows and similar activities) does really justify the price that the animals pay for.
2. Holding animals in captivity has questionable ethics
Haven’t we learned from our shameful history with “human zoos”? 100 years ago, people accepted that other humans are exhibited in “human zoos”, which everyone would protest against nowadays. Who knows how humanity will look back and judge our present animal zoos in 100 years… If we look back at the dark history of zoological institutions, zoos should be banned!
There is no doubt that zoos are questionable from an ethical point of view. Zoos are a typical form of family entertainment, but associating leisure and fun with the contemplation of animals in captivity can send the wrong signals to our children. Zoos can be construed as a sadistic pleasure.
There may be educational value in a zoo, but keeping animals in captivity offers an ethical dilemma.
Some animals, like the average house cat, will thrive in a captive environment. Others, like orcas, do very poorly when living in captivity. An orca in the wild may live up to 100 years in the wild, but the average age at a captive orca is less than 30 years – and it’s 17 years for a male orca. For many, this is a strong argument to ban zoos.
3. Zoos can be detrimental to the animals' physical health
Depending on the conditions at-hand, zoos can be detrimental to the animals’ physical health. There are still many animal welfare issues recorded everyday, and animals often have to live in poor conditions, especially in less-developed, poorer countries. And all of that even though zoos are legally required to follow the Animal Welfare Act.
In addition, most animals that are exhibited in zoos are wild exotic animals (such as tigers and lions) who naturally need lots of space and even change their habitat over time. Due to the limited space in zoos, these animals cannot move as they naturally would, which inevitably leads them to develop health issues.
Furthermore, animal cruelty in zoos continues to be extremely common. There are continuous cases of animals abused by visitors and zoo workers. Many of them are reported every week in the media, however, the large majority are kept secret and those responsible are never held accountable or punished. In fact, many zoos are greenwashing themselves, by saying they have high animal welfare standards although they haven’t.
4. Zoos can be detrimental to the animals' mental health
It is proven that zoo confinement is psychologically damaging to animals. Another reason why zoos should be banned.
As illustrated in Zooicide, animals in captivity are deprived of many things that are important to them, as a result they become lonely and bored. Many of them suffer from “zoochosis”, a psychological condition characterized by repetitive and obsessive behaviors including vomiting, excessive grooming, coprophagia and self-mutilation.
Animal behaviorists see zoo animals suffering from problems not seen in the wild, such as clinical depression in clouded leopards and gibbons, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in brown bears, and anxiety in giraffes. The animals experience these issues due to smaller enclosures, changes in diet and activities, and the introduction of things not seen in the wild, such as medical exams and people with cameras.
Even keeping domicile animals such as alpacas and llamas in a restricted or caged environment can cause huge distress to them. In fact, alpacas and llamas tend to spit more in zoos, as they are irritated more frequently there compared to when they are left alone in nature.
5. Lack of regulation & control in many zoos
Another issue with zoos is that there is only insufficient regulation of zoos in many countries. In fact, many zoos are free to treat their animals however they want. In some countries, animals are even considered as property instead of living organisms that need proper regulatory protection. Another reason why zoos should be banned!
Especially in countries with lax regulations related to zoos, animals will be treated poorly and in those countries, governments should introduce stricter regulations in order to protect these animals. Even if there is some form of regulation in place, most countries’ abilitiy to control zoos for animal welfare is very limited, meaning that zoos can basically treat animals however they want.
Putting aside these opposing views, it does remain a sad reality that the welfare of zoo animals varies widely depending on where you are. While many zoos have been working hard to improve their animal enclosures to better fit the needs of captive animals, constraints such as limited space and funds can seriously hinder this process. Smaller, poorer zoos simply do not have the luxury of hiring well-trained zoological staff or expanding their breeding programs and facilities to maintain the ethos of conservation. A ban of these smaller, less well-funded zoos could be seen as a reasonable strategy for reducing harm to wildlife.
After all, something we must consider too when talking about the pros and cons of zoos is their not-so-glamorous history!
A Brief History of Zoos
Until the early 19th century, the only purpose of zoos was to demonstrate the power of royalty and indulge their extravagant tastes. Up until this time, people paid no attention to science or animal conservation. Zoos were just used to symbolize the superiority of humans over animals.
Evidence of the existence of zoos and menageries can be traced all the way back to ancient Egypt, circa 3500 BC. Many Roman emperors kept private zoo collections. Sometimes these captive animals were used for study, but most of the time they were simply used for entertainment in the arena, which invariably ended in a cruel death.
At some point during the history of zoos, humans even tried to emphasize the supposed inferiority of other human cultures, and implied the superiority of Western society, through so-called “human zoos”. There have been plenty of “human zoos” in many European countries, which tried to symbolize the superiority of the Western culture over the culture of their former colonies, by visualizing how primitive black people behaved.
In fact, “human zoos” are one of Europe’s most shameful secrets. When trying to find an answer to the question: “Should zoos be banned?”, there’s no way around reminding ourselves with our history.
The modern zoo that we know today emerged in the 19th century in the United Kingdom. It was only then that the transition was made from royal menageries designed to entertain the elite to public zoological gardens aiming to educate the wider population.
Growing urbanization and industrialization led to heightened demand for new forms of public entertainment. This need for entertainment, as well as the requirements of scholarly research, came together in the founding of the first modern zoos. During that time nobody even thought about the question of should zoos be banned.
According to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) by 2020, the USA boasts 230 accredited zoos and aquariums, accommodating nearly 800,000 animals and 6,000 species with around 1,000 of these species being on the endangered species list. These zoos provide 200,000 jobs with an annual budget of $230 million set aside for wildlife conservation. They attract more than 200 million visitors per year, with special educational programs designed specifically for school groups.
Over the past 30 years, many established zoos have endeavored to improve the level of care for animals and rehabilitate the public perception of zoos. However, despite many good intentions and considerable financial effort, the concept of zoos is nonetheless fraught with many serious problems.
So much so that calls to ban zoos are still loud and persistent from many activist groups even now…
But what’s the verdict now? Should zoos be banned or not? Are zoos good or bad? Let’s dive into the pros and cons of zoos.
Should Zoos be Banned?
A zoo can be an integral part of our community and world with the right approach. There are several pros and cons of zoos, and there is no definite answer to whether zoos are supporting a positive human environment interaction or not. Each point deserves consideration. If wanted, zoos can be more than entertainment and provide a positive value to both, humans and animals.
The pros and cons of zoos often come from two very different points of view. From a legal standard, animals are often treated as property. That means they have less rights than humans, so a zoo seems like a positive place to maintain a high quality of life. For others, the forced enclosure of any animal feels like an unethical decision.
Wild animals, as it is said, are meant to be wild!
In any case, here are the best zoological institutions in California which are treating their animals at least as good as they can:
FAQ
Are zoos ethical? What about aquariums?
The ethics of zoos and aquariums are a subject of debate. While some argue that they play a crucial role in education, conservation, and research, others believe that keeping animals in captivity is inherently unethical and compromises their welfare and natural behaviors.
What are the pros and cons of zoos?
The pros of zoos include their contribution to endangered species conservation, public education about wildlife, research opportunities, and economic benefits for communities.
However, the cons involve concerns about animal welfare, ethical considerations, potential negative effects on animals’ physical and psychological health, and the lack of regulation in some cases.
Are zoos good or bad?
The question of whether zoos are good or bad is subjective and depends on one’s perspective. Some people see the positive aspects of zoos, such as their educational and conservation efforts, while others emphasize the negative impact on animal welfare and argue for their abolition.
Are zoos morally wrong?
The morality of zoos is a matter of personal opinion and ethical beliefs. Some individuals consider zoos morally wrong due to the captivity and potential harm inflicted on animals, while others see them as a necessary means to protect species and educate the public.
Are zoos bad or good?
The question of whether zoos are bad or good depends on your ethical stance. Whereas zoos are good for wildlife conservation, education, and research, they sometimes involve negative impacts on animal welfare and ethical concerns about keeping animals in captivity.
Are zoos safe for animals?
The safety of animals in zoos can vary widely depending on the specific zoo and its practices. While many accredited zoos prioritize animal welfare and provide appropriate care, there have been instances of poor conditions and mistreatment. The overall safety of animals in zoos depends on the commitment to high standards of care, sufficient enclosure sizes, and proper veterinary attention.
Are zoos for profit?
Zoos are typically not for profit. Though, they need to generate revenue and contribute to the local economy through visitor fees, donations, and tourism. However, the pursuit of profit should not compromise the welfare of animals. Ethical and responsible zoos prioritize animal care and conservation over profit-making, ensuring that financial resources are allocated appropriately for the well-being of the animals and their conservation efforts.
Why should zoos be banned?
There are many reasons why zoos should be banned. As outlined by PETA, Zoos should be banned due to ethical concerns about animal welfare. Keeping animals in captivity leads to physical and psychological harm. Zoos fail to replicate natural habitats, negatively impacting the well-being of the animals. Zoos provide entertainment, not education! And this entertainment comes at the cost of animal welfare.
Why should zoos not be banned?
Zoos should not be banned because they play a vital role in wildlife conservation, offering sanctuary for endangered species. They are important for educational purposes, providing firsthand wildlife experiences that foster public awareness and interest in conservation. Zoos also contribute to scientific research on animal behavior and biology, aiding in broader conservation efforts. Additionally, they support global biodiversity through breeding programs for rare and endangered species.
What are alternatives to zoos?
You can learn about animals without visiting or supporting zoos.
Here is a list of ethical alternatives to zoos:
- Wildlife sanctuaries: They provide a natural and ethical habitat for animals, focusing on rescue and rehabilitation, thus ensuring animal welfare and mimicking their natural living conditions more closely than zoos.
- Conservation parks: These large, protected areas conserve wildlife in their native ecosystems, promoting ethical animal treatment and natural biodiversity without the constraints of captivity.
- Virtual zoos: Utilizing technology, they offer an ethical and educational way to learn about animals through interactive and immersive experiences, without any impact on the animals’ natural living conditions.
- National Parks: These are protected areas that preserve natural environments and wildlife in their native habitats. They offer an ethical alternative by allowing animals to live freely and undisturbed, promoting biodiversity and ecological balance without the need for captivity.
- Public Parks: While primarily designed for human recreation, public parks can also serve as urban sanctuaries for local wildlife. They provide a small-scale, ethical alternative for experiencing nature and wildlife in a more controlled environment, contributing to urban biodiversity and environmental education.
- Wildlife documentaries: They educate and raise awareness about animals and their habitats ethically, using filming techniques that minimize human interference with wildlife.
