The Importance Of Animals In Captivity

When one thinks of animals in captivity, most of the time we don 't notice cruelty, animals have shelter, they are fed, they have medical care, basic needs are taken care of. Unfortunately when you go deeper you recognize that even the best intentions for captive animals are cruel. Animals in captivity show abnormal behaviors, severe signs of stress and overall unhappiness. These behaviors are for several reasons. The quality and expectancy of an animal 's life is decreased due to small enclosures and limited socialization and thus negative mental health, which in some cases can be harmful for humans. In addition, in some captive places there is blatant abuse and unethical practices. This is why animals should not be held in captivity because

Small enclosures contribute to this reason. Even habitats that appear substantial enough to us are nothing compared to what an animal is accustomed to in the wild. Enclosures that they are held in are small in comparison for what it natural for them. It would be like if your world was the size of your house. You have space, but compared to everywhere else in the world you could explore that space becomes relatively smaller. Not only are the size of the enclosures small relative to the wild, but socialization becomes more limited for countless captive animals. In zoos I have been to they have placed highly sociable and intelligent animals in small groups or even alone. The effects of low socialization can be damaging to animals. Humans need communication and good relationships with others to be healthy. Animals do as well, when sociable animals are no longer meeting their social needs there stress levels increase and thus abnormal behaviors arise. These behaviors were observed in a study done on chimpanzees in zoos in the United States and United Kingdom. The conclusion was that every chimpanzee in the study exhibited abnormal behaviors (How Abnormal Is the Behaviour of Captive, Zoo-Living Chimpanzees? 2011). Another example explained in Do elephants belong in zoos? Was that even if a zoo was to prove a space accodamble space for an elephant they could not

One of the main arguments for zoos and other animal sightseeing places is the educational benefits and support for wild animals. Zoos usually have speakers who talk about the animals and in better cases about how to help endangered animals avoid extinction. I have witnessed one of these talks first hand at my local zoo. A few times a day they have a speaker come to the tiger enclosure and list facts and interesting characteristics of tigers. This can be beneficial, but does not need an animal to be captive. Education is not reason enough for animals to be kept captive and although some are great at helping support wild animals in need too many zoos are not. According to WDC the zoo Seaworld only gives $600 for conservation efforts for every million dollars the zoo earns. (The fate of captive orcas). Unfortunately, other zoos have similar low support for wild