Expert: Robin Flynn - 4/2/2009

Question
Hello Robin,
I am doing a persuasive speech on why zoos are cruel to animals.
If you have any information on this it would be a great help.
Thanks,
Josh

Answer
Hi Josh,

I answered this for another a while back. Please read my answer below.

Let me start off by saying that I do not believe we have the right to use any animal for entertainment purposes. Animals do not like to be snatched out of their natural environment and placed in a strange enclosure any less than you or I would. Many animals are abused by the very Zoos who pledge to care for them. Zoos breed animals for horrible animal experiments and to produce babies to attract more visitors so they can increase their profits. When they breed too many animals and create a surplus, zoos are known to kill their own animals, Or worse, they sell them to hunting ranches. This probably isn't true for every zoo in existence but it certainly makes a case against them.


Many people believe that Zoos are simply parks where we can go visit animals. This isn't true. Many zoos use animals for other purposes.
I have included 10 facts from the following site: http://www.captiveanimals.org/zoos/zfact1.htm

1. Zoos are known to have supplied animals for use in experiments.
In 1990, a zoo research institute was party to experiments on primates and wallabies. An experiment was carried out on marmoset monkeys in which their sense of smell was destroyed using surgical burning and chemical techniques. The object of the research was to discover whether the breeding rates of the monkeys improved. In another experiment, fully conscious wallabies were decapitated. (a)

The same research institute has collaborated with companies such as ICI in tests on rats, involving the force feeding of chemicals used in plastics, dyes and explosives to find out about the effect on fertility. (b)

In 1992 the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) found that the Longleat Safari Park and Woburn Wild Animal Park were supplying primates to Shamrock GB Limited, the UK's primary supplier of laboratory primates for scientific research. (c)
An American zoo that provided animals to a research facility. http://www.stopanimaltests.com/f-CincinnatiZoo.asp


2.  Zoos are known to have supplied animals to the exotic meat industry.
One zoo openly sold surplus ostriches to ostrich farms. Another has supplied bison to a farm involved in breeding them for the bison meat trade.


3. Animals from UK zoos have ended up in circuses.
In recent years animals from zoos have been supplied to circuses and dealers involved with circuses. A young sealion called Orry, from a wildlife park in the Isle of Man, was found in France in the back of a lorry belonging to a travelling circus. Orry now lives in a UK zoo.
One zoo exhibits an elephant supplied by a circus animal trainer. The same zoo is alleged to have supplied a bear cub and snakes to a circus animal dealer in the 1980's.



4. Zoos have sent animals to appalling conditions.
Animals have been disposed of by Federation and non-Federation zoos to zoos with appalling conditions.
In 1993 a zoo and theme park sold its two polar bears to Zagreb Zoo in Croatia, just 30 miles from the war zone.
In 1989 two polar bears, Pipiluk and Mosha, were moved from a zoo to Katowice Zoo in Poland. A visitor who saw the bears there said that the conditions were "deplorable and inadequate". In 1993 a zoo disposed of an orang-utan to a zoo in Tenerife. No-one from the UK zoo visited Tenerife to inspect conditions there. The orang-utan (pictured), whose name was Jimmy James, was shipped out unaccompanied. A CAPS investigation team visited him at his new home and were appalled and sickened at the conditions in which he and the other zoo animals were living. Jimmy James survived alone in his cage for four years until his death.

5. Animals can die prematurely in zoos.
In 1991 twenty-five Asiatic Lions were born in zoos around the world - 22 of them died. In the same year 166 cheetahs were born in zoos, of which 112 died. (d)

6. Surplus animals are destroyed or sold.
Some animals breed well in captivity and their young are always appealing. But what happens to them when they get older?

Surplus animals in zoos, such as lions and waterbuck, have simply been destroyed. Other animals may be disposed of to the pet trade. In 1992 a CAPS investigation team found two Goeldi's marmoset monkeys in a pet shop. The monkeys had been supplied to the pet shop by a zoo. Goeldi's marmosets are one of the world's rarest primate species.

7. Zoo animals may carry disease.
Captive bred animals may pose a threat to wild populations by introducing disease. We have already mentioned a case involving Golden Lion Tamarins.
Black rhino have contracted haemolytic anaemia; Arabian oryx may carry TB; animals in zoos were found to have a form of BSE; canine distemper was found in black footed ferrets. Captive elephants have been found to harbor TB too and an elephant at a zoo died in 1997 from enteritis caused by salmonella. In zoos in this country and abroad, antelope, ostrich and big cats have been found to suffer from a form of 'mad cow disease'. A captive bred animal being released after exposure to BSE is a risk to the health of other animals because so little is known about the disease.

8. Animals are still taken from the wild.
Young elephants have come to UK zoos (and circuses) from Southern Africa, where they have witnessed their families being culled (killed by shooting). The young are sometimes tied to their dead mothers before being sent to dealers who sell them on to buyers.

Between 1984 and 1991, 32 Sumatran rhinos were taken from Indonesia to supply collections in the USA. Nine of these rhino died during or shortly after capture. In 1992 nine black rhinos were captured from the wild in Zimbabwe for an Australian zoo. The animals were for a proposed Captive Breeding Program. One of the males died during quarantine, and another died after charging at metal fencing at the zoo. With both males dead the females had no breeding partners. (e)

9. There is a lack of genetic diversity in captive bred animals.
We believe that in the UK this reduced gene pool has led to some young, for example snow leopard cubs, being bred with congenital deformities.

10. Most zoos collect 'crowd pullers'.  
Most zoo collections are comprised of large charismatic species, such as giraffes, elephants, tigers etc. These animals are 'crowd pullers', and are kept in captivity for the benefit of zoos themselves.

I have included other links  that may interest you.

http://www.noazark.org/chronicles/2001/nac-0901.htm
http://www.zooinsiders.com/
http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=67
http://www.friendsofanimals.org/actionline/spring-2005/in-my-view.html
http://www.animalconnectiontx.org/issues/canned.htm

I am sure there are people who work in Zoos who do love animals and want to care for them the best they can but that doesn't mean it is okay to  “use “ them for our entertainment value or to make a profit.

Good Luck with your project.

For the Animals,
Robin