Philadelphia Zoo Argumentative Essay

On July 20th, 1874, the first zoo in the united states was opened in Philadelphia. When opened it featured animals in cages with steel bars and cement flooring. Now one-hundred and forty-three years later it’s a sprawling zoo that focuses on educating its attendees and providing amazing enclosures for the animals. The Philadelphia zoo now features a meerkat maze which gives the meerkats a large funnel system to run around simulating their natural habitat; it also features the Big Cat Crossing which allows animals such as the tigers, lions, pumas, and jaguars to travel across walkways providing much needed free space to prowl (About). Zoos are much needed education centers and research locations to study animals and how to better their lives in and outside captivity. Animals should be held in captivity such as natural reservations, zoos, and wildlife parks.
Animals have

The wild is not a danger free zone where all animals are roaming free and living lives of luxury. It is filled with predators hunting prey and babies dying from malnutrition. Not to mention the extensive deforestation caused by human overpopulation(Wildlife). To summarize this point animals are animals, and animals harm each other in the wild. Another argument is that animals in captivity develop certain mental disorders and conditions that are not commonplace in the wild. Some of these medical conditions include depression, anxiety and Zoochosis. Zoochosis is a mental condition that shows up in animals in captivity that is very much like human OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder (Animals). Anxiety is a general feeling that almost all animals feel in the wild if they are not an apex predator due to always watching for competition for food and for predators who make them food. The animals developing depression and Zoochosis is something that developed from being in