Animal Rights In Zoos

The assumption that humans are born with rights and freedom is important to our society. However, many of us tend to forget that animals should be able to share these rights. They are also entitled to live freely and pursue happiness. Studies found that lions and tigers have 18,000 times less space in zoos than they would in the wild, and polar bears have about a million times less space (captiveanimals.org). Although zoos are entertaining, it causes abnormal behavior in animals, avoids education on and conservation of animals, and violates animal rights.

Animals that are confined in zoos show abnormal behaviors known as Zoochosis. Repetitive behaviors such as pacing, swaying, bar biting, and head bobbing are considered as a sign of poor welfare, and an animal’s coping strategy to the change from the wilderness to an artificial environment. Rocking and swaying is also a behavior displayed by humans with mental illnesses. The change to a simulated environment can often lead an animal to depression. Discontented Humboldt penguins at Scarborough Sea Life Sanctuary have been prescribed antidepressants due to the

Animals are also deprived of their natural habitat, and have insufficient space in zoos. According to huffingtonpost.com, the Gaza zoo could not afford zebras so they painted donkeys to make them look like zebras. Many zoos first priority is profit, not animal welfare. At Toleda zoo, a rare bear was starved to death after zoo official locked her up to hibernate. They, later on, found out that her species do not hibernate (PETA). Thus, animals should not be kept in zoos due to the lack of knowledge humans have about some species. As recorded by RSPCA’s Annual Report 2013, a father and son were jailed for 15 weeks and “disqualified from keeping birds for five years” after confessing “causing cockerels to fight each other in their