The Immorality Of Zoos and Aquariums

When I was around eight years old, I wrote a piece about everything I thought was wrong with zoos, and over a decade later, my thoughts may be more refined and researched, but on the surface, have not changed. Whether or not you want to hear this, the harsh truth is that zoos and aquariums are not worth the moral cost and are incredibly damaging to mature.

Bars have been replaced by glass, but the cruelty is constant and unchanging.

I attribute my views a lot to where I grew up. Kenya has its fair share of problems under capitalist pressures and a constant need for development, fallen prey to poaching and supporting other nations in their acts against animal welfare. However, if there is one thing the nation has done well, is that there are no zoos and aquariums. Instead, you will find animal sanctuaries, reserves, orphanages and of course, acres of savannah, which offers freedom and natural habitat. 

Surrounded by such an environment meant that from a young age, zoos have meant nothing more but than glorified animal cruelty centres.

How do you find pleasure in looking at lonely, depressed animals pacing up and down just a few square feet in frustration? 

There are two prevalent points that people attempt to use to justify the existence of zoos: conservation and education.

The Conservation Perspective:

Looking at the conservation perspective, surely the human race should be working harder on preserving natural habitats rather than spending millions of dollars on shipping animals around the world, forcing them into tight spaces and creating unnatural, unsuccessful breeding grounds that only yield the decline of a species. 

Zoos and aquariums are advertised as protective spaces for endangered species but Will Travers OBE, the president of Born Free, states that “only 15% of the thousands of species held in zoos are considered “threatened”. Further, “an even smaller proportion are part of captive breeding programmes and, of those, a tiny fraction have been released back into the wild. That’s not a record that justifies tens of millions of wild animals kept in zoos.”

The conservation argument is tired and overdone and is frankly, just not true.  

Animals are more likely to live longer, healthier lives in the wild than when locked up. R Clubb et al. share that “African elephants in the wild live more than three times as long as those kept in zoos” and G Mason & R Clubb express that in captivity “40% of lion cubs die before one month of age”.

Zoos also torture, starve and beat “misbehaving” animals which more often than not, leads to their deaths, as well as train them for circuses (which is a whole other issue). Freedom for Animals exposed Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm as breeding camels from the Great British Circus for several years and in 2009 also obtained three tigers from the circus. West Midland Safari Park also trained lions cubs and sold them to a travelling circus in Japan. 

The statistics are heart-breaking, and the stories that make it into the social media sphere are even worse. Remember the gorilla Harambe who was shot due to the irresponsible actions of humans? The killing and publicly dissecting of Marius, a two-year-old giraffe in Copenhagen? Or the daily rape of the orangutan Pony in Borneo? These are horrifying realities, but unfortunately, only a small number of such stories have come to light, so imagine how more of these instances are going unnoticed.

The Education Perspective:

People claim that children in particular, gain benefits from zoo’s because they engage with the visitors and trigger interest in conversation (the irony) and wildlife in general. But whether you’d like to hear it or not, this is fallacious. 

A 2014 study by the Society for Conservation Biology found that of over 2,800 children surveyed following visits to London Zoo, 62% showed no positive learning outcomes and this could be due to the fact that A Freedom for Animals study of UK aquariums and zoos found that 41% of the animals on display had no signs identifying their species – the most basic of information.

Such statistics are similar all across the world. 

Of course, not everyone can afford to go on safari’s and travel the world to the natural habitats of each animal, and I completely understand this. However, it is no excuse for the popularity of zoos. 

I have never seen a penguin or an alpaca in person, but I sure as hell would not want one in a cage to look at, and more importantly, in a world where we have abundance access to nature documentaries that actually educate us without mistreating the natural world, the decline of zoos should be happening more quickly. 

Zoos are relics of the Victorian age and should not be considered “a fun day out” or be a part of travel itineraries.  

All these ideas also apply to aquariums. I, misguidedly, visited the London Aquarium many years ago and the entire time I was there, all I could think about was how wrong it was for such an attraction to be so popular. I can’t fathom how people can rationalise putting a shark in a tank, not even a 16^th of the ocean’s size. The same goes for seals and dolphins in ponds, where they are forced into shows or kissing humans. 

Think About This

The past few months of lockdown, isolation, and quarantine have been difficult and have tested our mental limits several times over. It would be safe to say that many of us felt trapped in our homes. How is this any different from an animal trapped in the cage of a zoo/aquarium? 

If you are not willing to put yourself in a cage, why are you alright with supporting an industry that does it to animals which have do not have a choice in the matter?