Zoos are considered places of entertainment, spectacles of wildlife. Many people enjoy them. You can see a lot of families with their kids (or any other kind of people) looking at the variety of animals. You'll probably hear them say: "Look! It's moving! Now it's sleeping! Look how silly they are!". They wait, they stare, they can get really loud... What about the animals? Does people care about them?
Have you ever asked yourself what would zoos be like if you saw them through the eyes of an animal? I don't think that I can tell you exactly what they're thinking, because no one can guess, but it's an empathy exercise that everyone should, at least, try to do. Imagine that you are the one inside the cage, inside the closed area were animals stay. That tiny space would become your home, and throughout the day you would see a lot of strange faces staring at you all the time. You wouldn't understand anything they say but, when you tried to speak, they wouldn't understand you either. Your life would become a monotonous routine: the zookeepers would feed you, you'd sleep, maybe walk around a little bit. I'm sure that you'd wonder: "When will I be able to go home? Will I ever see my family again? My home? Where am I? Who are these strange creatures? Why did they kidnap me?". And there you have it, the word that I think describes best what they do to animals in zoos: kidnapping.
The animals are taken from their habitats and brought to the zoos. No one has asked them if they want to go (of course I don't mean this in a literal sense), but us, humans, take them there anyways because we want to be entertained. Now that's quite selfish, isn't it? I don't understand why they're kept in the zoos when they don't belong there. Lions' habitat is the savannah, deers' is the forest, polar bears' is the artic... We restrain their freedom while we fight for human rights. What about animal rights? Do they even exist?
Although there are zoos that are worse than others, I don't think that there would have to be any place like this. I would only consider the natural reserves where some vets and volunteers work to help animals. That's different because animals can do what they want and aren't caged up.
I've only been to a zoo twice in my life, and I don't think that I'll ever repeat the experience. The first time was when I was a child and, of course, at this age, I didn't get to understand what that place meant to animals. The second time was in our trip to Berlin, this year, with highschool. I didn't enjoy it, not even a bit. I felt a bit disgusted by it. The animals broke my heart because they looked really sad and bored and some of them had strange behaviours caused by their situation.
To sum up, I don't think that zoos are necessary in our society. There are plenty of other entertainments for us to enjoy. Those who really want to see wild animals live can go on a safari, a route through the jungle... There's no need to be so selfish.
Why not a safari?
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