They locked me up! (Zoos)

Member Name: Gwenick

Product:	Zoos
Date:	06/02/02 (14200 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: can help educate people

Disadvantages: not natural for animals

Summer is fast approaching (honest) and outdoors trips will soon have to be thought up. The ideal place is a Zoo or Safari Park (such as Woburn). There are lots of animals to see from all over the world, most of these places offer ‘displays’, there’s ice-creams, refreshments, souvenir shops……..you name it there’s bound to be something to please everyone in the family. The different animals from around the world will be housed in their own individual cages/house/pens and fed at set times of the day. A vet is always somewhere on hand to look after sick or injured creatures and all of the staff are experts in their field. If you’re lucky you’ll visit a zoo where endangered species are being kept so that they don’t become extinct. It’s an ideal world isn’t it? Well actually NO – I don’t think it is.

Until I went to live in Zimbabwe at the age of 18 I used to think that Zoo’s where fantastic places, a trip to London or Bristol Zoo, or perhaps even Woburn Safari Park would be a highlight of my summer holidays. Even during my brief ‘Animal Right’s’ phase I still couldn’t think of a bad word against Zoos. However, I then moved to Zimbabwe and my views on Zoo’s began to take a slow, but certain roundabout. In fact my views changed so much that I doubt I will even take Tafara to a Zoo when he’s older! So what’s made me change my mind? Well to make it a little easier to explain I’ll ‘try’ to split this opinion into four parts – The Pro’s of Zoos, Cons on Zoo, Pro’s of being kept in the wild, and Con’s of being left in the wild. That way I hope that it won’t to biased towards my feelings (although I can’t promise).

Pro’s of Zoos.

· The General Public will get a chance to visit them and learn about wild animals without having to travel too far from home
· Any sick
or injured animals can be treated almost immediately giving them a much higher chance of survival
· Animals in Zoo are fed at regular intervals – there’s no chance of any of them (particularly the young ones) starving to death
· All of the animals have warm buildings in which to sleep, especially useful for during the winter.
· Rare or endangered species can be kept and hopefully bred – ensuring the species continues to thrive
· All pens/enclosures are cleaned out on a regular basis ensuring that infections don’t start or spread.
· A fun day out for all the family


Con’s of Zoos.

· Animals are kept in small enclosures, even in places such as Woburn Safari Park the animals are given a much smaller space to roam in than if they were in the wild.
· It’s not natural for all the different species to live separately from each other – usually different animals depend on each other for survival.
· Being fed at set times is extremely un-natural especially for hunting animals like Lions and Tigers. For a start these latter creatures hunt their food and each it fresh – they don’t have it given to them practically on a plate!
· Even if a ‘tropical’ animal has been born in the UK I still think it is very unfair to expect them to have to live here during our winter. Some may argue that when it is very cold they are kept indoors…..well that’s even more cruel – they want and need space.
· Animals performing displays is not natural, if Zoos want us to see these animals acting as close as possible to their natural environments then we don’t want to see them doing anything special.


Pro’s of being kept in the wild

· They will be in their natural environment, with as much space as they want to hunt, mate, sleep etc.
· Endangered animals CAN be monitored in the wild, it is done in African Safari Parks where th
e animals are ‘shot’ with a painless sedative dart and then a small transmitter is attached somewhere un-obtrusive on the animal. They are then monitored by Reserve Workers who are able to see very quickly if there’s a problem. The same people also keep an eye out for poachers – ensuring that the animals live in relative peace
· Animals can hunt as they usually would. Sometimes ‘Big Cat’s’ go days in the wild without eating – it just depends on how lucky they’ve been. There’s nothing cruel about expecting them to catch their own food, as that’s how they were made.
· In the wild some animals do perish due to infections or injury, or perhaps even being attacked by another creature – this is perfectly normal it’s otherwise known as the survival of the fittest and is how they lived for centuries before we started hunting them!
· There’s nothing more exciting than going on a early morning, or late afternoon, Safari ride in the back of a 4x4 watching and waiting eagerly for you first sight of ‘real’ wild animals. Unlike in a Zoo you could see Elephant, Monkeys, Giraffe and Zebra all at the same time without even moving your head. After you’re finished you go back to your lodge for a nice cold beer and a braii (barbaque) – sorry just reminiscing there – lol.

Con’s of being kept in the wild

· It ‘can’ be a little harder to monitor the safety of rare and endangered species, especially if poaching is rife in the area.
· Most families can’t afford to make a trip overseas to see them.

So there you have it! My views on the pros and cons of Zoo and Safari Parks, and the pros and cons of keeping animals in the wild. I suppose Zoo’s ‘do’ have a place in educating our children about wild animals, but I think that we have FAR to many of them here in the UK. You may or may not agree with
me, and before you start jumping up and down about African Safari Parks just being bigger versions think again. Most of those Safari parks don’t even have fences to mark the outmost boundaries – those that do are usually badly broken and animals often ‘escape’. So stop monkeying around and start supporting organisations that promote keeping animals where they belong – at home……..in their natural environment.

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