Don’t kid yourself, zoos aren’t for the animals

Pacing,head-bobbing, over-grooming these are some symptoms of zoochosis. 

In case you do not know what zoochosis is, it’s a mental illness developed in captive animals. If you saw a child pacing, pulling out their hair, eating then regurgitating their food, or even starving themselves you would think something is wrong.

Then why do we see them in animals at the zoo and not think something is wrong. I know many people with a pet or animal that call them their fur babies. They think of them as their children so they would notice if their fur babies started having any of these symptoms, yet I bet many of these people would enjoy going to a zoo. 

Cat owners love going and looking at the pacing tigers what they do not understand is that a constant never-ending pacing can be one of the symptoms. 

Most people think zoos are helpful because we can control breeding of endangered species and we can have more of them in the zoo. The problem with this is the zoos use harsh methods to get their animals and to breed new animals. 

They want younger animals because they are stronger and breed better, problem with this is in the wild the parents look after their young. 

So zoos hire hunters or find other means to separate the young from their family. Then they want them shipped back to the zoo but most animals die in transport. 

Zoos are also bad because they need to keep their “stock” updated so they use harsh methods to get semen from the males and inseminate the females. The animals do not get a choice in their friends, mates, or what they do daily. 

This can result in animals getting stressed out and developing zoochosis. 

Zoos do more harm than they do good. Also, since people are more attracted to younger animals and older ones cost more money, they will either have them put down or ship them off to run down zoos, hunting ranches, or laboratories. 

Zoo animals get to live their lives stressed out in captivity for us, then get shipped off to die alone. 

Zoos teach us that it’s okay and not harmful for these animals to be full of tranquilizers and other drugs but it’s not. We are also taught that it can not do much harm because it is only one or two lions, tigers, or bears but that’s still too many. Zoo animals lose the ability to survive on their own. 

Zoos are for humans’ amusement not for any animals’ benefit.