Entertainment and Health at its best

Yes because…

One of the main functions of zoos is to breed endangered animals in captivity. If natural or human factors have made a species’ own habitat a threatening environment then human intervention can preserve that species where it would certainly go extinct if there were no intervention. There are certainly problems with trying to conserve endangered species in this way but it is right that we should at least try to conserve them. And as long as animals are treated well in zoos there is no reason why conservation, education, and cruelty-free entertainment should not all be combined in a zoo. There is also, of course, a valid role for breeding in different environments such as large nature reserves.

Animal research may be valuable, but it does not need to happen in the context of confinement and human entertainment.

No because…

As above, research into animals (when it respects their rights and is not cruel or harmful) may be valuable, but it does not need to happen in the context of confinement and human entertainment. Also, the only way really to understand other species is to study them in their natural habitat and see how they interact socially and with other species of flora and fauna.

Yes because…

As above we should take a ‘both-and’ approach rather than an ‘either-or’ approach. Animals can and should be studied in the wild but they can be studied more closely, more rigorously, and over a more sustained period of time in captivity. Both sorts of study are valuable and, as in point 4, there is no reason why this should not be done in the context of a cruelty-free zoo as well as in other contexts.

Animals should be left in the wild

No because…

Animals are not made for captivity. They long to roam in the long grass of Africa, they long to chase other animals, and they long to play in large groups. No matter how we may try to replicate their surrounding in a zoo, we will never achieve the full result. Therefore, these animals will never be as happy as they would be in the wild.

We are fighting with animals natural desires to be wild, and this is a battle that humans cannot win without destroying animals at the core.

Predators need to hunt and taking from them their ability to do so; by taming/caging/drugging them is beyond cruel. Excessive human involvement(both hunters/poachers that sell animals to zoos/safaris and those who kill them for their skin/tusks/etc) in the food cycle; has disrupted it considerably(extinction and endangerment of species). Let nature take its course.