Ribeiro 1
Renée Ribeiro
K. DaSilva
ENG-4UE
21 July 2020
Where Do Ethics Lie?
Zoos are not an ethical way of showing animals to society since they have negative
effects on the animals’ mental health, cause human dependency from a young age, as well as
forcing them to live in poor enclosure setups. Day in and day out, animals that are kept in
captivity endure mentally and physically traumatic experiences every day with no way of telling
their visitors that they are in pain.
As zoo animals live out their lives in cages, the lack of natural animal behaviours that
they would normally have in the wild, causes them to suffer from forms of mental illnesses.
Scientists have even proven this, stating that “...​animal mental illness can be triggered by many
of the same factors that unleash mental illness in humans. That includes the loss of family or
companions, loss of freedom, stress, trauma and abuse” (BBC)​. “Zoochosis” refers to the
emotional and mental challenges that affect the animals that are held in captivity, which are
typically seen as unusual and repetitive behaviours. Pacing, over-grooming, and repetitive
movement of the jaw are all examples of psychological issues that animals end up suffering with
whilst in captivity. They begin to pace, yet are able to get easily distracted by zoo visitors and
their noise, but over time, that pacing becomes much greater and fairly impossible to stop as the
animal begins to form a trance-like state. As well as pacing, over-grooming is also a large part of
Ribeiro 2
mental illness seen in animals as ​“[g]rooming to the point of baldness, feather plucking, and
other self-mutilation behaviours are compulsive behaviours” (One Green Planet). These animals
that over-groom themselves tend to have compulsive desires to do so, causing them to direct an
unusual amount of attention to one part of their body and proceed to groom it until it causes
baldness and/or painful rashes. These animals also can end up having repetitive movements of
their jaws to show their stress. For example, when it comes to pigs, they are the ones that
typically perform what is called “sham-chewing”, where they move their jaw as if there is food
in their mouth when there is not, which causes the pig to froth at the mouth (One Green Planet).
Animals that are kept in captivity are held in conditions similar to prisons. Research
shows that “[z]oos teach people that it is acceptable to interfere with animals and keep them
locked up in captivity, where they are bored, cramped, lonely, and deprived of all control over
their lives, and far away from their natural homes” (PETA). These animals are forced to live in
enclosures with conditions that are nowhere close to the conditions that they should truly be
living in. Inside these human-made environments, depending on the animal, they are only given
more than a few trees, a large rock, and a pool for them to bathe in, yet in the wild, one would
evidently find vast areas of free space for them to live in, opposed to small cages. Many animals
that reside in zoos are not built to withstand the conditions they are put into, for example,
animals that migrate could be argued to suffer the most due to their inability to leave the
enclosures during the migration season.
When animals are born in captivity, they become completely dependent on human care in
order to survive, creating no possibility of safely being released back into the wild. Although
Ribeiro 3
injured animals can sometimes fully rehabilitate themselves in rehabilitation centres, in many
cases, animals are unable to return to their completely wild nature, resulting in them keeping that
human dependency with them for the rest of their lives. If an animal remains in captivity for a
long period of time, it develops a strong sense of attachment and dependency on humans as
opposed to being able to fend for itself. The reason why this is not a suitable attachment for the
animal to develop is that it becomes nearly impossible for a zookeeper or rehabilitation centre
worker to get the animal to get rid of its bond with them, resulting in the animal to not having the
ability to be sent back into the wild, having a chance at living a normal life as it will not know
how to defend itself.
Zoos are not an valid or ethical way of displaying animals to people since they cause
mental health on the animals, cause human dependency from a young age, as well as forcing
them to live in poor conditions not suitable for their needs. Putting stress onto innocent animals
and causing them to suffer day in and day out simply for the pleasure of an audience is truly
unethical.
Ribeiro 4
Works Cited
Dasgupta, Shreya. “Many Animals Can Become Mentally Ill.” ​BBC,​ 9 Sept. 2015,
www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150909-many-animals-can-become-mentally-ill. Accessed 21 July
2020.
Lamont, Di. “Beyond the Zoo: How Captivity Affects the Mental Well-Being of All Animals.”
One Green Planet​,
www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/how-captivity-effects-the-mental-well-being-of-all-a
nimals. Accessed 21 July 2020.
“Mental Health of the Animals.” ​Leviathan Project,​ www.leviathanproject.us/zoos-2. Accessed
21 July 2020.
Owen, James. “Most Captive-Born Predators Die If Released.” ​National Geographic​, 23 Jan.
2008, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2008/01/predators-captivity-habitat-animals/#close.
Accessed 21 July 2020.
“Zoos: Pitiful Prisons.” ​PETA​, 17 Nov. 2016,
www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/animals-used-entertainment-factsheets/zoos-pitifu
l-prisons. Accessed 21 July 2020.