Caged Creatures

By Kailey Wallenius, Feature Editor

When I was younger, I loved going to the zoo. I always thought that zoos were an amazing opportunity for humans to be able to see exotic animals we otherwise would never see. The elephants were my favorite. What I never considered, are the animals. They are being taken from their homes, and their families, and locked away into a small cage to be gawked at all day. How is this in any way fair to them? Zoos are horrible inventions, designed for human entertainment at the cost of animal freedom. Zoos take healthy animals, and bring them to a biome that they were not meant to live in. This change can cause a lot of animals to become sick or depressed, and potentially harm each other according to animalequality.org

I don’t understand why zoos are still a thing, so I did some research on how much money zoos generate every year, specifically the Indianapolis Zoo. On average, the Indy Zoo earns $49.6 Million annually, the Indianapolis Zoo website said. According to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, there are 900 endangered species currently residing in zoos and aquariums. Some zoos also kill animals when they grow out of their cute baby phase. PETA

Sanctuaries are open for visitations, and you can go and see the animals that you would see in a zoo, but in a setting where you know they are there out of necessity.

said, “Babies are great crowd-pleasers, but when the babies grow up, they don’t attract the same number of people. The unwanted adult animals are sometimes sold to ‘game’ farms where hunters pay to kill them. Some are killed for their meat and/ or hides. Other ‘surplus’ animals may be sold to smaller, more poorly run zoos or, worse, to laboratories for experiments.” While some zoos do partake in animal cruelty, there are other organizations for animals that are much healthier for them. Wildlife parks are sanctuaries that are for injured animals that would not have survived on their own in the wild. Sanctuaries aim to protect and nurture animals and do not exploit the animals for human entertainment. These parks only care for the animals’ health and safety, making it their first and only concern. The main similarity between zoos and sanctuaries is their visitations. Sanctuaries are open for visitations, and you can go and see the animals that you would see in a zoo, but in a setting where you know they are there out of necessity. Your money would also be going to a much better cause if you visited a sanctuary over a zoo. Animals are treated much better at these parks than at zoos, and they are only there because they were hurt or sick. According to the BBC, “It’s possible (and used to be common) for zoos to keep animals in perfect physical shape, but in conditions that cause the animals to display serious behavioral problems.” Sanctuaries also keep animals in one place once they are living in the sanctuary. Staying in a familiar place can help with recovery. Breeding doesn’t happen in sanctuaries either, which can be unhealthy for the animals and shrinks the living space of the animals. Zoos are not entirely negative, and can help support the economy and tourism. The Indianapolis Zoo alone was able to provide 6,112 jobs, according to Indianapoliszoo.com Zoos also allow us to see animals that we would never be able to see normally, and provide field trips for schools so students can learn more about the animals. Zoos can help with scientific research. Scientists that wish to study animal behavior of animals that naturally live further away, are given the opportunity to study them up close in a safer environment. Now hold your horses! While this could be a viable argument, scientists could also visit the animals in their homes, which would probably make the data they are studying more accurate. I hope that everyone will start visiting sanctuaries instead of the zoo, but of course it can be hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Sanctuaries aren’t perfect, and they do still keep animals in pens. Those animals are still out of their natural habitats, and can face the struggles that animals face in zoos. But I think that the main difference is with the animals, and the reason they are staying at either the sanctuary or the zoo. We should only use sanctuaries as “entertainment,” and the only animals that are there are the ones who were sick or injured and need to be given human care in order to survive. The closest sanctuary to us is the Oinking Acres Farm in Brownsburg. They hold farm animals that are adoptable and unadaptable, from pigs to ducks. I know some of you are thinking: “Why can’t we just let sleeping dogs lie? Keep zoos how they normally are, don’t try to change everything up.” But, visiting and investing in sanctuaries could really help a lot of animals. If we start going to sanctuaries rather than zoos, then money will be spent in better ways and we can go home and be happy that it was ethically spent.

graphic by Brooklyn Brown, Art Director