When zoos and aquariums are keeping animals in captivity, there can be many negative effects on the animal’s body, both mentally and physically. Animals in the wild are able to react to their surroundings, seek food, interact with other species, and avoid predators. The wild animals would be doing what they are suppose to do. Animals like zebras, giraffes, and gazelles were made to run across miles of open terrain, not live their lives in capacity. Animals are deprived of privacy and confined to inadequate spaces and unable to engage in natural hunting and mating activities. Many zoo animals get zoochosis when forced to live in artificial constructs. There was “one zoo, wild-caught capybara showed increased escape behavior whenever keepers entered the exhibit, despite having been in captivity for over 2 years” (Morgan 280). This shows that zoo animals are forced proximity to humans which causes stress for the animal. The animal does not want to interact with humans and it wants to escape. There was also a case with a gorilla. There was a gorilla named Joe that continuously escaped from his exhibit. In the wild, Joe would have “emigrated from his natal group under pressure from the dominant silverback male” (Morgan 285). Joe was forced to live in a group that he felt uncomfortable. Joe was continuously escaping because he was put under pressure in his social group. His social group made him stressed and proves how social …show more content…
There has been incidents of zoo animals eating other zoo animals. Zebras at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. starved to death because of not sufficient food. Red pandas, from the same zoo, died after ingesting rat poison. There are requirements that are made from the Animal Welfare Act but many zoo’s standards aren’t always adequate or enforced. While conditions have improved and habitats have looked more attractive, there hasn’t been an improvement in terms of space. Elephants living in zoos do not live as long as elephants in the wild. Elephants walk about 50 kilometres a day and they travel in packs of thirty or forty in the wild. There has been times when people have witnessed bears pacing back and forth, elephants bobbing their heads, and wild cats obsessively grooming