Importance Of Animals In Zoos

Register to read the introduction… Panda are a big ticket item in all zoos. Pandas bring prestige and fame to a zoo. What most people don’t know though, is that fame and prestige cost a lot of money. For each panda that a zoo has, it cost them one million dollars per year plus another six hundred thousand dollars every time a cub is born. On top of that, the money that the zoos make annually is not enough to cover the cost of the pandas (Washington Post 2). Pandas are not worth one million dollars a year, simply to look at. There are people in countries all around this world starving every day and America pays one million dollars a year to stand in front of a cage and look at a panda for five minutes. Zoos cost way more than just panda rent though. Chester zoo, a small zoo in the U.K. reports, “A major expense in any zoo’s budget is its food bill and Chester Zoo is no different, with mouths to feed ranging from corals in the aquarium through to rhinos and elephants. Our food bill to satisfy these diver appetites approaches £ 1,000 a day [$1,386.10]”(Zoo Nutrition 1). Chester zoo is paying over a thousand dollars a day to feed animals, of those that include coral reef. Its ridiculous that money can be found to pay to feed coral reef but thousands of people are living in poverty. It makes no sense to let people starve when thousands of dollars are being spent to nourish coral reef. This is not appropriate and not okay. People all around the world should think about where their money is going. Spending money at a zoo has no positive aspect. If all the money that is spent on zoos was spent on the war against poverty, the world would be in a better …show more content…
Laura Reisse, coordinator with the species survival initiative said, “If you keep more diversity in the captive populations you keep more of those genes that you see in the wild populations. “ That makes no sense because if you leave wild animals in the wild, those animals will be able to breed and cross genes with natural animals that they were meant to coexist with. Keeping animals in the zoos limit the other animals they can interact with and it cause less genetic diversity. The Michael McCarthy, environmental editor, says that the opposing side also claims “Modern methods of keeping animals – in some cases—are much better than they were a few years ago” (4). Whether animal enclosures are better than a few years ago or not doesn’t matter. Animals are still being forced to live inside cages that are radically smaller than the natural environment that they are meant to live in. Animals are meant to roam in the wild, free spaces and not locked in cages with fake tree, rocks, and ponds. Zoos should not exist because they are inhumane, expensive, and