If you think zoos are safe and happy places for animals, imagine leaving your dog or cat in one the next time you go on holiday. If that thought makes you uncomfortable, it’s worth asking why we accept it for elephants, lions, or gorillas. The difference isn’t moral—it’s emotional. We care about our pets because we know them. We look away from the animals in zoos because we don’t.
Yet the lions behind glass and the giraffes in fenced paddocks once had lives that mirrored our pets’ in every essential way. They had families, territories, relationships, and instincts refined over millennia. They did not volunteer to live out their days on concrete or behind steel bars so we could glance at them between ice creams and souvenir stands.
A zoo, at its core, is a paradox: a place that claims to love what it confines. We’ve inherited the idea that zoos exist for education and conservation, but that assumption wilts under scrutiny. Modern zoos are not rescue centers. They are entertainment businesses. The vast majority of animals on display are not endangered, and those that are will almost never be returned to the wild. Captivity changes their behavior, their social bonds, even their genes. A tiger born in a zoo will never again be a tiger as nature intended.
The most frequent claim in defense of zoos is that they “save species.” But breeding animals in cages doesn’t preserve wild populations; it preserves spectatorship. If zoos were truly committed to conservation, they would be pouring their vast resources into protecting habitats, combating poaching, and restoring ecosystems—work that actually prevents extinction. Instead, they spend millions expanding parking lots, building splash zones, and selling tickets.
Even the so-called “good zoos” are built on a contradiction: the denial of freedom to those who evolved for it. An elephant in the wild can walk up to 30 miles a day. In captivity, she may circle the same few yards for decades. That repetition—pacing, rocking, or swaying—has a name: zoochosis, a form of psychological collapse unique to animals in confinement. You can see it in nearly every enclosure if you stay long enough.
Behind the polished public image lies an industry built on control. Former employees, investigations, and court records reveal widespread use of bullhooks, whips, and electric prods to make large animals obey commands. Even when outright abuse is absent, the cruelty is structural. To steal or breed a wild animal for display is to erase its life before it begins. Kindness in captivity does not redeem the theft of freedom.
We justify zoos because they feel familiar, institutional—like museums with heartbeat exhibits. But their existence proves only that we’ve normalized domination as education. The same governments that permit zoos also permit puppy mills, factory farms, and fur ranches. Legality is not morality.
Children rarely leave zoos more compassionate than when they arrived. What they see are animals reduced to props: the lion who cannot hunt, the bird who cannot fly, the seal who circles endlessly in a chlorinated tank. They learn not empathy, but hierarchy—that power grants permission.
If we truly want to teach respect for animals, we can do so by supporting wildlife rehabilitation centers, anti-poaching organizations, and habitat preservation efforts—places where care means liberation, not lifelong captivity.
A future without zoos is not a future without wonder. It’s one where our wonder is directed at life in its rightful place: free, complex, and uncontained.
Animals belong in the wild, not in the zoo. The question is not whether they can live there—it’s whether we can finally let them.
Kirschner's Korner 
Great piece; sharing this one.
Thank you for your support Cathy.
We have to keep fighting to get these animals from their torment. I promise I won’t rest until every zoo, circus, puppy mill, aquarium….etc is shut down. Yes it’s exhausting, but God strengthens me.
Thank you Marni. I appreciate your dedication and passion.
I totally agree with you Marni, I to will never stop fighting to get circuses shut down, they are barbaric and outdated and should be assigned to the history books where they belong !! The same goes for water circuses i.e Sea World etc etc……
As always, you are a brilliant writer!!!
Thank you very much. I appreciate your kind and motivating feedback.
Thank you Jenny. I appreciate everything you do for animals. They need all of us.
Thank you for an informative article on a subject most of the public would never guess. Unfortunately they buy the AZA’s spin because most decent people cannot wrap their heads around such cruelty.
Thank you Tory. Fortunately, more and more people are learning the truth.
Outstanding article, thank you Andrew. Shared, and will keep on file for future use.
Thank you Mo. I appreciate your feedback. Thank you for sharing it. The more we inform others, the more people will change.
Wonderfully articulated. I am sharing this on FB, thank you for all you do to promote awareness and help our animal friends xx
Thank you very much Annalisa. I appreciate your support. Thank you for sharing it. Many people wrongly believe the zoo is a happy place for animals. We must continue to share the truth.
Loves this!!!! Thank you so much for the thought provoking question, I hope this is shared to the world!
Thank you very much Pam. I appreciate your support. Please feel free to share it.
Andrew
I JUST tried (not nearly this eloquently) to explain to friends what was wrong with the zoo! All was going well until they started the whole “well what about the endangered species” argument. The best I could come up with was that Zoos rarely ever release back into the wild, so they are not doing them any favors. And if I WAS the endangered species, and had to choose between going extinct or living in a cage the rest of my life……I’d choose EXTINCT!
So very true ! Well put together piece Andrew !!
It’s pretty simple. Zoos are nothing more than inhumane jails for animals. They should and need to be outlawed. Animals that can be rehabbed and returned to the wild should be. Those that cannot should live out their lived in ACCREDITED sanctuaries, and yes, I know there are not enough of them. Take the tax money all the cities get to run the zoo’s and build more GOOD sanctuaries. I don’t think a year goes by that the Cincinnati Zoo doesn’t have some sort of tax to be voted on. My bet is that would provide a chunk of money. Or maybe my head is in the clouds but anything is better than where they are living now. I remember the Cincinnati Zoo being SO proud of their new Cat House years ago. Whoopee. The cats had relatively small cages outside that lead to glassed in enclosures where we could see the animals close up. No cat in there could even START to get a running jump on anything. That’s no life for a big cat.
I love animals and I agree that animals should never be locked up in cages but in the wild where they can hunt for there own food and water, run around, breed, and help their cubs
Hi,I read your blogs named “Would You Leave Your Dog at the Zoo? – Kirschner’s Korner” regularly.Your writing style is witty, keep up the good work! And you can look our website about powerful love spells.