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Zoos Research Paper

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How would you feel if you were captured and placed in a confined enclosure? I don't think you would like that, would you. The history of zoos began 3000 years ago in ancient Egypt, when pharaohs would demand wild animals to be captured for their amusement. Yet today zoos still confine wild animals which is cruel. This is cruel because they keep animals in enclosures that aren't the same as the animals natural habitat, creates stress behavior, and is just a collection of unhappy animals. So although zoos have become a huge part of the American culture, in the eyes of animals, these establishments are cruel, stressful, and don't provide the animals with their natural habitat, and therefore I believe that zoos should not catch and confine wild animals. Most zoos still keep animals in enclosures, but these enclosures do not let the animals live the way they would if they were in their natural environment. I think that no matter how much trees or branches you put into the enclosure, how nice the background painting is, it doesn't compare with the natural habitat of the animal. The zoo animals have to spend days, weeks, and years in the same enclosure that makes their lives very tedious. For example elephants in the wild are used to traveling many miles in herds these are very social creatures. But when put in zoos they are kept in …show more content…

Stress behavior include repetitive movement, pacing back and forth, head bobbing, rocking, sitting motionless, or biting the bars of their enclosure. The scientific behavior for captive animals is abnormal repetitive behavior or ARB. These can be caused by depression, boredom, and psychoses. An example of repetitive behavior is an elephant swinging its trunk back and forth, which is a sign of stress. Zoos also give animals antidepressants to control the behavior problems of some

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