Before moving to Europe, I had not been to a zoo in years. I'm sure I went as a child, however, I do not remember it. I know there have been a lot of animal rights activist who do not agree with paying money to support zoos. They believe that Animals are not treated right there and should not be confined to enclosures. Instead, those animals should be out in the wild, where they belong. I've never really had an opinion on this controversial belief until I visited an actual zoo for myself. That's when everything came into perspective for me, and I noticed a few things.
Very little space
There were animals who had nice sized enclosures with plenty of room. Conversely, there were also animals who had no room at all. For example, the lion and tigers cage was about the size of my two bedroom apartment. This may sound like a nice size, but the animals had no room to really Run around. When we were observing them, they just paced back and forth. I felt really bad for them and they looked like they were in distress.
Both the lion and the tiger had small ponds in their enclosure, which took up even more space. Once again limiting the amount of room they had to run around. I assume this is why they were pacing because they had nothing else to do, and nowhere else to go.
Seems to me like a very sad existence, and these animals do not deserve that. If they need to be in a zoo, they should have plenty of room to run around.
Is that a cup?
It was bad enough that the enclosures were small and provided no space for the animals to run, but on top of that, they were dirty. There were cups and trash strewn along the pond in the enclosure.
Obviously, someone had thrown it into the pond instead of just putting it in the trash. However, I don't think this would happen in the wild. These animals have had to deal with inconsiderate people who care nothing about their well being.
While we were there I did see someone cleaning an enclosure. However, that enclosure was not dirty.
I watched the gentlemen wheel out a barrel full of just twigs and what looked like hay. Meanwhile, the lion and tiger have to swim around in filth. I was appalled and extremely disgusted by the conditions that these animals have to live in. Also, I could tell by their actions that they were not happy. They did not belong there and I'm sure they would have done better in the wild. At the very least, their cage could be kept clean and they could be admired, instead of having trash thrown at them.
