Being imprisoned is one of the worst experiences a human may undergo. It necessarily does not have to be in a maximum facility prison - being imprisoned may be just a situation whereby one's freedom is restricted and those in charge control the prisoner's freedom. In this paper I am going to prove that zoos are unethical to animals. This is by using various pieces of evidence to support this opinion.
First of all, where do the animals in zoos come from? Without pondering much, these animals come straight from the wild, which is their natural habitat. In the wild, the animals have freedom to exist as nature dictates. Once taken into zoos, the animals lose their freedom as they are actually in captivity. This goes without saying that zoos serve as animal prisons where people go to view them for pleasure. If that is not unethical, I wonder what it is.
The animals in the wild are free to loiter around and exercise. For example the monkeys are free to jump from tree to tree all day. While in the zoo, the animals are confined in a small space in which they live and sleep and exercise. Animals that prefer the open fields are left with a small field to spend the rest of their life. Also this confinement leads to shorter life spans for the animals. For example, elephants in the wild live longer than the ones is zoos (M Harris et, 2008). This is like imprisonment of the animal, which involves taking their rights thus it is unethical. .
There is a huge difference between humans and animals. It takes a lot of study to be able to observe animal behavior and determine all their needs. Actual animal study is itself a profession. But, in most cases it is not these professionals who run the zoos. Thus it is uncertain that the conditions that the animals in zoos are in are the optimum ones. The animals live in conditions set by their keepers, like when to feed. This is unnatural for the animals and also very unethical.