Laurel Braitman says, "The practice of putting animals on anti- depressants is surprisingly common. At every zoo where I spoke to someone, a psychopharmaceutical had been tried" (qt. in Australia Animals). The use of drugs does come with long-term effects for the animals. After a while, the small doses of the medication no longer suppresses the problems the animal has, so larger doses are administered. After a while, the animals become dependent on the drug and soon after dying from drug overdose. Not only does the confined spaces cause the animals depression, but also forced mating. Animals being forced to mate in controlled environments, and not feed until completion, to produce strong breed animals cause serious problems between the animals. Most animals do not ever get the chance to have babies; only certain animals get selected, and the rest have to take birth control. As stated by Leslie Kaufman, " The last four years, birth control has helped the zoos breed selectively to maximize genetic diversity but not run out of holding space. Genetic diversity is key to long- term species survival because it prevents inbreeding and preserves a broad array of traits that animals might one day need to survive in the wild." Zoos only cause unnecessary pain for these animals when they could be living their lives free in the wild. They only want to get the most exotic animals out of the animals then throw them away. The only purpose zoos have, is making money, and they use the animals to do this.
Many zoo industries state their purpose to be for people to learn about animals and to contribute to conservation projects to benefit the animals. Zoos say they want people to be able to interact with these beautiful animals and study them while learning from them. Countless conservation projects conducted by zoos has taken place to help and learn about animals for their benefit.
