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8348861
Ms.Ehringhaus
August 25, 2014
Graduation Paper
Animals In Captivity
Animals in captivity are not animals at all. An animals true nature is to live in the
wild and have the ability to explore their environment freely enabling them to hunt, select
mates and reproduce. Imprisonment prevents any animals from growing to there full
potential as they would in the wild. Especially when they grow in an environment that is
not as suitable as there natural habitat would be. These animals live in cages and are
forced to perform strange tasks that are unnatural for them so they are rewarded for food,
and in some cases so they can escape punishment. The entertainment industry profits off
of these animals being kept in there cages and forcing them to entertain us in ways that
are abnormal to them. Animal abuse and conditions in the entertainment industry are
over looked because of how much revenue they make.
Animals have been used for entertainment for hundreds of years. These animals
were kept in cages to look at as well as they were put on display to show their strength by
fighting humans or other animals. Archeological findings in Macedonia that date back to
2,000 B.C.E (Library Index) revels that lions were kept in cages for the benefit of
humans (Dragotta). They would even use horses to pull chariots around an arena to fight
and race which would often end in the death of both human and animal. In these events
they would strap wagons to horses so they could transport men in armor around the arena
with the goal of knocking their opponents off causing fatal wounds to the animals.

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Another popular event was using lions to fight gladiators in a test of strength where the
lions fate was always to die. Despite all the progress we have made to evolve from these
barbaric activities, there is still a problem with animals being abused for entertainment
purposes. People and business are still using methods of fear and physical abuse so the
animals will learn faster. This often involves the use of whips and hooks to punish the
animals so they will remember their routines. Instead they carry whips and bull hooks
(sticks with sharp metal hooks on the end) so the animas obey in ring because they
remember how those instruments of torture felt during the training session (Dawn).
After the animals can no longer perform they send it away to die because they no longer
have a use for them. Although many countries like Costa Rica, Finland, Sweden, and
Austria have set bans on what animals can perform there is stillroom to improve. Because
circuses are not the only ones who treat there animals unkindly.
Zoos and marine parks are designed to educate the public on animals of all kind,
most of them being endangered. It is estimated that only five to ten percent of space is
devoted to endangered species (world animal). Nevertheless, we forget that these
businesses are put in place to make money and this is always the main goal for them;
therefor, they do not care about the wellbeing about there own animals as long as they are
making a profit. Zoos often push animals over the brink of sanity. Animals have a lack
of space, privacy, physical exercise and mental stimulation that they resort to self
manipulation displaying a mental condition called zoochosis (PETA). Zoochosis is
a mental condition caused by keeping an animal captive for too long in an unfit
environment, which are most cases for zoo animals. Most animals in zoos have cages too
small for them compared to their natural habitat, just like prison, they are locked up

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behind bars even though prisoners can get released when animals rarely have the chance.
The change in the environment can be shocking for the animal because they were use to
traveling great distances and exploring new environments, when in captivity they are
only limited to a certain amount of space. Despite the fact that zoos are meant to educate
us visitors come in and only spend a few minutes at each display looking for
entertainment rather than enlightenment (PETA). However when people are looking for
entertainment they go to places like SeaWorld. SeaWorld is one of the most popular
entertainment industries that have animals involved in their shows. SeaWorld may look
fun from the outside, but on the inside there main goal is to make a profit at the animals
expense.
Tanks at aquariums may look big to us, but to the animals contained in them they
are no bigger than a small swimming pool. Imagine being trapped at home in your
smallest bedroom years on end with strange creatures coming to you and making you do
thing that you would normally never do. These wild animals are use to traveling hundreds
of miles and resting in new places, but now they have to survive inside a box that is the
equivalent to a room for us (PETA). Aquatic animals depend on sonar to tell them what is
in front of them and to communicate with one another; however the walls of the tanks are
too close together and the signal bounces off the walls driving the animals insane. When
people go to see the animals perform, they do not think of where the animals came from
or how the marine parks obtained them. The Vancouver Sun ran a story on the purchase
of two dolphins from a Japanese aquarium (Dawn). The dolphins were exempt from the
law, stating that animals that were harmed in the process of being captured could not
released back into the wild, because they had acquired injuries when they were being

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obtained. So they sold them for 200,000 to the aquariums. Even though the marine parks
advertise that they do not purchase captured animals that does not mean they do not
support it by purchasing them from countries that do support buying captured animals.
SeaWorld is known as one of the most successful industries in the world that
profits off of animals. When the animals are not performing in front of crowds they are
sitting in tanks, the size of small rooms compared to us, for people to look at. The
animals the perform at SeaWorld put on two to three shows a day with limited breaks and
time for animals to rest. The conditions for the whales that perform are quite poor given
the fact that Wild Orcas can live more than 90 years, when is captivity they have a
lifespan of 10 years (PETA). There death can range from swallowing coins to even
suicide. When Tilikum, a killer whale, killed one of his trainers while messing around
during one of there routines everyone was up in arms than an animal would do a horrible
thing like that. The people watching the performance forgot that Tilikum was a wild
animal at one point and needed a natural environment to play with other killer whales. In
response tot this incident SeaWorld kept going with their performances despite the fact
that one of their trainers was killed the day before.
Marine animal welfare has gathered data together to show how Japan and possibly
other countries will go out into the sea and go looking for animals to capture and sell to
zoos and industries like SeaWorld. Marine parks need more animals every year because
most of the animals that live in tanks do not have a long lifespan and then demand for
more animals grows the more animals they will need to capture to put on display. The
graph that you see below shows an increase throughout the years of how much Japans sea
creatures are bring captured and sold to places like marine parks. As the demand for

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better and more exotic fish go up they will send more boats out to find then cause more
deaths for sea creatures. (Horton)

SeaWorld animals are not the only animals that have trouble with captivity. Many
animals have trouble converting to captivity because of how different the environment is.
Many animals display behavior that is abnormal. All 40 zoo chimps display some form
of abnormal behavior, according to the researchers. The chimps would poke at there own
eyes and other body parts, bang themselves against surfaces, pull there hair out, drink
urine and do other thing that are not associated with wild chimpanzee population.
(Viegas). When animals come into a new environment, especially one they cannot get out
of, they begin to panic because they do not realize what has just happened. To them
strange creatures that speak a language they do not understand and control their entire

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lives have ripped them out of there home. Newton-Fisher lived with wild chimpanzees
and followed them to study their habits. After months of traveling and seeing how these
animals lived he came back saying he could not see these animals living in a zoo because
of how they traveled long distances and socialized with many different groups of
chimpanzees.
Taking animals away from there natural habitat is both physically and mentally
scarring for the animals. Because a lot of animals in a zoo come from different parts of
the world, when they are placed in a climate they are nit use to they become frightened
and there health becomes a concern. These animals have not been able to adjust to the
climate causing them to have mental breakdowns because there bodies are under so much
stress from the travels and the new environment that is not natural for them. Now that the
animals are starting to take in all of there surrounding they are trying to cope with there
new life style causing them to act unusual because they are not being mentally stimulated
like they would in the wild. After months of the animals trying to make sense of
everything that has happened they give up and now except that they are trapped and they
will never understand why causing them to never be the same as they once were.
Animals should never be put into captivity unless we can help them by doing so.
The animals being used in the entertainment industry are being missed treated and
misunderstood. If we become more understanding for how the animals feel we can start
to begin to understand how deeply we are affecting them by making then preform for us,
when we should be helping them back into the wild where they belong in there own
natural habitat. If we stop supporting the business and organizations that capture animals

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then we can help stop the abduction of innocent animals. It will be a long process but
with enough support we can end the cruelty to innocent animals.

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Works Cited
"Animal Welfare Issues." Animal Welfare Issues. World Animal Net, n.d. Web. 20 Feb.
2014.
"Animals Are Not Ours For Entertainment." PETA AsiaPacific. PETA Asia, n.d.
Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
"Animals in Entertainment." Animals in Entertainment. DawnWatch, n.d. Web. 18 Feb.
2014.
Brower, Kenneth. "Opinion: SeaWorld vs. the Whale That Killed Its Trainer." National
Geographic. National Geographic Society, 03 Aug. 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.

Dragotta, Jennifer. "Learning to Give, Philanthropy Education Resources That Teach

Giving and Civic Engagement." Learning to Give. Learn to Give, n.d. Web. 20
Feb. 2014.
Horton, Jennifer. "Animal Planet." Animal Planet. Animal Planet, n.d. Web. 20 Feb.
2014.
"Marine Animal Welfare: The Cove & Dolphinaria." Marine Animal Welfare: The Cove
& Dolphinaria. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.

Viegas, Jennifer. "Zoo Chimps' Mental Health Affected by Captivity." DNews. Discovery,
5 July 2011. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.