Zoos give animals poor health

The argument

Being held in captivity is psychologically and physically detrimental to an animal. It can lead to the development of physical and mental illnesses and lead to more violent interactions. Sometimes, zookeepers use prescription drugs to improve the behavior of animals — which is itself part of the argument, since medicating an animal to make its behaviour manageable treats a symptom produced by the enclosure rather than the enclosure that produced it. Animal behavioralists have proven that animals can develop different disorders such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, obesity, and anxiety. Being trapped in an enclosure worsens an animal's mental state and overall quality of life. The connection is not mysterious: an animal evolved to range, hunt, or live in a particular social group is confined to a space that permits none of these, and the capacities it cannot exercise do not disappear. The examples show the pattern across very different species. A killer whale that is responsible for multiple human deaths was shown to be held alone in a small tank, provoking violent behavior — a social animal kept in isolation, in an enclosure a fraction of the range it would otherwise cover. Elephants in captivity are more likely to be stressed and obese, and wild elephants live decades longer than ones kept in zoos, which is the plainest measure available: whatever captivity does to them, it shortens their lives substantially. A captive bear has even developed OCD; it repeatedly slammed its head against the metal bars of its enclosure. That these outcomes recur across whales, elephants and bears indicates a cause common to all of them rather than failings at particular institutions. Because zoos give animals poor health in this systematic way, zoos are bad.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Not all zoo animals develop physical or mental illnesses. In fact, living in a zoo may be less stressful than living in the wild. The animal does not have to search or kill for food, water, or shelter since it is already provided by zookeepers. Since the animal has everything it needs, it will not be stressed about surviving.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Not all animals are physically ill in captivity. [Rejecting P3] Not all animals develop a mental illness in captivity.