We should also help nonprofit sanctuaries, such as The Elephant Sanctuary and the Performing Animal Welfare Society, that rescue and care for exotic animals who cannot be released back into the wild and don’t sell or breed them.

Sociologists in the U.K. gathered data from children between the ages of 7 and 15, both before and after they visited the London Zoo. The researchers found that 59 percent of children who took an educator-guided tour of the zoo had no positive educational outcomes. That number jumps to 66 percent when the children went on an unguided visit. In many cases, the trip to the zoo even had a negative impact on children’s understanding of animals and their habitats.

to preserve habitats, not habits.

In addition, the AWA only addresses basic issues. It states that animals must be fed, given water, and provided with shelter. However, cages are allowed to have concrete floors, and there’s NO specific requirement for grass, greenery, or other natural vegetation.

Even large, well-known, and popular zoos engage in unethical practices, such as dumping unwanted  animals or acquiring them from the wild. The San Diego Zoo and Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo imported a combined 11 African elephants from Swaziland. And accredited zoos in Denver; Houston; Litchfield Park, Arizona; San Antonio; San Diego; and Tampa, Florida, imported a combined 33 monkeys who had been illegally trafficked by poachers in Africa!

A major reason that zoos choose to breed animals is because people LOVE seeing babies. A new baby can draw in zoo visitors and boost revenue. However, the animals’ fate is often bleak once they outgrow their “cuteness.” Zoos often become crowded, and older animals may be kept in warehouses behind the scenes or shuffled off to shabby roadside zoos, animal dealers, or auctions.

Here at peta2, we get a lot of questions about animals in zoos. Most people understand that confining a beautiful wild animal to a cage a mere fraction of the size of their natural habitat is wrong. And many were furious after watching the eye-opening documentary Blackfish, which detailed the suffering that marine animals endure in captivity. However, there are many common misconceptions about zoos that make some people question why PETA doesn’t support them. We’re here to answer those questions.

Zoos generally regard the animals they keep as mere commodities. They’re regularly bought, sold, borrowed, and traded with little regard for their established relationships. Think about this: One member of a loving family herd could be shipped off to another zoo! Removing animals from established social groups and forcing them to adjust repeatedly to new routines, different caretakers, and unfamiliar cage-mates is disruptive and traumatic for them.

Zoos generally regard the animals they keep as mere commodities

Some countries have no laws whatsoever to protect captive animals

What You Can Do

Traveling and Petting Zoos

Scam Shelters

Living conditions are often dismal, with animals confined to tiny, filthy, barren enclosures. But even the best artificial environments can’t come close to matching the space, diversity, and freedom that animals want and need. This deprivation—combined with relentless boredom, loneliness, and sometimes even abuse from the people who are supposed to be caring for them—causes many captive animals to lose their minds

Animals in roadside zoos, pseudo-sanctuaries, traveling shows, and roadside displays are forced to spend their lives behind bars just to entertain the public.

SeaWorld also pledged not to introduce orcas at any new parks it opens and promised to transform its signature orca shows into displays that are less theatrical and more natural, such as watching orcas exercise.

What the group saw—large, intelligent creatures swimming in small concrete tanks—confirmed Rose’s fears. She knew how the trapped, bored orcas must suffer, especially those confined alone. So began more than two decades of protests, research and public education to stop SeaWorld from bringing more killer whales into captivity

SeaWorld has also pledged to spend $50 million over the next five years to expand its rescue and rehabilitation efforts, which have already saved 27,000 lives. It will provide care for injured and stranded marine animals like dolphins and advocate with the HSUS for an end to commercial whaling, the commercial seal hunt, shark finning and removing wild fish from coral reefs for the aquarium trade.

50 LAWS Have passed since 2014 that protect wild animals in traveling shows. 4 STATES Do not currently have laws on keeping dangerous wild animals as pets: Alabama, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin. 30-50 YEARS Is the estimated life span of a killer whale in the wild—most orcas in captivity don't live past age 13.

Animals aren’t actors, spectacles to imprison and gawk at, or circus clowns. Yet thousands of elephants, bears, apes, and others are forced to perform silly, difficult tricks under the threat of physical punishment; carted across the country in cramped, stuffy semi-truck trailers; kept chained or caged in barren, filthy enclosures; and regularly separated from their families and friends—all for the sake of entertainment. Many of them are even forced to perform until the day they die.

Animals should never be torn from their natural habitats, forced to live in cages and perform tricks.

PETA has helped facilitate such transfers, as in the case of Nosey the elephant—we campaigned for her freedom from the circus for years, and now she’s loving her sanctuary home in Tennessee. Charlie, a Thoroughbred horse on the brink of a fatal breakdown, was also rescued by PETA—he now spends his days grazing on grass in a large pasture with his guardian, a longtime PETA supporter and friend. And then there was Tregembo Animal Park in North Carolina, which two local animal advocates represented by PETA’s lawyers successfully sued, allowing us to transfer bears Ben and Bogey to a sprawling Colorado sanctuary. Between 2013 and 2018, PETA saved more than 70 bears from cramped pens and concrete hells, helping to transfer them to true sanctuaries where they can finally play, climb, have friends, and raise their families.