HOST: Virtuous viewers, this is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master
Television with today’s program focusing on animals in captivity and the
horrific suffering they endure.
Zoos around the world vary
widely in size, but whether they are large or small the animals they
house, who are used to roaming wide expanses of wilderness, swimming
freely in the deep oceans, or flying through vast blue skies, do not
belong in concrete-and-steel exhibits.
No matter how hard a zoo
tries to enhance its animal enclosures, the fact remains that its
residents are not free and can never experience the complex social,
environmental and physical benefits that nature bestows.
Zoos are
businesses that rely on income from ticket sales and the selling of
merchandise in order to continue to operate.
To keep costs low
many zoos are under-staffed, and those who are employed there may lack
the training and skills to properly care for the sensitive animals.
Thus
the residents’ welfare is low on the priority list when zoos try to
stay profitable. Let’s first examine from where the imprisoned beings in
zoos are obtained.
Some are bred in the zoos, a process fraught
with danger and untold misery for the animals involved. In order for
successful captive breeding to occur, the conditions must be as close to
the animals’ natural environment as possible in terms of climate and
habitat.
A large enough space, minimal human contact and a
population of sufficient size to avoid the negative effects of
inbreeding are also required. Small gene pools lead to inbreeding and in
turn decreased vigor, longevity and survival rates among offspring.
As
zoos can never provide the ideal circumstances for natural breeding,
they typically resort to the degrading, painful and emotionally damaging
process of artificial insemination.
Let’s learn about this
procedure from Catherine Doyle, the elephant campaign director of the
esteemed US-based non-profit animal welfare group, In Defense of
Animals.
For more details on In Defense of Animals,
please
visit
www.IDAUSA.org
