Zoos are inhumane and pointless. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Love them or loathe them,

zoos

have been part of the cityscape for over 150 years. Recently,

however

, many have questioned their value and the quality of care provided to the

animals

. Personally, I feel that

zoos

are cruel,

pointless

Correct word choice

and pointless

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and ought to be phased out.

Although

many

zoos

have made great improvements over the years, there can be no doubt that the captive

animals

suffer. Not only are the enclosures usually far too small, but the climate and conditions are often completely unsuitable. Polar bears,

for instance

, travel across vast distances of ice daily and yet, in some tropical regions, they are kept in small pens with only a tiny pool for relief.

In addition

to

this

discomfort, zoo

animals

can suffer stress

as a result

of being kept with unfamiliar and unrelated

cage-mates

Correct your spelling

cage mates

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,

not to mention

the crowds of noisy visitors. In terms of conservation,

while

zoos

can assist in the preservation of endangered species,

this

effort is ultimately futile. The Sumatran tiger,

for example

, has been successfully bred in captivity,

however

, having been reared by humans, the captive population has lost its natural instinct to hunt, avoid humans, and raise its young. It would

therefore

be impossible to re-introduce these creatures into the wild. As well as

this

loss of instinct, there is

also

the loss of habitat to consider. Urban sprawl, industrialisation, farming and logging all contribute to the destruction of habitat, meaning that even if a

captive bred

Add a hyphen

captive-bred

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population of pandas or tigers were ready for release, there is, in fact, nowhere left for them to go. In conclusion,

zoos

may be able to keep

animals

alive but the quality of

this

life is poor and the

animals

’ future prospects are bleak. Efforts should

instead

be made to preserve wilderness areas to ensure the long-term survival of species.