For many decades, animals have been in amusement like shows for people all over the world. Whales do flips, dolphins jump through hoops, and sometimes, people can even feed the animals. Recently, people have been asking the question, “should animals be held in captivity?” Many studies have shown the positive and negative effects of captivity, it negatively affects many animals; being in a zoo enclosure can cause a range of both emotional and physical illnesses, despite the fact that zoos can help save some of the endangered animals.

Although zoos may be fun for people, the animals can be mentally and physically impaired for the rest of their lives. First and foremost, dolphins and whales specifically are plucked out of the water from their family. For those who didn’t know, whales and dolphins have a family bond almost like humans, they stick together for many years if not for life and always travel together. “The very nature of these animals makes them uniquely unsuited to confinement….Family bonds often last for many years, in some species, they last for a lifetime.” Because of the social nature of many animals, marine animals …show more content…
Finally, animal mortality, and mental instability rate spikes incredibly high when in captivity. As proven by a four year study done by Oxford University, “Polar bears, lions, tigers, and cheetahs show the most evidence of stress or psychological dysfunction in captivity.” (“Zoos: Pitiful Prisons”) Although zoos “save animals from hunters” the stress zoos put on animals can also shorten their lives greatly. For example, a study of 4,500 elephants, both in the wild and in captivity, the captive ones died after an average age of only 16.9 years while the wild ones live until around 56. This just proves that zoos aren’t saving as many animals as they implied that they were. As it seems to be evident, zoos and marine parks aren’t actually helping the majority of animals, only the few that are