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Zoos Are Not Prisons. They Improve the Lives of Animals.

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After the death of Harambe the gorilla at the Cinicinnati Zoo, do not forget the work zoos do to keep endangered and extinct animals alive.

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Dear EarthTalk: Do zoos have serious programs to save endangered species, besides putting a few captives on display for everyone to see?
-- Kelly Traw, Seattle, WA

Most zoos are not only great places to get up close to wildlife, but many are also doing their part to bolster dwindling populations of animals still living free in the wild. To wit, dozens of zoos across North America participate in the Association of Zoos and Aquarium's (AZA's) Species Survival Plan (SSP) Program, which aims to manage the breeding of specific endangered species in order to help maintain healthy and self-sustaining populations that are both genetically diverse and demographically stable.

The end goal of many SSPs is the reintroduction of captive-raised endangered species into their native wild habitats. According to the AZA, SSPs and related programs have helped bring black-footed ferrets, California condors, red wolves and several other endangered species back from the brink of extinction over the last three decades. Zoos also use SSPs as research tools to better understand wildlife biology and population dynamics, and to raise awareness and funds to support field projects and habitat protection for specific species. AZA now administers some 113 different SSPs covering 181 individual species.

To be selected as the focus of an SSP, a species must be endangered or threatened in the wild. Also, many SSP species are "flagship species," meaning that they are well-known to people and engender strong feelings for their preservation and the protection of their habitat. The AZA approves new SSP programs if various internal advisory committees deem the species in question to be needy of the help and if sufficient numbers of researchers at various zoos or aquariums can dedicate time and resources to the cause.

AZA's Maryland-based Conservation and Science Department administers the worldwide SSP program, generating master plans for specific species and coordinating research, transfer and reintroductions. Part of this process involves designing a "family tree" of particular managed populations in order to achieve maximum genetic diversity and demographic stability. AZA also makes breeding and other management recommendations with consideration given to the logistics and feasibility of transfers between institutions as well as maintenance of natural social groupings. In some cases, master plans may recommend not to breed specific animals, so as to avoid having captive populations outgrow available holding spaces.

While success stories abound, most wildlife biologists consider SSP programs to be works in progress. AZA zoos have been instrumental, for instance, in establishing a stable population of bongos, a threatened forest antelope native to Africa, through captive breeding programs under the SSP program. Many of these captive-bred bongos have subsequently been released into the wild and have helped bolster dwindling population numbers accordingly.

Of course, for every success story there are dozens of other examples where results have been less satisfying. SSP programs for lowland gorillas, Andean condors, giant pandas and snow leopards, among others, have not had such clear success, but remain part of the larger conservation picture for the species in question and the regions they inhabit.

CONTACTS: AZA's Conservation & Science Program, www.aza.org/Conscience.

EarthTalk is produced by E/The Environmental Magazine. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O.Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

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Dear EarthTalk: Do zoos have serious programs to save endangered species, besides putting a few captives on display for everyone to see? -- Kelly Traw, Seattle, WA Most zoos are not only great places to get up close to wildlife, but many are also doing their part to bolster dwindling populations of animals still living free in the wild.

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Enter the enchanted, tropical world of the Central Florida Zoo; a relaxing, entertaining and educational experience for the entire family.

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Cryoconservation of animal genetic resources - Wikipedia

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Cryoconservation of animal genetic resources is a strategy wherein samples of animal genetic materials are preserved cryogenically. Animal genetic resources, as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, are "those animal species that are used, or may be used, for the production of food and agriculture, and the populations within each of them.

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Darwin responded positively to Alfred Russel Wallace's suggestion of using Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" as an alternative to "natural selection", and adopted the phrase in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication published in 1868.

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The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Forum is tied to no political, partisan or national interests.

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A species is a way of describing organisms of the same kind who can breed among themselves. Therefore, dogs, humans, and horses belong to different species. However, all individuals of a species do not occur in a single region; they live as groups in different geographical areas. These groups are called populations. Thus, every species is made up of a number of populations. For example, a group of deer living in a forest forms one population, while a group of the same species living on a wildlife reserve forms another.

The bodies of plants, animals, insects, and several other organisms are made of small units called cells. Each cell contains hereditary information passed down from parents to their offspring in the form of genes. Animals that reproduce sexually have two sets of every gene, called alleles; one from each parent. For example, a gene that produces eye color can have two alleles - one produces brown color while the other imparts blue color. The characteristics produced by a gene depends on which allele of that gene is active in an individual. Let us now understand the concept of a gene pool.

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What is a Gene Pool and Why is it Important?

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A species is a way of describing organisms of the same kind who can breed among themselves. Therefore, dogs, humans, and horses belong to different species. However, all individuals of a species do not occur in a single region; they live as groups in different geographical areas. These groups are called populations.

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CLOSE

Breeding animals in captivity takes planning, especially when part of captive breeding program.

GREENVILLE, S.C. - For weeks, zookeepers suspected that Autumn, the 8-year-old Masai giraffe, was pregnant again.

The world had watched in awe on live video as Kiko, Autumn's first calf, dropped from her womb just before midnight on Oct. 22, 2012.
STORY: Danish zoo kills giraffe to prevent inbreeding
STORY: Zoo threatened for killing giraffe
He was a tangle of limbs, as fragile as china.

Kiko is now 12 feet tall and weighs a healthy 900 pounds. With another sibling on the way, zoo officials are back in the baby giraffe business.

Breeding such an animal in captivity requires months of well-laid plans. Giraffes are easier than other species since they're natural herd animals, said Jeff Bullock, the director of the Greenville Zoo.

But when the giraffes are part of a captive breeding program, it's not so simple.
Old ways
The pairing of Autumn and her mate, Walter, began long before they came to Greenville, S.C., with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The association keeps track of all captive giraffes in North America using a studbook, which Bullock describes as an Ancestry.com for zoo animals to maintain genetic variety.

There are roughly 100 Masai giraffes in North American zoos and an estimated 40,000 in the sub-Sahara Desert. Conservation groups, however, believe the wild population has dropped significantly in recent years.

With the wild population shrinking, zoos have begun to break down their walls, acting as matchmakers to save those species in decline.

"The ownership of these animals is something that's gone away," said Keith Gilchrist, general curator for the Greenville Zoo. "There's much more cooperation."

It was a different story 40 years ago.

Animals were bred with no thought to the gene pool, and it was common to buy and sell them among zoos.

The introduction of Species Survival Plans helped change that. SSPs use science and data to manage captive species populations, deciding who gets to mate with whom and where there's adequate space to hold the new family. About 80 percent of Greenville's animals are involved in these programs.

Depending on the year, "The SSP may say, 'We don't want you to breed because there's nowhere for the babies to go,' " Bullock said.

The husbandry that goes into each species is why many zoo officials were stunned when Copenhagen Zoo killed 2-year-old Marius last month. The reticulated giraffe was shot to death by a zookeeper and then his carcass was dissected in front of a crowd. The remains were fed to the lions.

Copenhagen Zoo officials said they were following a European zoo policy that allows euthanasia as a last resort to keep its breeding programs in check. Marius was killed to prevent inbreeding.

"That story caught everybody off guard. It was shocking," Bullock said.

He's never run into a situation where he had to euthanize a healthy animal. It's more common in Europe, where the average zoo kills about five large mammals a year, The Associated Press reported.
Matchmakers
Gilchrist believes the killing could have been avoided if contraceptives had been used.

"They prefer that their animals go through natural life cycles, which is why they let Marius' mother be bred (so) it's slightly hypocritical not to allow Marius the same opportunity," he said.

Contraceptives are used for several of the animals at the Greenville Zoo. Chelsea the orangutan takes birth control pills the zoo gets from Walgreens, while the spider monkeys have been implanted with a time-release version.

Euthanasia is discussed only if an animal is sick or badly injured, and it happens rarely, Bullock said. A white Bengal tiger was diagnosed with cancer and euthanized in 2000. The last polar bear at Riverbanks Zoo was euthanized for kidney failure in 2001.

With Autumn expecting, zookeepers have turned their attention to the red panda exhibit.

Greenville's first panda birth happened in 2006, when surprise triplet cubs - two females and a male - were born. They represented a quarter of all red panda cubs born in the U.S. that year.

The red panda may be all that's left of the different panda varieties that existed once, long ago, according to the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, which researched red pandas.

"It's very, very rare that you actually see red pandas mating - they're quite secretive animals - but come summer, we'll know," Gilchrist said.

Zookeepers hope Firecracker, a male red panda, will mate with a younger female in its breeding program. The first panda birth at the Greenville Zoo happened in 2006. (Photo: Mykal McEldowney, The Greenville (S.C.) News)

In the past, breeding programs have rescued animals such as the California condor from near extinction, and, in some cases, reintroduced them into the wild.

"Zoos used to be a Noah's Ark," Bullock said. "That was kind of the mentality, that we were just protecting these species."

It's an uphill battle for most animals. There's not enough space, or there are too few births.

More than a third of the world's amphibians are believed to face extinction, a quarter of all mammals, a sixth of all birds. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature records such figures.

In the world of zoos, smaller animals may fare better. Plans are in the works to create an Amphibian Ark at the Greenville Zoo, which would focus on breeding one species of frog. They're small, don't take up much space but can have a huge impact.

"If every accredited zoo were to take on one species, that's 200 species of frogs that could be helped," Bullock said.

Still, those in the zoo business know many species probably can't be saved, Bullock said. They have turned to conservation programs, supporting groups such as the Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance. And they focus on maintaining the captive animals they have through smart breeding.

"We can use these animals as ambassadors," he said.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1hVBmYT

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Zoos use science, genetics to preserve wildlife

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CLOSE Breeding animals in captivity takes planning, especially when part of captive breeding program. GREENVILLE, S.C. - For weeks, zookeepers suspected that Autumn, the 8-year-old Masai giraffe, was pregnant again. The world had watched in awe on live video as Kiko, Autumn's first calf, dropped from her womb just before midnight on Oct.

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Zoos and Gene banks: BEEP BioEthics Education Project

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You are here: Home > Environmental Ethics > Conservation > Zoos and Gene banks

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A century ago, a San Diego physician named Harry Wegeforth held a meeting with his brother and three other men. The topic: starting a zoo.

There were already some animals - buffalo, bears, monkeys, lions, wolves - left over from the 1915 to 1916 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego's Balboa Park, but not much else. Nobody knew where they would get more animals, where they would put them, or how they would pay for it all. The men went ahead anyway, forming the San Diego Zoological Society.

By many measures, it favors them still. What was derided in the early days as "Wegeforth's Folly" has become one of the most famous and respected zoos in the world - a major tourist attraction, a leader in efforts to conserve endangered plants and animals, and a thriving nonprofit that last year took in almost $30 million more than it spent.

But the zoo begins its second century on Sunday amid a swirling public debate about the treatment of animals in captivity that has already roiled other facilities.

A few months later, the National Aquarium in Baltimore went even further, announcing plans to move its eight bottlenose dolphins from tanks to a large seaside sanctuary, the first of its kind, off Florida or in the Caribbean.

There was more: Ringling Bros. stopped using elephants in its circus performances, ending a 145-year tradition. The government of Costa Rica, citing a shift in the public's "environmental conscience," said it would shutter two public zoos, sending the 400 animals to rescue centers or back to the wild.

Despite the controversies, zoos remain popular. According to the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums, a nonprofit advocacy and accreditation organization, attendance continues to rise at its 215-member facilities, reaching 186 million last year - more than the number who attended pro baseball, football, basketball and hockey games combined. (The 100-acre San Diego Zoo and its 1,800-acre sister facility, the Safari Park near Escondido, drew about 5 million people.)

Amid the shifting public attitudes about how animals are treated, zoos and aquariums everywhere are putting their focus on conservation. San Diego has been moving in this direction for a long time; in 1966, then-director Charles Schroeder organized the first international conference on the roles of zoos in conservation.

There's a reason Dwight Scott, the current director, describes his workplace not as a zoo but as "a conservation organization that manages two zoological facilities." There's a reason SeaWorld has put a spotlight on how it rescues stranded sea lions and other animals and, when possible, returns them to the wild.

And it's why the zoo has boilerplate language at the end of every news release that begins, "Bringing animals back from the brink of extinction is the goal of San Diego Zoo Global."

Scott said the plan is to have "an even larger presence in the conservation world." The zoo has 140 research projects in almost 80 countries, working with threatened or endangered species large (African elephants) and small (Pacific pocket mice). It runs the Institute for Conservation Research, with specialists in behavioral ecology, reproductive physiology and other disciplines. It has a Frozen Zoo, where genetic material from 10,000 animals is stored. It's active in the Species Survival Plan, a program that moves animals among facilities to improve their genetic diversity and long-term sustainability.

One way zoos measure their efforts is whether the animals in their care are reproducing. Last month, the San Diego Zoo announced a couple of firsts in births for the zoo: two North Sulawesi babirusa piglets, a swine species endemic to Indonesia and considered "vulnerable" because of habitat destruction; and four black tree monitor babies, reptiles native to the Aru Islands of Papua New Guinea under pressure from logging and the pet trade.

She said if the San Diego Zoo were more like a sanctuary, "animals would have more choices about whether they want to be viewed or not viewed by the public, social groups would not be disrupted for breeding purposes, and they wouldn't be sent off to other facilities for breeding."

Robert Wiese, chief life sciences officer for the zoo and the Safari Park, said breeding is important for several reasons.

"Obviously, for those species we are reintroducing into the wild, we have to breed them to have animals we can put back," he said. With some endangered species - he mentioned the California condor and the black-footed ferret - lessons learned in breeding similar animals (the Andean condor and the domestic ferret) proved invaluable.

"One of the our main efforts is to inspire all our guests to care about wildlife," Wiese said. "Getting up close to an elephant or feeling a bird swoop over us or seeing a bizarre-looking insect - those are opportunities to transform someone so when they go home and hear about wildlife issues they can be ready to act. To have those transformative moments, we have to have the animals. It's easier to breed them than capture them in the wild."

Wilkens and Weisberg write for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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San Diego Zoo turns 100 amid a global debate over the treatment of animals in captivity

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A century ago, a San Diego physician named Harry Wegeforth held a meeting with his brother and three other men. The topic: starting a zoo. There were already some animals - buffalo, bears, monkeys, lions, wolves - left over from the 1915 to 1916 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego's Balboa Park, but not much else.

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Unlimited entry to Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Open Range Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary (daily capacity restrictions apply)

Kids join free on adult memberships

Free entry to five interstate zoos

Discounts at the Zoo Shop and from our zoo partners

Help fund our conservation work to fight wildlife extinction

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Unlimited entry to Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Open Range Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary (daily capacity restrictions apply) Kids join free on adult memberships Free entry to five interstate zoos Discounts at the Zoo Shop and from our zoo partners Help fund our conservation work to fight wildlife extinction

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Humans have an insatiable fascination with wild animals. Every year, millions of people go on safaris, board whale-watching cruises and watch Jeff Corwin get attacked by snakes on Animal Planet; others drive to their local zoo for a full day of animal gazing.

This interest in animals is nothing new: Zoos have been entertaining people with exotic animal collections as far back as 1250 B.C. [source: Fravel]. Later, in early 13th-century England, Henry III moved his family's royal menagerie to the Tower of London for public viewing. For a small fee, visitors would be treated to glimpses of animals like lions, camels and lynxes. And if they brought a dog or cat to feed the lions, they got in for free [source: Encarta].

The first modern zoo -- the Imperial Menagerie in Vienna, Austria -- was established in 1752 and continues to attract visitors to this day. Nearby, in Germany, is the world's largest animal collection: Zoo Berlin (formerly The Berlin Zoological Gardens) houses more than 15,000 animals from almost 1,700 species [source: Encarta].

All U.S. animal exhibitors, like the 265-acre (107-hectare) Bronx Zoo just a subway ride away from Fifth Avenue, must apply for and receive a license from the Department of Agriculture. Millions of people visit the thousands of zoos around the world, proving that we simply never grow tired of observing wildlife.

Depending on your point of view, though, zoos are either sanctuaries of education and entertainment or unnecessary prisons. While some people argue that zoos play an important role in conservation and research, others counter that they do more harm than good.

So which is it? Are zoos good or bad? And how do you differentiate between what's good for one animal versus what's good for the entire species? It's a delicate question and one that can't easily be answered. Let's start with the good news.

Zoo Pros: Education, Conservation, Entertainment

Zoos have improved significantly in the last 4,000 or so years. Gone are the old steel-bar enclosures and cold cement cages. Most zoos these days use natural-looking barriers like moats or ditches to separate animals from people, and have mini-habitats that resemble the animals' natural environment.

Adding another point for zoo pros, the procedure for acquiring animals has also changed. Whereas zoos previously captured most of their specimens directly from the wild, they now get many animals through captive breeding programs and other zoos. Some breeding programs also help to restore threatened species. After 10 years of working to strengthen the population numbers of the endangered California condor, a type of vulture, the Los Angeles and San Diego zoos were able to rebuild a population of fewer than two dozen birds to around 170 birds [source: Encarta].

Successful breeding programs brought the Pere David's deer back from extinction. Though this Asian deer ceased to exist in the wild, Chinese and European zoo programs enabled four of the deer to be released back into the wild in 1985, where they're now self-sustaining [source: Encarta].

Some zoos also take in abandoned animals that wouldn't otherwise have a home. Both the Baltimore Zoo and the Detroit Zoo have taken in polar bears rescued from a traveling circus, and the Bronx Zoo took in an orphaned snow leopard from Pakistan in 2007. The cub, Leo, now spends his time frolicking and chasing small animals that wander into his enclosure [source: Majkowski].

And although zoo animals aren't treated quite like guests at a four-star hotel, their care has improved tremendously. Zookeepers now understand that many animals, such as monkeys, bears and elephants, need engaging activities to prevent boredom and mental deterioration. This is why you'll often see chimps playing with toys or tigers "hunting" for a meal.

Aside from taking care of captive animals, many zoos also contribute to the care of their wild counterparts. The Toledo Zoo, in conjunction with the Nature Conservancy, is helping to restore butterfly habitats in Ohio, and the Bronx Zoo has channeled more than $3 million toward conservation projects in central Africa [source: Fravel].

Zoos also present an opportunity for scientists to conduct research. In 2002, zoos participated in 2,230 research and conservation projects in more than 80 countries. The information they gather helps them to develop new medicines and techniques to improve animal health [source: Fravel].

Beyond the positive impact zoos try to have on animals, they often affect the people visiting as well. Zoos don't just entertain, they also aim to educate. With a variety of programs geared toward children and adults, zoos teach people about the needs of animals and the importance of conservation. And if people get excited enough, the thinking goes that they'll be more inclined to donate money to conservation efforts -- another zoo pro.

The fact that zoos impact people in a positive way is nice, but it's not the people critics worry about -- it's the animals.

Zoo Cons: Wild Animals Are Meant to Be Wild

For evidence of some zoo cons, you need look no further than Maggie the elephant. Until the Alaska Zoo finally caved in to public pressure in 2007, Maggie was forced to spend days on end in a small indoor enclosure because of the frigid outside temperatures. Perhaps as a form of protest, she refused to use the elephant-sized treadmill the zoo brought in to encourage her to exercise [source: National Geographic].

Even in optimal conditions, some experts contend, it's incredibly difficult to provide for the needs of animals like elephants. If Maggie and her captive compatriots lived in the wild, they would wander as much as 30 miles (48 kilometers) a day in large groups, grazing on leaves and stopping to splash in the occasional watering hole. As it is, they're lucky to get a few acres and a roommate or two [source: Lemonick].

Maggie's story is just one of many. Zebras at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. starved to death because of insufficient or incorrect food, and the same zoo's red pandas died after ingesting rat poison [source: Farinato]. And while many zoos, like those in the United States, are supposed to at least meet the minimum requirements spelled out in documents like the Animal Welfare Act, standards aren't always adequate or enforced [source: Farinato].

While conditions have improved from the years of bars and cages, detractors take issue with other items. Although the natural-looking habitats are certainly more attractive, people like David Hancocks, a zoo consultant and former zoo director, describe them as mere illusions, arguing that they're not much of an improvement in terms of space [source: Lemonick]. Indeed, many captive animals exhibit signs of severe distress: People have witnessed elephants bobbing their heads, bears pacing back and forth and wild cats obsessively grooming themselves [source: Lemonick, Fordahl].

Animal behaviorists maintain that their distress is understandable. Animals like zebras, giraffes and gazelles were designed to run across miles of open terrain, not live out their lives in captivity. Despite a zoo's best efforts, its animals often are deprived of privacy, confined to inadequate spaces and unable to engage in natural hunting and mating activities. Forced to live in artificial constructs, many animals succumb to what some people refer to as zoochosis, the display of obsessive, repetitive behaviors [source: Naturewatch].

In addition, many animals have precise needs that zookeepers are just beginning to understand. Some, like the aardvark, survive on a limited diet that zoos have a hard time fulfilling; others thrive only in certain temperatures and environments that aren't easy to recreate.

Even zoos' conservation efforts leave something to be desired. Of 145 reintroduction programs carried out by zoos in the last century, only 16 truly succeeded in restoring populations to the wild [source: Fravel]. The condors mentioned on the previous page? About two-thirds of them were actually strong enough to survive in the wild [source: Encarta].

Zoos may not even benefit people as much as once thought. According to one study, many visitors don't pay much attention to the animals -- they're actually talking to each other about unrelated things and spending only a few minutes at each display [source: Booth].

It's a toss-up whether zoos are good or bad for animals. As you've seen, it depends a lot on what zoo you're talking about. It also depends on whether you're referring to the well-being of a single animal actually living in a zoo or an animal, thousands of miles away, benefiting from the zoo's research and conservation efforts. If you had the communicative power of Dr. Doolittle, Leo leopard would likely tell you that zoos are great; however Maggie the elephant might respond by slapping you with her trunk.

Originally Published: Sep 18, 2008

Are Zoos Good or Bad FAQ

Do zoos help or harm animals?

While some suggest that zoos exploit captive animals and that wild animals should be wild, these facilities also present wildlife conservation attempts and learning opportunities as well. Zoos may introduce trauma to animals, but they are also taken care of in zoos.

Why is captivity bad for animals?

Keeping animals in a restricted space can inflict both psychological and physical trauma. Zoos also may deprive animals of their natural instinct of socialism, hierarchy and companionship.

Do animals get harmed in zoos?

While zoos don't offer the best environment for animals, there are several laws and humanitarian causes that prevent zoos from exploiting captive animals. Physical harm is prohibited against animals in several zoos. Psychological harm, however, is something that comes naturally with the idea of confinement.

How do zoos affect animal behavior?

No matter how well animals are treated, captivity has a psychological impact that ends up changing animals' emotions and thought processes. It is common to see animals depressed and stressed. However, companionship and offspring have shown to reduce these psychological ailments.

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Humans have an insatiable fascination with wild animals. Every year, millions of people go on safaris, board whale-watching cruises and watch Jeff Corwin get attacked by snakes on Animal Planet; others drive to their local zoo for a full day of animal gazing.

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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 with this condition, called "zoochosis," often rock, sway, or pace endlessly, and some even resort to hurting themselves by chewing on their own fingers or limbs or pulling out their fur or feathers.

Zoochosis is so rampant that some zoos even administer antidepressants and antipsychotics to try to curb the abnormal behavior.
Scam Shelters
The number of roadside zoos that have tacked on the word "sanctuary" or "rescue" to their names has skyrocketed in recent years. Kind people are naturally drawn to places that claim to rescue animals and offer them sanctuary, but many of these outfits are nothing more than breeders, dealers, and exhibitors exploiting the public's goodwill and generosity.

The fundamental purpose of any legitimate animal sanctuary is to provide animals with safe, comfortable living conditions that give them as natural an existence as captivity allows. No legitimate animal sanctuary breeds or sells animals. No reputable exotic-animal sanctuary allows any kind of "hands-on" interaction, and that includes taking photos with animals or taking them out on the road for public display.
Drive-Through Safaris
While drive-through safaris or wildlife parks may seem like a better alternative, many of these facilities breed animals continuously, because baby animals attract customers. But babies grow up quickly, and older, unwanted animals may be warehoused like inventory or quietly shipped out. Since paper trails are notoriously inaccurate and difficult to follow, it's nearly impossible to know how many "surplus" animals end up at auctions, in slaughterhouses, or on hunting ranches.
Traveling and Petting Zoos
Animals used in traveling zoos are subjected to the stresses of transport, strange and frightening environments, irregular feeding and watering, mishandling, and extensive public contact. The sheer logistics of getting from one venue to the next does not allow for much downtime to let animals rest or exercise or to enable caretakers to attend to sick or injured animals. It's impossible to know how many animals suffer and die en route, because zoo caravans are constantly on the move, and for the most part, no one is watching. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees animal displays, but with just over 100 officers responsible for inspecting more than 8,600 licensees, it's impossible for the USDA to monitor all exhibitors adequately.

Forced to interact with crowds of people all day long, animals used in petting zoos may not get enough food, water, and rest. Some snap. Many children and adults have been seriously injured by tigers, primates, and other animals who are used as props in photo shoots.

Petting zoos are hotbeds of E. coli bacteria, and numerous children have been infected with the potentially deadly bug after visiting such displays. Infections can spread through direct animal contact or mere touching of the surroundings near an animal exhibit.

Roadside zoos and backyard menageries often involve small-scale operations where animals are kept in ramshackle concrete and chain-link cages. Most don't even have a blade of grass, much less any meaningful enrichment. Animals are often deprived of adequate food, water, shelter, and veterinary care.
What You Can Do
Don't pass a few hours at a place where animals will languish in misery long after you've gone home. Please don't buy a ticket. Instead, explain to your children why your family does not support cruelty to animals.

People can support rescue operations affiliated with the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS). GFAS is an organization that upholds rigorous standards of sanctuary management and animal care. Member sanctuaries don't breed or use animals in commercial activities, and they provide excellent lifetime care.

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Roadside Zoos and Other Captive-Animal Displays | PETA

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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.