how to write an essay about animals in captivity

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How Does Captivity Affect Wild Animals?

Most experts agree it depends on the species, but much evidence shows large mammals suffer under even the best human care..

For much of the past year and a half, many of us felt like captives. Confined mostly within monotonous walls, unable to act out our full range of natural behavior, we suffered from stress and anxiety on a massive scale. In other words, says Bob Jacobs, a neuroscientist at Colorado College, the pandemic gave us a brief taste of life as lived by many animals.

Though anthropomorphism is always suspect, Jacobs observes that “some humans were quite frustrated by all that.” This is no surprise — we understand the strain of captivity as we experience it. But how do animals fare under the same circumstances? Putting aside the billions of domesticated livestock around the world, some 800,000 wild or captive-born animals reside in accredited American zoos and aquariums alone . Many people cherish these institutions, many abhor them. All want to know: Are the creatures inside happy?

Signs of Stress

Happiness is hard to judge empirically, but scientists do attempt to quantify welfare by measuring chronic stress, which can arise as a result of restricted movement, contact with humans and many other factors. The condition reveals itself through high concentrations of stress hormones in an animal's blood. These hormones, called glucocorticoids, have been correlated with everything from hair loss in polar bears to reproductive failure in black rhinos . 

That said, it’s difficult to say what a normal level of stress is for any given animal. An obvious baseline is the captive’s wild counterpart (which surely has its own troubles, from predation to starvation). But the problem, says Michael Romero, a biologist at Tufts University, “is that there’s just not enough data.” Given the challenge of measuring a wild animal’s stress — the requisite capture isn’t exactly calming — few such studies have been undertaken, especially on large animals.

Besides, hormones may be an imperfect gauge of how agitated an animal really feels. “Stress is so complicated,” Romero says. “It’s not as well characterized as people think.” So researchers can also look for its more visible side effects. Chronic stress weakens the immune system, for example, leading to higher disease rates in many animals. Opportunistic fungal infections are the leading cause of death in captive Humboldt penguins , and perhaps 40 percent of captive African elephants suffer from obesity, which in turn increases their risk of heart disease and arthritis.

Another sign of stress is decline in reproduction, which explains why it’s often difficult to get animals to breed in captivity. Libido and fertility plummet in cheetahs and white rhinos, to name two. (A related phenomenon may exist in humans, Romero notes: Some research suggests that stress, anxiety and depression can reduce fertility. ) 

Even when breeding does succeed, high infant mortality rates plague some species, and many animals that reach adulthood die far younger than they would in the wild. The trend is especially poignant in orcas — according to one study , they survive just 12 years on average in American zoos; males in the wild typically live 30 years, and females 50.

Big Brains, Big Needs

Our wild charges don’t all suffer so greatly. Even in the above species there seems to be some variability among individuals, and others seem quite comfortable in human custody. “Captive animals are often healthier, longer-lived and more fecund,” writes Georgia Mason , a behavioral biologist at the University of Ontario. “But for some species the opposite is true.” 

Romero emphasized the same point in a 2019 paper : the effect of captivity is, ultimately, “highly species-specific.” In many ways it depends on the complexity of each species’ brain and social structure. One decent rule of thumb is that the larger the animal, the worse it will adjust to captivity. Thus the elephant and the cetacean (whales, dolphins and porpoises) have become the poster children of the welfare movement for zoo animals. 

Jacobs, who studies the brains of elephants, cetaceans and other large mammals, has described the caging of these creatures as a form of “ neural cruelty .” He admits they are “not the easiest to study at the neural level” — you can’t cram a pachyderm into an MRI machine. But he isn’t bothered by this dearth of data. In its absence, he holds up evolutionary continuity: the idea that humans share certain basic features, to some degree, with all living organisms. “We accept that there’s a parallel between a dolphin’s flipper and the human hand, or the elephant’s foot and a primate’s foot,” Jacobs says. 

Likewise, if the brain structures that control stress in humans bear a deep resemblance to the same structures in zoo chimps — or elephants, or dolphins — then it stands to reason that the neurological response to captivity in those animals will be somewhat the same as our own. That, Jacobs says, is borne out by a half century of research into how impoverished environments alter the brains of species as varied as rats and primates.

Abnormal Behavior

Not all forms of captivity are equally impoverished, of course. Zookeepers often talk about “enrichment.” Besides meeting an animal’s basic material needs, they strive to make its enclosure engaging, to give it the space it needs to carry out its natural routines. Today’s American zoos generally represent a vast improvement over those of yesteryear. But animal advocates contend they will always fall short of at least the large animals’ needs. “No matter what zoos do,” Jacobs says, “they can’t provide them with an adequate, stimulating natural environment.”

If there is any doubt as to a captive animal’s wellbeing, even the uninformed zoogoer can detect what are perhaps the best clues: stereotypies. These repetitive, purposeless movements and sounds are the hallmark of a stressed animal. Elephants sway from side to side, orcas grind their teeth to pulp against concrete walls. Big cats and bears pace back and forth along the boundaries of their enclosures. One survey found that 80 percent of giraffes and okapis exhibit at least one stereotypic behavior. “Stress might be hard to measure,” Jacobs says, “but stereotypies are not hard to measure.” 

Proponents are quick to point out that zoos convert people into conservationists, and occasionally reintroduce endangered species to the wild (though critics question how effective they truly are on these fronts). Considering their potential to bolster the broader conservation movement, Romero suggests an ethical calculation might be in order. “Maybe sacrificing a few animals’ health is worth it,” he says.

Wherever these moral arguments lead, Jacobs argues that “the evidence is becoming overwhelming” — large mammals, or at least many of them, cannot prosper in confinement. The environmental writer Emma Marris concludes the same in Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World . “In many modern zoos, animals are well cared for, healthy and probably, for many species, content,” she writes, adding that zookeepers are not “mustache-twirling villains.” Nevertheless, by endlessly rocking and bobbing, by gnawing on bars and pulling their hair, “many animals clearly show us that they do not enjoy captivity.”

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Should Animals be Kept in Captivity: an Ethical Dillema

Table of contents, benefits of captivity: conservation and education, ethical considerations: animal welfare and natural behavior, alternatives to captivity: ethical conservation, striking a balance.

• Berger, J. (2003). The last mile: how to sustain long-distance migration in mammals. Conservation Biology, 17(2), 183-185.
• Clayton, S., & Myers, G. (2015). Conservation psychology: Understanding and promoting human care for nature. John Wiley & Sons.
• Griffin, D. R. (2001). Animal minds: Beyond cognition to consciousness. University of Chicago Press.
• Kellert, S. R., & Wilson, E. O. (Eds.). (1993). The biophilia hypothesis. Island Press.
• Lindemann-Matthies, P., & Bose, E. (2008). How many species are there? Public understanding and awareness of biodiversity in Switzerland. Human Ecology, 36(5), 731-742.

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Should Animals Be Kept in Zoos? Essay

Cover letter, works cited.

This essay explores the dilemma of keeping animals in zoos. In this essence, the legitimacy of restricting the animals is investigated.

Moreover, the essay seeks to establish harmony between advocacy for abolition of zoos and the need to preserve some species of animals. In addition, there is the necessity to control the interaction between animals and human beings.

I have observed that there is no solution to such dilemmas. Any observer has to establish a middle ground and maintain balance between the arguments. This is because it is not possible to take a radical action on the issue at hand.

I had an experience of arguing over the issue, which has two equal sides while writing the paper. I was able to examine both sides of the argument and analyze the arguments.

While it seemed appropriate to me that people should keep animals in the zoos prior to this assignment, my perception changed after analyzing both sides of the argument. I had to take a middle ground and analyze the perceptions as a neutral observer.

When writing the arguments in the paper, it became difficult to make an objective analysis of the arguments due to the influence of personal opinion. It is difficult to establish a middle ground that does not favor either side.

The topic of the essay generates significant interest in me because most people assume that animals have their specific places in the ecosystem, which are subject to manipulation by human beings at will.

On the other hand, liberal people advocate that fair competition can exist between animals and people naturally. This article proves that neither case is entirely true.

Throughout the history of humanity, interaction with animals has been inevitable. Superiority of human beings has made them highly competitive. Other living things have to adapt to new environments or leave their natural habitat to create space for human beings and their activities.

The human population is evenly distributed around the world. On the other hand, animal population is partially distributed, with different species occupying different parts of the world. Since animals have always fascinated people, there has always been the urge to observe animals and their behavior.

In addition, all living organisms on earth survive through competition for resources with each other (McKinley & Shepard 65). This has led to endangerment of some species of animals. Generally, animals are considered important to human beings, regardless of the material value of each species.

Gradually, it has become important to protect animal species that are facing the danger of extinction, either due to encroachment of their immediate space in the ecosystem, or due to competition with other organisms whose lives depend on common resources.

For this reason, zoos have been built, and animals are kept inside for the sole purpose of preservation of animal life or for entertainment (Norton 42). It is true that the zoos protect a small number of animals from the competition that exists in their natural habitat.

In this way, they protect the species from extinction, and satisfy human being’s curiosity as people go for sightseeing at zoos as a recreational activity (Norton 21).

Most zoos keep wild animals, and majority of the animal population at the zoos is made up of animals that are rarely seen by human beings in their immediate environment. These animals are used to roaming in the jungle and forests.

Others are used to swimming freely in the seas and rivers. However, due to limited space, zoos keep the animals in a much smaller and controlled environment. Obviously, there is restriction of freedom for the animals in order to contain them in the zoo.

For most of their lives, the animals in the zoo do not lead a normal life like other wild animals. They are protected from the competition in the ecosystem due to their perceived importance to human beings. However, this is a serious impediment to their freedom too.

Animals are not allowed to roam freely during the day or night, as they would have done in a free environment. On the other hand, the rigors of competing with other wild animals are eliminated from their lives.

Moreover, the animals receive special treatment as they are provided with veterinary care, a service that other animals in the jungle and sea do not normally get (Robinson 53).

It is arguable that the setting of a zoo is analogous to a prison were felons are incarcerated to protect the society from their potentially harmful tendencies.

One might easily conclude that the animals in the zoo are in some kind of psychological distress due to disruption of their normal course of life and their detainment.

This view assumes that animals, like human beings, have the ability to discern the importance of freedom. Furthermore, the notion argues that animals have thoughts and feelings just like human beings.

It is difficult to establish these arguments as facts due to the limited emotional interaction between animals in the zoo and their keepers.

Thus, the idea that animals perceive physical freedom in a similar way as human beings is subject to debate (Mullan & Marvin 75).

Zoos are not primarily intended to curtail the freedom of an animal, but are designed to protect the animal from harsh environment. Normally, there are efforts to create an environment similar to the particular animal’s habitat in the zoo.

It is also difficult to assess whether the artificial environment created by zookeepers is identical to the natural habitat suitable for the animals.

This observation means that it is not entirely true that the zoos are aimed at curtailing the freedom of the animals (Brooman & Legge 85). Consequently, the animals may be better off at the zoo.

Moreover, it is not true that zoos completely change the normal course of life for the animals within it since there is an effort to simulate their natural habitat.

Some people are of the opinion that animals are inferior to human beings. This suggests that zoos are meant to restrict the animals within the zoo environment to protect human beings’ interest.

Some animals are dangerous to human life, while others compete against human being for resources. This is an obvious observation that has been under scientific study.

On the other hand, animals could be perceived to be equal to human beings. This means that the animals can compete for resources fairly against human beings.

Some people use this perspective to argue against establishment of zoos, which in their perspective, are the making of an unfair competition between animals and human beings.

The highlighted perceptions and observations present the dilemma of the existence of zoos. In a critical analysis of all radical perceptions, no single argument is proved entirely appropriate for the issue of zoos.

If zoos were to be eliminated as a way of protecting and preserving animal life, there would be dire consequences for humans and the animals themselves (Acampora 45).

It is an obvious observation that some animals would become extinct due to predation and competition from other animals in the natural habitat. People could also be affected by the interactions and conflicts between the animals and human beings.

While some animals would pose direct danger to human beings, others would affect the creations of human beings such as organized agriculture. It is thus obvious that a conflict will result from the freedom of animals.

However, this presents another question for argument since there is fairness in sharing of natural resources by living organisms in such a situation.

Although a relatively small number of animals are kept in the zoo, majority of animals are free and live in the wilderness. This brings up the issue of the scale of restriction of animals within zoos.

Keeping all animals in the zoo and eliminating them from their natural environment is an extreme action. This kind of an action would present a situation of extreme interference with nature. It is only logical that a balance between freedom of animals and existence of zoos has to be established.

Animals could be kept in an open environment that is similar to their natural habitat as much as possible. This would eliminated the problem of having animals in a zoo were cages similar to prison cells are used to contain the animals.

On the issue of competition, it would be unfair to let animals live free and compete against human beings in the natural environment. People would eliminate animals from the ecosystem due to their superiority in terms of logical reasoning.

This makes it necessary to provide some kind of protection for the animals. In this essence, zoos can neither be justified nor completely denounced.

Acampora, Ralph R.. Metamorphoses of the zoo: animal encounter after Noah . Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. Print.

Brooman, Simon, and Debbie Legge. Law relating to animals . London: Cavendish, 1997. Print.

Mullan, Bob, and Garry Marvin. Zoo culture . 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Print.

Norton, Bryan G.. Ethics on the ark: zoos, animal welfare, and wildlife conservation . Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. Print.

Robinson, Phillip T.. Life at the zoo: behind the scenes with the animal doctors . New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Print.

Shepard, Paul, and Daniel McKinley. The subversive science; essays toward an ecology of man, . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969. Print.

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Argumentative essay topics about animals, rachel r.n..

• September 10, 2022
• Essay Topics and Ideas

Looking for a good argumentative essay topic about animals? You’re in luck! We’ve put together a list of 20 topics that will get you started.

Argumentative essay topics about animals can be divided into three categories: animal rights, animal welfare, and animal testing. Each one of these topics could be argued from multiple perspectives.

Animal rights is the belief that animals should have the same basic rights as humans, including the right to life and liberty. Animal welfare is the view that animals should be treated humanely and with compassion, and that their well-being should be given consideration. Animal testing is the use of animals in scientific experiments to further our understanding of health and disease.

All three of these topics are controversial , which makes them perfect for an argumentative essay. So without further ado, here are 20 argumentative essay topics about animals!

What You'll Learn

Thirty Argumentative Essay Topics about Animals

1. Zoos are inhumane and should be banned. 2. Animal testing is cruel and should be outlawed. 3. Pets should not be allowed in public places. 4. Service animals should be exempt from laws banning animals in public places. 5. Hunter education should be mandatory for all hunters. 6. Trapping should be banned because it’s inhumane. 7. Fur coats should be banned because of the cruelty involved in obtaining the fur. 8. The exotic animal trade should be banned because it’s cruel and often results in the animal’s death. 9. Animal hoarders should be required to get help for their mental health issues and have their animals seized. 10. It should be illegal to breed dogs for physical characteristics that cause them health problems.

11. Puppy mills should be outlawed because of the inhumane conditions the animals are kept in. 12. Animal fighting should be banned because it’s cruel and often results in the animal’s death. 13. The use of animals in entertainment should be banned because it’s cruel. 14. Factory farming should be banned because of the inhumane conditions the animals are kept in. 15. Animals should not be kept in zoos because it’s cruel and they’re often not able to live a natural life. 16. It should be illegal to hunt animals for sport because it’s cruel and often results in the animal’s death. 17. The use of animals for research should be banned because it’s cruel and often results in the animal’s death. 18. It should be illegal to buy or sell ivory because it contributes to the poaching of elephants. 19. It should be illegal to buy or sell endangered animal parts because it contributes to the decline of those species. 20. The ownership of exotic animals should be banned because it’s cruel and often results in the animal’s death

Twenty Argumentative Essay Topics on Animals to Write About

1. Is it morally wrong to keep animals in captivity? 2. Should the hunting of animals be banned? 3. Is it cruel to declaw cats? 4. Should there be a ban on bullfighting? 5. How does the animal welfare movement impact the lives of animals? 6. Is it morally wrong to eat meat? 7. Should more be done to protect endangered species? 8. What is the impact of zoos on animals? 9. How do humans benefit from keeping animals in zoos? 10. Are factory farms cruel to animals? 11. What is the impact of animal testing on human health? 12. Should the use of fur be banned? 13. What are the benefits of having a pet? 14. How does animal agriculture impact the environment? 15. What is the relationship between humans and animals? 16. How does our treatment of animals reflect our values as a society? 17. Do we have a responsibility to care for all animals, or just those that are cute and cuddly? 18. How can we make sure that all animals are treated humanely? 19. What are some ways that people mist

Animal topics for research papers

There are many different animal topics that you can choose to write about for your research paper. Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Animal testing: Is it necessary? 2. The pros and cons of zoos 3. Are exotic animals good or bad pets? 4. The link between animal abuse and domestic violence 5. How do we define “humane” treatment of animals? 6. Should there be more regulations on the breeding of animals? 7. The impact of climate change on wildlife 8. How humans can coexist with dangerous animals 9. The ethical debate surrounding the consumption of animal products 10. Are there alternatives to using animals for research purposes?

Animal topics for essay

There are many different animal topics that you can choose to write about for your essay . Here are some ideas to get you started:

-The pros and cons of keeping animals in captivity -The ethical considerations of animal testing -The impact of human activity on endangered species -The complex social hierarchies of animal societies -The fascinating world of animal communication -The incredible adaptability of animals to changing environments-The unique and important role of animals in ecosystem

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Are Zoos Good or Bad for Animals? The Argument, Explained

Debates about the ethics of zoos abound — but when it comes to animal welfare, there are certainly more cons than pros.

Explainer • Entertainment • Policy

Words by Björn Ólafsson

For many people, zoos are the only chance they’ll have in their entire lives to see beautiful animals native to far-flung ecosystems — lions, elephants, pandas, lemurs — the list goes on. And they’re popular — over 181 million people visit a U.S. zoo every year . But zoos face criticism from animal welfare organizations and environmental activists for inhumane treatment of the animals they claim to protect. Zoos maintain that they are important aspects of conservation and education. 

So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of zoos ?  Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of these controversial organizations. 

What Are Some Pros and Cons of Zoos ?

First, not all zoos are created equal. While it is easy to imagine animal ethics as a binary of evil and moral, zoos can vary widely on how they treat their animals, how much space they are given and how the animals are obtained. Still, most zoos tend to have the same positives and negatives overall. 

Arguments Against Zoos

Poor conditions for animals.

Animals Often Only Have Quite Limited Space

Many zoos’ enclosures are too small, especially for animal species that are used to roaming, flying or swimming large distances in the wild. For example, polar bears are used to home ranges of about 1,000 square kilometers in the wild — large swaths of land and ice they enjoy exploring . In zoos, they get a couple hundred square feet. 

Zoos Are  Crowded

In addition to limited space, many zoos cram in as many animals as possible into the enclosures. Many visitors prefer seeing animals up close, instead of peering at them from afar, hidden in their dens or nests. This encourages zoos to increase the number of animals per exhibit,  increasing the likelihood of visitors seeing animals on the move near the boundaries of the enclosure. 

Animals Are Trapped in Unnatural Environments

Anyone who has visited a zoo knows the exhibits are a far cry from the natural landscape they are trying to imitate. Nearly all zoo enclosures contain fences, glass or other barriers for visitors to look through, which are inherently artificial. And the natural-seeming landscapes can sometimes be made out of astroturf, concrete or plastic.

Confinement May Alter the Behavior of Animals

The lack of space, unnatural environments and crowded conditions can directly affect the behavior of animals ; most notably in the form of what’s known as “stereotypy.” Stereotypy is a condition in which non-human animals engage in repetitive behaviors with no apparent purpose, such as pacing for hours on end, wagging tails abnormally or picking their own fur. 

The structure of zoos increases the likelihood of stereotypic behavior due to a lack of enrichment, mundane environments and boring, repetitive schedules. This prevalence of stereotypy in zoos even has its own name: “zoochosis,” or psychosis caused by zoos . 

‘Surplus’ Animals Can Be Killed

After an animal has reproduced successfully and the zoo no longer requires the animal to maintain an exhibit, the animal is deemed “surplus.” At this point, the animal’s welfare is no longer profitable . Zoos can sell the animal to private owners (who may keep the animal in tiny cages for amusement or kill the animal for taxidermy purposes), sell the animal to other zoos or enclosures, or “euthanize” the animal. 

Animals Are Often Mistreated 

Animal mistreatment is much more than hitting or beating an animal. It also includes harmful training techniques, separation from family members and forcing animals to behave in abnormal ways. 

In a report from World Animal Protection, three-fourths of zoos include human-animal interactions , many of which can be very stressful or physically harmful for animals. In some extreme cases, visitors rode on the backs of animals (causing injury) or encroached on the animals’ enclosure (causing stress).

Investigations into popular zoos sometimes reveal that caretakers don’t always clean the exhibits frequently , leaving the animals to live near their feces. The research also reveals many zookeepers hitting animals who “misbehave,” and not helping animals with injuries sustained in the enclosures. While not all animal caretakers behave this way, the reporting suggests many zoos around the world are lax with animal welfare. 

Animals Don’t Like Being Visited

The mere presence of human beings can negatively affect wild animals, especially in massive crowds that are common at zoos. Being bombarded by the sounds, smells and appearances of swaths of humans can trigger the stress responses of some animals . Some studies show that the number of visitors correlates with the amount of stress hormones in many animal species. 

Animals Struggle to Form Connections

Many animals are highly social creatures. Elephants, lions, pigs, cows and many more species are shown to have complex connections, hierarchies and relationships with members of their own kind — especially with friends and family. However, zoo animals rarely stay with the same herd or family for their entire lives. Instead, zoos opt to transfer, sell, buy or relocate animals throughout their lifespans, making it difficult for animals to form social connections . This lack of bonding can harm the animals emotionally. 

Zoos Are for Humans, Not Animals

Most zoos are for-profit enterprises, meaning they have one goal in mind: maximizing revenue. It is easy to see how making more money can come at the expense of animal welfare. For example, a zoo is unlikely to fund an exhibit expansion if it isn’t cost-effective, regardless of its benefits for the animals inside. While many zookeepers form real bonds with their animal companions, the animals still exist under a for-profit, human-centered organization. 

Zoos Promote Human Superiority

The aesthetic nature of zoos — animals in panopticon-like enclosures, viewed 24/7 by members of a different species — can reinforce human superiority. As moral philosopher Lori Gruen writes in her book, “visitors leave the zoo more convinced than ever of human superiority over the natural world.” Of course, zoos also reinforce the idea that humans have a right to take away animals’ freedom and bodily autonomy.

Zoos Don’t Always Help with Conservation — Some Wild Animals Have to Be Caught to Bring Them to Zoos

Many animals in zoos are born in captivity, but that’s not the case for all. Many animals are taken directly from the wild , often when they are babies, to make the transition to captivity a bit easier. At times, this is done in the name of conservation, or when a wild animal is very ill. But many zoos will take animals from the wild, or buy animals from unethical animal traders. 

It’s Often Not Possible to Return Animals to the Wild

Releasing an animal into the wild isn’t always successful, especially if the animal has spent time in climates different from their native regions, like jungles, savannas or ice caps. Properly preparing animals for success in the wild is a multi-stage process that can require thousands of dollars — and it doesn’t always work . Captive-born predator species — disadvantaged by being born and raised in an artificial environment — only have a survival rate after being released into the wild of 33 percent , according to one study. As a result, re-release is not a priority for many zoos.

Zoos Are Poorly Regulated

While there exist many laws that protect animals, such as the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and the Endangered Species Act , they only offer minimum protections . For example, the AWA excludes entire species of animals, like mice, farmed animals, birds and all cold-blooded animals. Its “minimum” standards of care usually ensure the animals’ safety, not their welfare or happiness. Many animal law experts say these regulations don’t go far enough . 

What Are the Pros of Having Zoos?

They Can Be Important for Researchers

Biologists and zoologists can benefit from studying animals in zoos. Some breakthroughs in animal behavior and treatment, like why elephants swing their trunks or how gorillas develop heart disease, have been made possible because of zoos’ ease of access . However, not all animals behave the same in captivity as they do in the wild, so not all research is possible in zoos. 

Zoos Are Educational — People May Behave “Eco-friendlier” After Going To the Zoo

Zoos can kickstart individuals’ interest in biodiversity, which is a critical aspect of environmental protection. Many zoos include calls to action in their exhibits, highlighting how endangered animals are being poached, driven away, or otherwise killed by human activity. This can inspire some people to behave more conscientiously. One limited survey found that 35 percent of eco-friendly people learned sustainable behavior from zoos . ‘

Zoos Can Help Educate Children About Animals

Zoos are a quintessential school experience for many young people. Children love learning about animals up-close in a safe environment — in fact, education is possibly the biggest advantage of modern zoos. Many programs, like school presentations, guided tours, informational exhibits, and talks with zookeepers can trigger a lifelong love of animals in children .  

But zoos aren’t perfect in this regard. According to a study of zoo visitors in the UK, only 34 percent of children learned more about animals at zoos (the result was slightly better when the children were given  a guided tour). Worse, children did not feel empowered to help with conservation efforts after visiting a zoo. This suggests that if zoos care about education, they need to more actively reach out to schoolchildren for empowerment and education. 

Going to the Zoo Is Affordable

More ethical ways of engaging with animals without removing them from their natural habitats — like whale watching, safaris, hikes, or excursions — are usually expensive or inaccessible for many people. Zoos tend to be relatively cheap for the average family that wants to learn about animals. 

Conservation

Zoos Can Protect Endangered Species from Extinction

Zoos often claim they can protect entire species from extinction through conservation programs that involve breeding more animals in captivity and then releasing them into the wild. This is especially important for endangered species like pandas. 

While these conservation efforts are truly important, they don’t represent the majority of a zoo’s activities, nor are zoos leaders in conservation worldwide. At the National Zoo, for example, only one-fifth of animals are endangered . In North America, zoos only contribute about 14 percent of all animals reintroduced into the wild as part of a conservation program. Zoos also tend to focus on headline-grabbing endangered animals to bring in visitors, like pandas, elephants or tigers, as opposed to lesser-known but crucial species, like tamarins, kakapos or wombats. 

Are Zoos Good or Bad for the Environment?

Zoos claim to support global biodiversity through conservation efforts like protecting endangered animals. This is somewhat true, although it varies greatly from zoo to zoo. 

On the other hand, zoos are big polluters and use up lots of resources , especially energy and water . Aquariums in particular use tons and tons of water. Zoo animals also generate waste that may or may not be composted or disposed of correctly.

Should Zoos Exist or Be Banned?

Given the many ways that zoos are unethical to animals, the flawed attempts to contribute to conservation, and the positioning of humans as superior to animals, many animal ethicists believe zoos should not exist — or at least, not exist in their current form . 

For example, animal philosopher Dale Jamieson says in his book Ethics on the Ark that zoos primarily “alleviate our sense of guilt for what we are doing to the planet, but they do little to help the animals we are driving to extinction.” He continues to argue that zoos exist for humans alone , and that it is very difficult to wave away the inherent immorality of depriving animals their liberty for the sake of human amusement. 

Instead, private conservation programs can benefit endangered animals without showcasing them to the public. Animal sanctuaries, which are  areas of land in which endangered and other animals are protected by humans, are also advantageous for both individual animals and global biodiversity . 

Zoos do have advantages — fostering curiosity and education chief among them. But experts believe there are other ways of accomplishing these goals without resorting to zoos with tiny enclosures. Excursions, nature documentaries, safaris, local gardens, hikes, boat tours and other ways of interacting with nature don’t involve taking animals out of their natural habitats. 

The Bottom Line

If you do choose to visit a zoo, opt for zoos that have certifications from independent animal welfare organizations. If you are interested in animal conservation, you’d be more impactful donating to a non-zoo animal protection organization instead. And if you do want to visit animals, consider an animal sanctuary or an ethical safari, where you can see animals in their native environments.

Independent Journalism Needs You

Björn Jóhann Ólafsson is a science writer and journalist who cares deeply about understanding the natural world and her inhabitants through stories and data. He reports on the environmental footprint of the meat industry, the alternative protein sector and cultural attitudes around food. His previous bylines include the EU Observer and Elemental. He lives in Spain with his two lovebirds.

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Article Contents

Introduction, debating the moral standing of animals and the environment, the ethical complexity of zoo and aquarium conservation, rapid global change and the evolving ethics of ex situ research, conclusions, acknowledgments.

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Ecological Ethics in Captivity: Balancing Values and Responsibilities in Zoo and Aquarium Research under Rapid Global Change

Ben A. Minteer, PhD, is the Maytag Professor in the Center for Biology and Society and School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. James P. Collins, PhD, is the Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

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Ben A. Minteer, James P. Collins, Ecological Ethics in Captivity: Balancing Values and Responsibilities in Zoo and Aquarium Research under Rapid Global Change, ILAR Journal , Volume 54, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 41–51, https://doi.org/10.1093/ilar/ilt009

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Ethical obligations to animals in conservation research and management are manifold and often conflicting. Animal welfare concerns often clash with the ethical imperative to understand and conserve a population or ecosystem through research and management intervention. The accelerating pace and impact of global environmental change, especially climate change, complicates our understanding of these obligations. One example is the blurring of the distinction between ex situ (zoo- and aquarium-based) conservation and in situ (field-based) approaches as zoos and aquariums become more active in field conservation work and as researchers and managers consider more intensive interventions in wild populations and ecosystems to meet key conservation goals. These shifts, in turn, have consequences for our traditional understanding of the ethics of wildlife research and management, including our relative weighting of animal welfare and conservation commitments across rapidly evolving ex situ and in situ contexts. Although this changing landscape in many ways supports the increased use of captive wildlife in conservation-relevant research, it raises significant ethical concerns about human intervention in populations and ecosystems, including the proper role of zoos and aquariums as centers for animal research and conservation in the coming decades. Working through these concerns requires a pragmatic approach to ethical analysis, one that is able to make trade-offs among the many goods at stake (e.g., animal welfare, species viability, and ecological integrity) as we strive to protect species from further decline and extinction in this century.

Responsibilities to wildlife in field research and conservation projects have always been complicated because ethical duties to animals, populations, and ecosystems can pull wildlife scientists and managers in different directions ( Minteer and Collins 2005a , 2005b , 2008 ). In recent years, this situation has been made even more complex by the impacts of global change (especially climate change), which, in many quarters, has forced a reassessment of research practice and conservation policy. Scientists and managers wrestle with understanding and protecting species and ecosystems in a rapidly changing environment ( Hannah 2012 ; Marris 2011 ). In parallel, conservation ethics and values are being reexamined and adapted to fit dynamic ecological and institutional contexts in which traditional models of protecting the environment are being replaced by more pragmatic and interventionist approaches less wedded to historical systems and static preservationist ideals ( Camacho et al. 2010 ; Minteer and Collins 2012 ). Furthermore, as we acknowledge the history and extent of human influence and impact on ecological systems—even for the most remote parts of the planet—we are confronted with a changing vision of nature. Instead of a stark contrast between “wild” and “managed,” we now encounter a continuum of systems more or less impacted by human activity, a scale of degrees and increments (rather than absolutes) of anthropogenic influence that upends many customary divisions in conservation science, policy, and ethics (see, e.g., Dudley 2011 ).

A case in point is the weakening division between ex situ, or zoo- and aquarium-based research and conservation, and in situ, or field-based biological research and conservation practice. Global climate change, along with other drivers of rapid environmental transformation (e.g., accelerating habitat loss and the spread of invasive species and infectious diseases), is increasingly being viewed as requiring a more proactive and intensive philosophy of conservation and ecological management ( Hobbs et al. 2011 ). One consequence of this shift is that the conceptual and empirical boundaries separating “the field” from “the animal holding facility” are growing hazy: zoos and aquariums are becoming more engaged in field conservation programs, while preserves and natural areas are becoming more intensively managed and designed for a diverse mix of conservation and resource management outputs ( Cole and Yung 2010 ; Dickie et al. 2007 ; Pritchard et al. 2011 ).

At the same time, there are new calls within conservation science and management circles to think differently about the connections between captive and wild populations. Indeed, many wildlife scientists are recognizing that captive and wild populations should be seen not as separate biological and management domains but viewed instead as linked metapopulations (e.g., Lacy 2012 ). They argue that the sustainability of the former requires exchange of animals and DNA from the wild, whereas the viability of the latter may require contributions from ex situ populations as well as the refinement of small-population research and management techniques ( Lacy 2012 ; Redford et al. 2012 ). Such techniques, however, may only be feasible in the controlled environment of the zoo or aquarium.

The softening of the distinction between ex situ and in situ, the quickening pace of biodiversity loss, and the parallel rise of a more interventionist ecological ethic have significant implications for how we understand and make trade-offs among values and responsibilities in conservation research and practice. These include the concerns of animal welfare and animal rights as well as species-level and ecosystem-level conservation values. Although all of these obligations remain an important part of the ethical landscape of conservation research and practice, they are being reshaped by the need to respond to rapid environmental change as well as by the research demands of a more interventionist conservation effort.

A good example of this trend is the Amphibian Ark Project (AArk), a global consortium of zoos, aquariums, universities, and conservation organizations that has organized itself around the goal of slowing global amphibian declines and extinctions, which by all accounts have reached historic levels over the last several decades ( Collins and Crump 2009 ; Gewin 2008 ; Zippel et al. 2011 ). Zoos and aquariums in the AArk serve as conservation way stations for amphibian populations facing possible extinction because of the combined forces of habitat loss, infectious disease, and climate change. But they also function as centers of research into the drivers of population decline, the possibilities of disease mitigation, and the prospect of selecting for biological resistance to a lethal amphibian pathogen ( Woodhams et al. 2011 ). With the mission of rescuing, housing, and breeding hundreds of amphibian species to return them eventually to native localities, the AArk is emerging as a hybrid or “pan situ” approach to biodiversity protection, a project that integrates (and blurs the borders between) ex situ and in situ conservation ( Dickie et al. 2007 ; Gewin 2008 ).

In addition, the breeding and research activities within the AArk evoke questions of animal welfare and conservation ethics, including the tensions between and within these commitments. Amphibian research can be invasive and even lethal to individual animals, raising significant and familiar welfare and rights-based concerns in zoo and aquarium research. Moreover, infectious disease research, a significant part of the AArk research portfolio, carries the risk of an infected host or the pathogen itself infecting other animals in a captive-breeding facility or even escaping into local populations. In fact, just such a case occurred when the often-lethal pathogen the amphibian chytrid fungus moved from a common species in a captive-breeding facility to an endangered species. When the latter was introduced into Mallorca to establish a population in the wild, subsequent research revealed that animals were infected by the pathogen from the breeding facility before transfer ( Walker et al. 2008 ). Still, it is clear that many amphibian species will experience further declines or go extinct in the wild if dramatic measures such as the AArk are not pursued until a sustainable recovery and conservation strategy is developed.

In what follows, we examine the ethical and policy-level aspects of research and conservation activities that involve captive wildlife in zoos and aquariums, focusing on some of the implications of accelerating biodiversity decline and rapid environmental change. As we will see, the most pressing ethical issues surrounding zoo- and aquarium-based wildlife in this era of rapid global change are not best described as traditional animal rights versus conservation dilemmas but instead concern what we believe are far more complicated and broad-ranging debates within conservation ethics and practice. These debates include devising an ethically justified research and recovery strategy for wildlife across evolving in situ and ex situ conservation contexts that may require a more interventionist approach to biodiversity management. Zoo and aquarium researchers in a time of rapid global change must find creative ways to integrate and steer the expanding biodiversity research efforts of their facilities. In doing so, they will need to provide the ethical justification and scientific guidance for responding to the plight of those globally endangered species that can benefit from controlled and often intensive analysis in ex situ centers.

Ethicists and environmental advocates have often found themselves deeply divided over the moral status of and duties owed to nonhuman animals—a division that has existed despite the common effort among environmental and animal philosophers to expand societal thinking beyond a narrow anthropocentrism (e.g., Callicott 1980 ; Regan 2004 ; Sagoff 1984 ; Singer 1975 ). The dispute is usually attributed to different framings of moral considerability and significance. Animal welfare and animal rights approaches prioritize the interests or rights of individual animals, whereas environmental ethics typically embraces a more holistic view that focuses on the viability of populations and species and especially the maintenance of ecological and evolutionary processes. The difference between these two views can be philosophically quite stark. For example, animal-centered ethicists such as Peter Singer believe that it makes little sense to talk about nonsentient entities such as species, systems, or processes as having their own “interests” or a good of their own (as environmental ethicists often describe them), although they can be of value to sentient beings and thus objects of indirect moral concern.

In the view of ecocentric ethicists such as J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston, however, an ethics of the environment is incomplete if it does not accord direct moral status to species and ecosystems and the evolutionary and ecological processes that produced and maintain them. Most environmental ethicists are sensitive to animal welfare considerations and are certainly aware that many threats to populations, species, and ecosystems impact animal welfare either directly or indirectly. Typically, however, they advocate focusing moral concern and societal action on such ends as the protection of endangered species and the preservation of wilderness rather than reducing the pain and suffering (or promoting the rights or dignity) of wild animals. Domestic animals are even further outside the traditional ambit of environmental ethicists; indeed, their comparative lack of wildness and autonomy has for some suggested a lower moral status as “artifacts” of human technology rather than moral subjects (see, e.g., Katz 1991 ).

It is important to point out here that although “animal rights” is often used as a blanket term for ethical and advocacy positions defending the humane treatment or rights of animals, philosophers and others often make an important distinction between animal rights and animal welfare arguments. The former is generally seen as a nonconsequentialist view of an animal's moral status (i.e., a view on which the covered class of individuals is entitled to fair treatment following ascriptions of moral personhood or inherent worth similar to the logic of entitlement we ideally accord individual human persons). Alternatively, the welfare position is traditionally rooted in consequentialist moral reasoning whereby the impacts of decisions and actions affecting the interests or good of the animal are weighed against other goods (including the interests and preferences of humans), and decisions are made based on an assessment of the aggregate good of a particular action, all things being equal. What this means is that, although in many cases both animal rights and animal welfare philosophies will justify similar policy and practical outcomes, in some instances the welfare position may be more accommodating to animal harms when these are offset by the net benefits produced by a particular action or rule. It bears emphasizing, however, that calculations of these benefits and harms must be fair and consistent; they cannot give arbitrary weight to human preferences simply because they are anthropocentric in nature, and all interests—including those of the animal—must be considered.

Not surprisingly, these different approaches to moral consideration have often produced sharp disagreements at the level of practice, especially in wildlife management and biological field research. For example, animal rights proponents regularly condemn wildlife research and management practices that inflict harm or even mortality upon individual animals, such as the lethal control of invasive species, the culling of overabundant native wildlife, and the use of invasive field research techniques; practices that have for decades been widely accepted among wildlife and natural resource managers (e.g., Gustin 2003 ; Smith 2007 ). Controversial cases such as the reduction of irruptive whitetail deer populations threatening forest health in New England ( Dizard 1999 ), amphibian toe clipping in capture–mark–recapture field studies ( May 2004 ), the hot branding of sea lions for identification in marine research projects ( Minteer and Collins 2008 ), and the culling of black-throated blue warblers for an ecological field experiment ( Vucetich and Nelson 2007 ) illustrate the ethical conflicts characterizing much of the environmental/conservation ethics and animal welfare/rights debate in wildlife field research.

Despite attempts by some ethicists and scientists to find common ground between animal- and environmental-centered values at either the philosophic or pragmatic level (e.g., Jamieson 1998 ; Minteer and Collins 2008 ; Minteer 2012 ; Perry and Perry 2008 ; Varner 1998 ), many observers believe that the gulf separating ethically individualistic, animal-centered commitments and conservationists’ more holistic commitment to promoting the viability of populations and communities is simply too wide to bridge, even in cases where animal-centered and biodiversity-centered advocates have common cause ( Hutchins 2008 ; Meffe 2008 ).

This division has recently been reinforced by public stances taken by wildlife conservation organizations such as The Wildlife Society (TWS), which in 2011 released a position statement on animal rights and conservation that underscored what the organization described as the incompatibility between these two ethical and policy orientations ( http://wildlife.org/policy/position-statements ). Animal-centered views perceived as more moderate in nature, such as the commitment to the humane treatment of animals in research and management (i.e., a weaker animal welfare position) are ostensibly accepted by TWS, although the organization's position here probably still falls short of what animal welfare ethicists such as Singer would argue is demanded by a principled concern for animal well-being in research and management contexts.

The practice of keeping animals in zoos and aquariums is one of the more intriguing areas of conflict within the animal ethics–conservation ethics debate. The presumption that the keeping of animals in captivity in zoos and aquariums is morally acceptable has long been questioned by animal rights–oriented philosophers who believe that such facilities by definition diminish animals’ liberty and dignity as beings possessing inherent worth (e.g., Jamieson 1985 , 1995 ; Regan 1995 ). Such critiques either implicitly or explicitly evoke the unpleasant history (from both the contemporary welfare and wildlife conservation perspective) of zoos as wildlife menageries designed primarily for public titillation and entertainment, including notorious cases of animal abuse and the exploitation of captive wildlife for profit. Zoo advocates, however, argue that modern zoos and aquariums have a vital societal mission to educate zoo visitors regarding the necessity of wildlife conservation and the dilemma of global biodiversity decline and that they contribute (and could contribute even more) significantly to fundraising efforts to support conservation projects in the field (e.g., Christie 2007 ; Hutchins et al. 1995 ; Zimmerman 2010 ).

This broad ethical debate over zoos and aquariums in society and the various trade-offs it evokes regarding animal welfare, conservation, scientific research, and entertainment have been complicated by particular high profile cases, such as the keeping of elephants or large carnivores in zoos ( Clubb and Mason 2003 ; Wemmer and Christen 2008 ) and whales or dolphins (cetaceans) in aquariums and marine parks ( Bekoff 2002 ; Grimm 2011 ; Kirby 2012 ). Among other issues, these cases often reveal disagreements among scientists about conditions for housing some of the more charismatic, large, and popular animals in zoos away from in-range conditions as well as differences in assessments of species-specific welfare impacts and requirements across a range of taxa ( Hosey et al. 2011 ). They also exemplify the welfare–entertainment–education–conservation nexus that forms much of the normative and ethical discourse around zoos in modern society ( Hancocks 2001 ; Hanson 2002 ).

Zoos and aquariums therefore raise a number of ethical issues, from the basic question of the moral acceptability of keeping animals in captivity to more specific arguments and debates over practices such as captive (conservation) breeding, zoo-based research, wild animal acquisition, habitat enrichment, and the commercialization of wildlife (see, e.g., Davis 1997 ; Kreger and Hutchins 2010 ; Norton et al. 1995 ). Clearly, these practices provoke a set of complicated questions about our responsibilities to captive animals and the conservation of species and habitats in the wild.

Perhaps one of the strongest conservation-based arguments supporting housing animals in zoos and aquariums today is that these facilities provide the ability to create “captive assurance populations” through ex situ breeding, with the goal of reintroducing some individuals back into the wild to restore or expand lost or declining populations ( Beck et al. 1994 ; Reid and Zippel 2008 ). This technique, described earlier in our discussion of the AArk, has produced some notable conservation successes in recent decades, including the recovery of (among other species) the Arabian oryx, the black-footed ferret, and the California condor. On the other hand, many animal rights–oriented critics of conservation breeding and the reintroduction efforts of zoos, such as the advocacy organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), argue that captive breeding efforts are biased toward the breeding of “cute” animals of value to the public (rather than breeding for conservation purposes) and that such practices create surplus animals that are subsequently transferred to inferior facilities and exploited ( www.peta.org/about/why-peta/zoos.aspx ). PETA questions as well the broader goal of releasing captive-born and raised animals to the wild, pointing out the inherent difficulties surrounding reintroductions, including the risks they pose to the reintroduced animals and other wildlife in situ. Although these sorts of challenges have also been noted by wildlife biologists and biodiversity scientists, many advocates of conservation breeding and reintroduction programs have argued that further research and improved biological assessment and monitoring efforts can improve the likelihood of success for the release or reintroduction of captive animals to the wild ( Earnhardt 2010 ; Fa et al. 2011 ).

The data suggest that zoos and aquariums are playing an increasingly significant role in field conservation programs and partnerships. In its 2010 Annual Report on Conservation Science, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) lists zoos engaged in more than 1,970 conservation projects (i.e., activities undertaken to benefit in situ wildlife populations) in over 100 countries ( www.aza.org/annual-report-on-conservation-and-science/ ). The AZA coordinates taxon advisory groups and species survival plans to manage conservation breeding, develop in situ and ex situ conservation strategies, and establish management, research, and conservation priorities ( www.aza.org/ ). These experts (which include biologists, veterinarians, reproductive physiologists, and animal behaviorists, among other researchers) also contribute to the development of taxon-specific animal care manuals that provide guidance for animal care based on current science and best practices in animal management ( www.aza.org/animal-care-manuals ).

As part of their expanding efforts in field conservation, ex situ wildlife facilities are also becoming more significant players in biodiversity research. As Wharton (2007) notes, systematic, zoo-based research on reproduction, behavior, genetics, and other biological dimensions has made many important contributions to the improvement of animal husbandry practice over the past three decades. Moreover, ex situ animal research conducted to inform field conservation is seen as a growing priority for zoos and aquariums, especially in light of worrying trends in global biodiversity decline and the widely acknowledged potential of the extensive zoo and aquarium network to carry out studies that can provide conservation-relevant knowledge for field projects ( WAZA 2005 ; MacDonald and Hofer 2011 ).

Applied research in zoological institutions (i.e., research motivated by the goal of improving conservation and/or veterinary science) is not the only research contribution of zoos and aquariums, however. Basic research on captive wildlife is also conducted throughout the system and is highly valued by many wildlife scientists, both within and outside of zoological institutions. At Zoo Atlanta, for example, researchers are presently conducting a number of studies designed to inform our understanding of wildlife biology, including the biomechanics of sidewinding locomotion in snakes, social behavior and acoustic communication in giant pandas, and taxonomic and phylogenetic studies of frogs, among other taxa (J. Mendelson, Zoo Atlanta, personal communication, 2012). Such research is often impossible to conduct in the wild, and thus captive populations can hold great value as specimens for basic scientific study.

Although not every zoo and aquarium has the capacity to conduct extensive animal research (focused on either veterinary/animal care or conservation purposes), the larger and better-equipped facilities such as the Bronx Zoo, the San Diego Zoo, Zoo Atlanta, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the St. Louis Zoo have become active wildlife and conservation research centers in addition to being popular educational and entertainment facilities. For all these reasons, zoos, aquariums, and other ex situ facilities (e.g., botanic gardens) are being championed by organizations such as the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums as potential models of “integrated conservation” given their ability to participate in a wide range of conservation activities, from ex situ research, education, and breeding of threatened species to field projects in support of animals in the wild to serving (in the case of the AArk) as temporary conservation rescue centers to protect animals threatened by rapid environmental change ( WAZA 2005 ; Zippel et al. 2011 ). Whether these facilities can develop successful reintroduction programs that will lead to the ultimate recovery of populations they are holding temporarily (such as the AArk program) or whether these “temporary” efforts become de facto and permanent ex situ “solutions” to particular wildlife conservation problems in the field, however, remains to be seen.

For many wildlife biologists and conservationists, then, breeding and conservation-oriented research on captive wildlife are seen as essential activities that should not be halted on the basis of animal welfare and animal rights objections. The ethical imperative to save threatened species from further decline and extinction in the wild has for them a priority over concerns regarding individual animal welfare. Humane treatment of animals (both ex situ and in the field), however, remains a clear ethical obligation of zoo-based scientists and professionals as well as field researchers. It is an obligation formalized in the ethical codes of the major professional and scientific societies, such as the AZA and the Society for Conservation Biology.

Yet not everyone is convinced that this reinvigorated conservation justification for keeping animals in captivity is a compelling rationale for such facilities. For example, some critics have argued in the past that actual conservation-relevant research conducted in or by zoos and aquariums is, in fact, a relatively minor part of their mission and that it cannot justify keeping animals in captivity (see, e.g., Jamieson 1995 ). Such criticisms are, however, slowly losing their bite as we witness the more recent growth of zoo-based research for conservation purposes ( Stanley Price and Fa 2007 ). Still, it is true that much of the research conducted by zoos today remains focused on animal husbandry rather than conservation of animals in the wild ( Fa et al. 2011 ).

This situation may be changing, however. Indeed, research on captive wildlife in zoos and aquariums (including that driven by conservation concerns) is predicted to continue to grow in significance in the coming decades. Perhaps the most obvious reason for this is access. As mentioned above, scientists in ex situ facilities have the ability to carry out potentially high-impact research projects on captive animals that may be too costly, risky, or logistically impossible to perform on small, wild populations in situ ( Barbosa 2009 ). This research can be valuable for improving animal husbandry in zoos and aquariums, but it can also be useful for augmenting field conservation projects because biological data from captive animals is incorporated in the planning and implementation of field interventions ( Wharton 2007 ). Data collected from animals drawn from populations that only exist in small numbers in the wild are particularly valuable; therefore, captive populations afford important opportunities to collect data on rare species in a controlled and safe environment.

To the degree that research on zoo and aquarium wildlife is used to inform and improve efforts to conserve and manage vulnerable wildlife populations in the field, it may be defended as an ethically justified activity according to the more holistic obligation to promote species viability and ecosystem health—even if it includes techniques that disrupt or harm captive wildlife in the process. Yet, these activities could still be challenged by more animal rights–based arguments that claim that such harms, including the fundamental loss of freedom and the degradation of an animal subject's dignity associated with captivity, can never be offset by the production of beneficial biological consequences at the population or species level (i.e., “good consequences” in the aggregate cannot justify the violation of the moral duty to respect the worth of the individual animal).

For an animal welfare proponent willing to take a more pragmatic position, however, unavoidable harms or disvalues in zoo and aquarium research projects that directly lead to the promotion of the good of the species in the wild may be viewed as ethically tolerable in light of the collective benefit for sentient animals. This view could follow from the utilitarian principle to evaluate an action based on its consequences for all sentient beings impacted by the action or from a more integrated ethical system in which both animal welfare and conservation ethics are operant in moral decision making (see, e.g., Minteer and Collins 2005a , 2005b ). Indeed, we suspect that most informed animal welfare supporters also see the value of wildlife conservation and landscape protection (or at least are not opposed to these activities). Therefore, they should not dismiss the real population, species, and ecosystem benefits of research on captive wildlife, especially in a time of global change.

The ethical evaluation of research on captive wildlife, however, can become even more complicated, especially if one holds the foundational view that it is wrong to place animals in captivity in the first place. Research undertaken primarily to improve animal care in ex situ facilities, for example, would appear to be a morally justifiable activity, especially if it produces results than can help zoo managers enrich habitats and improve the health and well-being of wildlife in their care. That is, the research would seem to produce a positive value that deserves to be weighed against any disvalue produced by harming or stressing an animal during the research process. And yet, this research could still be seen as morally unacceptable even if it improves the welfare of captive animals because it destroys the animal's freedom or treats them as a “mere means” to some anthropocentric end. Therefore, according to this abolitionist position, zoo and aquarium wildlife research conducted under the banner of improving animal care or husbandry makes the mistake of assuming that keeping animals in zoos and aquariums is itself defensible, a stance that many arguing from a strong animal rights framework flatly reject (e.g., Jamieson 1985 , 1995 ; Regan 1995 ).

But what about the case where research on captive wildlife is demonstrated to be necessary to obtain information relevant to the conservation and management of threatened populations in the wild? In such situations, strong ethical objections to the keeping of animals in ex situ facilities, to interfering in their lives, and so forth arguably have comparatively less normative force. To reject this claim, one would have to argue that the well-being of captive animals is and should be a completely separate moral issue from the welfare of wild populations—a position that, as mentioned earlier, is difficult to hold in our increasingly integrated conservation environment. This does not entail the rejection of animal welfare considerations in research design and conduct; these remain compelling at all stages of the research process. But it provides a powerful and morally relevant consideration for undertaking that research rather than ruling it out on moral grounds.

We should underscore that this conclusion does not hold for poorly designed or weakly motivated research projects that promise to shed little new scientific light on wildlife biology and behavior relevant to conservation or that appear to essentially reproduce studies already performed on either captive or wild animals in the field ( Minteer and Collins 2008 ). Determining the conservation value of the proposed research and its scientific necessity is thus a critical activity bearing on the welfare and conservation of animals across in situ and field settings. Yet it is an analysis that necessarily contains a measure of uncertainty that can complicate evaluations and proposed trade-offs among animal welfare, scientific discovery, and the potential for the research to produce results with a direct application to the conservation, management, or recovery of populations in the wild ( Parris et al. 2010 ).

Improved husbandry and conservation value in the field are not the only potential benefits of zoo and aquarium research for wildlife, however. As Lewis (2007) notes, research on captive animals in ex situ facilities may also yield results that can pay dividends in the form of improved animal welfare in field research projects. This is especially true in the case of zoos and aquariums with extensive veterinary departments with the capacity to develop equipment and protocols that minimize research impacts on wildlife in field studies. Such projects might include research on novel, less-invasive animal marking and sampling techniques, the development of safer forms of darting and the use of anesthesia, and the creation of new breeding techniques for recovering particular wild animal populations ( Lewis 2007 ). Although it is not always entirely clear which interventions should be considered invasive in the animal research context or what exactly constitutes harm in these analyses (see, e.g., Goodrowe 2003 ; Parris et al. 2010 ; Pauli et al. 2010 ), it does seem to be the case that wildlife researchers in both ex situ and field study environments are increasingly adopting noninvasive sampling and study techniques for wildlife research, signifying, perhaps, a growing sensitivity to animal welfare in field biology and conservation ( Robbins 2009 ).

If ex situ research on animals can lead to the development of less-invasive technologies and research protocols, then some of the welfare concerns raised by the manipulation or harm of zoo and aquarium animals in the research process that produces these technologies may be offset, at least to a degree and at the aggregate (i.e., population, species, and ecosystem) level, by the net welfare benefits of adopting these less-invasive tools and techniques in biological field research. It is important to note once again, however, that this judgment will likely still not satisfy strict animal rightists who typically resist such attempts at “value balancing” (see e.g., Regan 2004 ). Furthermore, and as mentioned above, acceptance of animal harms in such research should hold only as long as the research in question is judged to be scientifically sound and well-designed (i.e., as long as it does not run afoul of the “reduction, refinement, and replacement” directives of the use of animals in the life sciences, which are designed to minimize the impact of research activities on animal welfare and screen out research designs that are not ethically justified, scientifically necessary, or efficient ( Russell and Burch 1959 ).

It is clear that ex situ facilities such as zoos and aquariums will continue to increase in importance as centers of scientific research and conservation action in the 21st century ( Conde et al. 2011 ; Conway 2011 ; Fa et al. 2011 ). The forces of global environmental change, including climate change, accelerating habitat loss, and the spread of infectious diseases and invasive species, along with the synergies among these and other threats, are currently exerting great pressure on wild species and ecosystems. This pressure is expected to only increase in the coming decades ( Rands et al. 2010 ; Stokstad 2010 ; Thomas et al. 2004 ). These dynamics have suggested to many zoo scientists and conservationists an expanding role for many zoos and aquariums in wildlife protection. They can function as safe havens for the more vulnerable species threatened in the wild, as research institutions seeking to understand the impact of global environmental change on wildlife, and as active players in the increasingly intensive process of wildlife conservation in situ, including population management and veterinary care ( Conway 2011 ). As Swaisgood (2007) points out, with the requirement of more intensive managerial interventions in the field because of human encroachment, habitat modification, and other changes, many of the issues central to zoo research and conservation (including animal welfare, the impacts of human disturbance on wildlife, and the consequences of the introduction of animals into novel environments) are increasingly drawing the interest of wildlife researchers and managers in natural areas and in situ conservation projects.

All of these conditions speak to the necessity of wildlife research in zoos and aquariums for informing conservation science under conditions of rapid environmental change, including (most notably) research on the effects of climate change on animal health ( MacDonald and Hofer 2011 ). For example, aquariums can simulate climate change impacts such as shifts in temperature and salinity, the effects of which can be studied on fish growth, breeding, and behavior ( Barbosa 2009 ). Such research could contribute to our understanding of the stresses exerted by global change on wildlife and consequently inform and improve conservation and management efforts in situ.

Another line of research in the domain of global change biology (and wildlife adaptation to environment change) includes studies of captive animals’ responses to pathogens and emergent diseases, such as the work undertaken as part of the aforementioned AArk ( Woodhams et al. 2011 ). Notably, these investigations could allow scientists to gain a better grasp of the consequences of temperature variations and disease transmission for the health of wild populations before any effects take hold ( Barbosa 2009 ). The AArk example illustrates the kind of ethical balancing that needs to be performed for claims surrounding animal and species-level welfare and the health and historic integrity of ecosystems. For many amphibian species, AArk is a place of last resort. Once the amphibian chytrid enters an ecosystem, at least some susceptible species will not be able to return to their native habitats without an intervention strategy such as selective breeding for infectious-disease tolerance. An alternative tactic is managed relocation (i.e., the translocation of populations from their native habitat to novel environments that may be well outside their historic range) (e.g., Schwartz et al. 2012 ). Both approaches, however, involve ethical decisions that balance the welfare of individual frogs and salamanders against that of populations and species as well as the historic integrity of ecosystems (i.e., the particular mix of species and communities that have evolved in these systems over time) ( Winston et al. in press ).

Health- and disease-oriented wildlife research in zoos and aquariums may not only be targeted at wildlife conservation. The public health community, for example, may also have a significant role to play in zoo research in the near term. Epidemiologists and others have noted the value of zoo collections for biosurveillance (i.e., as biological monitoring stations that can be studied to understand and plan for the emergence of future infectious diseases posing public health risks) ( McNamara 2007 ). This proposal raises two further interesting ethical questions regarding the evaluation of zoo- and aquarium-based research under global change: ( 1 ) the acceptability of wildlife health research motivated by improving field conservation of the species and ( 2 ) wildlife health research that enlists captive wildlife as “sentinels” ( McNamara 2007 ) to provide an early warning system for infectious diseases that might impact human welfare. Both research projects could be pursued under the banner of “wildlife, health, and climate change,” yet each would differ in its underlying ethical justification. One program would likely be more species-centered or nonanthropocentric (wildlife health research for conservation purposes), whereas the other would presumably be defended on more anthropocentric grounds, given the focus on safeguarding public health. This philosophic division, however, is not always that well defined, especially if wildlife health research in zoos and aquariums has benefits for both in situ conservation and more human-centered interests (e.g., the provision of ecosystem services). Still, the different research foci would be expected to evoke some differences in ethical analysis regarding their implications for animal welfare, conservation, and human welfare ethics.

For a swelling number of cases, then, scientific study and refinement of conservation breeding techniques, wildlife health research, and so forth will likely be necessary to save focal species in the wild under dynamic and perhaps unprecedented environmental conditions ( Gascon et al. 2007 ). Ethical objections to conservation breeding or to the impacts of high-priority conservation research on captive wildlife motivated by animal welfare and rights concerns will, we believe, become less compelling as the need for captive assurance populations increases (because of the impacts of global change). These ethical objections will also weaken as we see the rise of additional partnerships between ex situ and field conservation organizations and facilities and especially as the former become more directly engaged in recovery and reintroduction efforts that benefit animals in the wild. It is one thing to evaluate captive-breeding programs designed to provide a steady supply of charismatic animals for zoo display. These have rightly drawn the ire of animal advocacy organizations as discussed earlier. It is another thing to assess those activities with the goal of recovering wildlife populations threatened in the field because of accelerating environmental change.

This does not mean that the ethical challenges of recognizing and promoting animal welfare concerns in ex situ research and conservation will or should be swept aside but rather that the more significant (and often more demanding) ethical questions, at least in our view, will take place on the species conservation side of the ethical ledger. These challenges will include the task of accommodating a philosophy of scientific and managerial interventionism in wildlife populations and ecological systems as rapidly emerging threats to species viability and ecosystem health move wildlife researchers and biodiversity managers into a more aggressive and preemptive role in conservation science and practice ( Hobbs et al. 2011 ; Minteer and Collins 2012 ). The risks attached to this shift include creating further ecological disruption by intervening in biological populations and systems, and a more philosophic consequence—the transgression of venerable preservationist ideals that have long inspired and motivated the efforts of conservationists and ecologists to study and protect species and ecosystems.

For example, ethical dilemmas surrounding the translocation of wildlife populations from native habitats to new environments, including temporary relocations to ex situ facilities such as zoos and aquariums, raise a set of difficult technical, philosophic, and ethical questions for conservation scientists and wildlife biologists ( Minteer and Collins 2010 ). Beyond the animal welfare or animal rights concerns about handling and moving animals that may experience considerable stress (or even mortality) during this process, such practices will also have implications for (1) the original source ecosystems (i.e., the community-level impacts of removing individuals from populations stressed by climate change), (2) the temporary ex situ facility that houses the animals (including shifts in resources and collection space as well as risks of disease transmission) (e.g., Greenwood et al. 2012 ), and (3) the native species present in the eventual “recipient” ecosystems once the wildlife are introduced ( Ricciardi and Simberloff 2009 ).

Another example is the practice of ecological engineering for species conservation in the wild, which can involve the significant modification (and even invention) of habitat to improve field conservation efforts. Along these lines, Shoo et al. (2011) have proposed considering and testing a number of interventionist approaches to the conservation of amphibian populations threatened by climate change. These include activities such as the manipulation of water levels and canopy cover at breeding sites as well as the creation of new wetland habitat able to support populations under variable rainfall scenarios. The investigators suggest employing an adaptive management protocol to experimentally determine whether and to what extent such manipulations are effective in the field.

Such conservation challenges and others like them ultimately compel us to rethink our responsibilities to safeguard declining species and promote ecosystem integrity and health in an increasingly dynamic environment. We believe that this analysis will also require a reassessment of wildlife research priorities and protocols (including the relative significance of animal welfare concerns in research and conservation) for some time to come.

The ethical terrain of zoo and aquarium research and conservation is experiencing its own rapid and unpredictable shifts that mirror the accelerating pace of environmental and societal change outside these facilities. What is required, we believe, is a more concentrated engagement with a range of ethical and pragmatic considerations in the appraisal of animal research under these conditions. The growing vulnerability of many species to the often lethal combination of climate change, habitat degradation, emerging infectious diseases, and related threats has created a sense of urgency within the biodiversity science community. We need to respond with research agendas that can help to understand and predict the impact of these forces on the viability of populations and species in the wild and to inform actions and policies designed to conserve these populations and species.

Part of this ethical appraisal will require asking some hard questions of zoos and aquariums regarding their priorities and abilities to assume this more demanding position in conservation science, especially because some observers have suggested a need for greater planning and research capacity in these facilities ( Anderson et al. 2010 ; Hutchins and Thompson 2008 ). Zoological institutions are idiosyncratic entities, and thus there is often a great deal of variability in how particular zoos and aquariums interpret their conservation mission (J. Mendelson, Zoo Atlanta, personal communication, 2012). The divide between mission and practice can produce significant challenges for these institutions as they take on a more aggressive conservation role. For example, and as mentioned above, many would argue that it is critical for zoos and aquariums to avoid becoming the final stop for species threatened in the wild. Instead, they should be true partners in what we have called an integrated, pan situ conservation management strategy across captive, wild, and semiwild contexts. The development by zoos and aquariums of more explicit reintroduction plans in such cases would therefore help ensure that their conservation ethic remains compatible with that of the wider community, which generally favors the maintenance of wild populations (i.e., in situ conservation) whenever possible.

One implication of this move by zoos and aquariums toward a more expanded research and conservation mission is that it will likely affect other zoo programs that have long dominated the culture and activities of zoo keeping. The display of exotic animals for public entertainment, for example, may be impacted as zoos and aquariums attempt to carve out more space for research and conservation activities, both in their facilities and in their budgets. On this point, Conway (2011) proposes that zoos will need to commit to creating more “conservation relevant zoo space” as they make wildlife preservation (and not simply entertainment and exhibition) their primary public goal. Yet such a shift in mission and programs could undercut public support for zoos, especially to the extent that the traditional displays of charismatic wildlife are reduced to accommodate a stronger conservation and research agenda.

An increased emphasis on climate change and its biodiversity impacts, too, could pose a challenge to zoos and aquariums wary of promulgating a negative or doom-and-gloom message to their visitors. Although some facilities are embracing this challenge and making climate change a part of their conservation education programming, some zoos and aquariums are struggling to incorporate this message within their more traditional educational and entertainment aims. For example, the Georgia Aquarium has apparently assured visitors that they will not be subjected to material about “global warming,” a concession, according to the aquarium's vice president for education and training to the conservative political leanings of many of the facility's guests ( Kaufman 2012 ). This example speaks to the larger challenge of moving zoos and aquariums into a stronger position of global leadership in conservation education, research, and practice under global change and other major threats to habitat and population viability in the coming decades.

Animal rights and welfare concerns will continue to be relevant to the evaluation of research and conservation activities under global change, but ultimately a more sophisticated and candid analysis of the trade-offs and the multiple imperatives of conservation-driven research on captive populations is required. Our understanding of these responsibilities—and especially the requirement of balancing animal well-being in practice in wildlife management and conservation policy—must evolve along with rapid climate change, extensive habitat fragmentation and destruction, and related forces threatening the distribution and abundance of wildlife around the globe. Unavoidable animal welfare impacts produced as a result of high-priority and well-designed conservation research and conservation activities involving captive animals will in many cases have to be tolerated to understand the consequences of rapid environmental change for vulnerable wildlife populations in the field. It will allow recovery and promote the good of vulnerable species in the wild more effectively under increasingly demanding biological conditions. Inevitably, these changes will continue to blur the boundaries of in situ and ex situ conservation programs as a range of management activities are adopted across more or less managed ecological systems increasingly influenced by human activities.

We thank Dr. Joseph Mendelson (Zoo Atlanta) and Dr. Karen Lips (University of Maryland) for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.

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Orcas perform at SeaWorld San Diego in 2014. The mammals are highly intelligent and swim vast distances in the wild. Research has documented stress-related behaviors in captive orcas for decades.

Orcas don’t do well in captivity. Here’s why.

The marine mammals, stars of amusement park shows around the world, have long died before their time.

In January 2019, Kayla died. She was a 30-year-old killer whale living at SeaWorld Orlando. If she’d been living in the wild, she’d likely have lived into her 50s, and possibly as old as 80. Still, Kayla lived longer than any captive-born orca in history.

It’s not clear what she died from (SeaWorld hasn’t released the results of her necropsy, and by law is not required to), but her immediate cause of death may not tell us much anyway: Often orcas technically die of pneumonia or other opportunistic infections that take hold because the animal is already weak, shows a database of necropsy reports kept by the Orca Project Corp., a nonprofit organization made up of marine mammal experts that advocates against orcas in captivity.

Seventy orcas have been born in captivity around the world since 1977 (not counting another 30 that were stillborn or died in utero), according to records in two databases maintained by cetacean experts. Thirty-seven of them, including Kayla, are now dead. Only a handful of wild-caught orcas have lived past age 30. No captive-born orca yet has.

There are currently 59 orcas in captivity at sea parks and aquariums throughout the world. Some are wild-caught; some were born in captivity. A third of the world’s captive orcas are in the United States, and all but one of those live at SeaWorld’s three parks in Orlando, San Diego, and San Antonio. Lolita, a 54-year-old orca who was captured in 1970 in the waters off Washington State, lives alone at the Miami Seaquarium, in a pool with an open-top roof that’s less than twice the length of her body.

An orca named Kayla, pictured at SeaWorld Orlando in 2011, died in January 2019 at 30 years old. In the wild, the average life expectancy for a female orca is 50, and some live to be 80 or 90.

Another 10 wild-caught orcas are currently held in sea pens in the Russian far east while the government investigates their possible illegal capture. If they end up being sold to aquariums, likely in China, the global captive orca tally could jump to 69.

Whether it’s humane to keep orcas in captivity is subject to vigorous debate. They are highly intelligent, social animals that are genetically built to live, migrate, and feed over great distances in the ocean. Orcas, whether wild-born or captive-bred, cannot thrive in captivity, says Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It’s partly their sheer size. Orcas are massive animals that swim vast distances in the wild—40 miles a day on average—not just because they can, but because they need to, to forage for their varied diets and to exercise. They dive 100 to 500 feet, several times a day, every day.

For Hungry Minds

“It’s basic biology,” Rose says. A captive-born orca that has never lived in the ocean still has the same innate drives, she says. “If you have evolved to move great distances to look for food and mates then you are adapted to that type of movement, whether you’re a polar bear or an elephant or an orca,” says Rose. “You put [orcas] in a box that is 150 feet long by 90 feet wide by 30 feet deep and you’re basically turning them into a couch potato.”

Rose explains that a primary indicator for whether a mammal will do well in captivity is how wide their range is in the wild. The broader their natural range, the less likely they are to thrive in confinement. This is the same reason some zoos have been phasing out elephant exhibits.

We can recreate terrestrial environments somewhat—like a savanna for example, she says—but we can’t recreate an ocean. “Not one marine mammal is adapted to thrive in the world we’ve made for them in a concrete box,” Rose says.

Those who study and work with captive dolphins (orcas are the world's biggest dolphin species) argue that it’s not about space but about whether orcas are given enough enrichment and training to get adequate exercise and mental stimulation.

SIGNS OF SUFFERING

It’s really difficult to prove what specifically shortens orcas’ lifespans in pools, animal welfare specialists say. “The thing with captive orcas is that their health is largely shrouded in mystery,” says Heather Rally, a marine mammal veterinarian at the PETA Foundation. Only people who are employed by a facility keeping orcas actually get close to them, and not much of that information is made public.

But it’s clear, say welfare specialists, that captivity can compromise orcas’ health. This is evident in killer whales’ most vital body part: their teeth. A peer-reviewed 2017 study in the journal Archives of Oral Biology found that a quarter of all orcas in captivity in the U.S. have severe tooth damage. Seventy percent have at least some damage to their teeth. Some Orca populations in the wild also show wear and tear on their teeth, but it’s symmetrical and happens gradually over decades, in contrast to the acute and irregular damage seen in captive orcas. According to the study, the damage occurs largely because captive orcas persistently grind their teeth on tank walls, often to the point where the nerves are exposed. These ground-down spots remain as open cavities, highly susceptible to infection even if caretakers regularly flush them out with clean water.

This stress-induced behavior has been documented in scientific research since the late 1980s. Commonly called stereotypies—repetitive patterns of activity that have no obvious function—these behaviors, which often involve self-mutilation, are typical of captive animals that have little or no enrichment and live in too-small enclosures.

Orcas have the second largest brain of any animal on the planet. Like humans, their brains are highly developed in the areas of social intelligence, language and self-awareness . In the wild, orcas live in tight-knit family groups that share a sophisticated, unique culture that is passed down through generations, research has shown .

In captivity, orcas are kept in artificial social groups. A few captive orcas, like Lolita, live completely alone. Captive-born orcas are typically separated from their mothers at ages far younger than in the wild (male orcas often stay with their mothers for life), and are often transferred between facilities. Kayla was separated from her mother at 11 months old and moved between SeaWorld properties across the country four different times. The stress of social disruption is compounded by the fact that orcas in captivity don’t have the ability to escape conflict with other orcas, or to engage in natural swimming behaviors in pools.

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In 2013, the documentary film Blackfish laid bare the psychological toll of captivity, through the story of a wild-caught orca named Tilikum who had killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando. The film included testimony from former SeaWorld trainers and cetacean specialists, who argued that Tilikum’s stress directly led to his aggression towards humans (he'd previously killed another trainer at a non-SeaWorld park in British Columbia, Canada). Court records show that SeaWorld had documented, between 1988 and 2009, over 100 instances of their orcas being aggressive towards trainers . Eleven of those instances resulted in injury, and one in death. ( Read a Q & A with a former trainer who criticized SeaWorld for cruel treatment of orcas .)

Blackfish also included an interview with a former wild orca catcher, John Crowe, who described in detail the process of capturing juvenile orcas from the wild: the wails of babies trapped in the net, the distress of their family members that frantically crowded outside, and the fate of the babies that didn’t survive the catch. Those young orcas’ bodies were slit open, filled with rocks, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

A SEA CHANGE

The public reaction to Blackfish was swift and furious. Hundreds of thousands of outraged viewers signed petitions calling for SeaWorld to retire their orcas, or to shut down outright. Partner corporations like Southwest Airlines and the Miami Dolphins severed ties with SeaWorld. Attendance slipped, and its stock began a series of nosedives from which it’s never fully recovered. ( Read more: How far will the Blackfish effect go? )

“We were a fringe campaign. Now we’re mainstream. That happened overnight,” says Rose, who has been advocating for captive orca welfare since the 1990s.

Animal advocacy groups had for years tried to take legal action against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tasked with implementing the federal Animal Welfare Act, for failing to properly monitor the welfare of animals kept in captivity for entertainment. Efforts had never been successful says Jared Goodman, deputy general counsel for animal law at the PETA Foundation, who has participated in many of the lawsuits.

But in 2016, things began to change. California made it illegal to breed orcas in the state. Six months earlier, SeaWorld, which has a park in San Diego, announced that it would be ending its captive orca breeding program altogether, saying its current orcas will be the last generation to live at SeaWorld parks. Although 20 orcas and many other cetaceans continue to live and perform at its facilities, the company increasingly focuses its marketing on its amusement park rides.

At the federal level, Congressman Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, has repeatedly introduced a bill to phase out captive orca displays across the U.S . In Canada, a federal bill is poised to pass later this year that would ban all captive cetacean displays—not just orcas, but all dolphins, porpoises, and whales.

LOOKING FORWARD

But there’s the remaining issue of what to do with the 22 orcas in captivity in the U.S. and Canada if federal legislation shuts down captive facilities, or if captive facilities like SeaWorld agree to go one step further and retire their current orcas altogether. None of these animals could be released into the wild—they have become dependent on being fed by humans.

The Whale Sanctuary project , led by a group of marine mammal scientists, veterinarians, policy experts, and engineers, aims to establish large seaside sanctuaries for retired or rescued cetaceans. The idea is that the animals would able to live in cordoned-off habitats in the ocean while still being cared for and fed by humans. The group has identified potential sites in British Columbia, Washington State, and Nova Scotia. The logistics of making a sanctuary a reality will be complex, says Heather Rally, who is on the organization’s advisory board.

“We have sanctuaries for every other species,” she says. Despite the challenges, “it’s absolutely the time for a marine mammal sanctuary. It’s long overdue.”

The Whale Sanctuary Project hopes that they might eventually partner with SeaWorld in the rehabilitation process. SeaWorld opposes the concept of sea sanctuaries—referring to them as “sea cages,” and saying that environmental hazards and a radically new habitat would likely cause tremendous stress to their orcas and do more harm than good. SeaWorld has removed from its website a 2016 statement detailing its opposition, but a company representative confirms to National Geographic that SeaWorld’s position remains unchanged.

Although there appears to be some hope for the future of captive orcas in the West, in Russia and China, the captive marine mammal industry continues to grow. In Russia, the 10 recently-captured orcas languish in a small sea pen awaiting their fate. China now has 76 operational sea parks, with another 25 under construction. The vast majority of the cetaceans in captivity there were wild-caught and imported from Russia and Japan. ( Read: China's first orca breeding center sparks controversy .)

China “hasn’t had their Blackfish moment,” Rose says. But she is hopeful it will come, because she’s seen it come before.

“You would not have written this story ten years ago,” she says.

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