Why would it be dangerous to keep wild animals in zoo?

Answer 1

What if they escape? You wouldn't like that would you? Also wild animals are supposed to be in the wild unless they are sick or injured. For example, a lion wouldn't like to have strangers staring at him and surrounded by glass.

Answer 2

Holding animals with "wild" genes has been an extremely large controversy for decades, never being as big a problem as right now. I, an animal activist, believe their are many reasons for different species of animals why they should not be kept in zoos, however, there are a few animals that are of specific concern when debating the matter of zoo animals. The first is the elephant. The elephant, especially the African elephant, are known for their habit of travel many miles daily, constantly migrating and moving. Therefore, when locked up in zoos, no matter the size of the "habitat", the elephants are forced to stay in a relatively tiny area. This commences to then cause stress, occasionally fatal, in the normally-migrating animal. This is just one situation that may lead to a "vicious attack" on a keeper that happens to wander in to the enclosure at the wrong moment. The second animal that I am going to talk about is the tiger. Tigers are already being pushed to the brink of extinction by poaching. Tigers are extremely often poached simply for their coat. Then, people try to take tigers into zoos and hope to bring the population back, only to worsen the problem. The stress that I talked about is the same here, except it is caused by a different reason. Like all carnivores, tigers spend much time in the wild hunting and perfecting their stalking, attack and other such skills. Now picture this: You are a tiger. Your whole life, all you've done is hunt and sleep. All of the sudden, you are taken and plopped in a zoo. Now how are you to spend your time. You can't hunt. You probably cannot sleep during the day because it is so loud and their is so much commotion. Your only meals are pre-killed, pre-prepared deer (at some zoos they do not even have the decent to serve that. Instead you are served lots of small mammals, again pre-killed and pre-prepared.) tossed into your again tiny enclosure. That is your life in a zoo.

So, that's pretty much why it's a bad idea to keep animals in zoos. Now that is not to say that there are no way to keep wild animals in contained enclosures. But zoos are definitely not one of them. Animal activists like me are usually all for animal parks and wildlife refuges. But, to lock up poor animals in an undersized enclosure, completely out of line!