Which side of the glass are the animals on?

We took our annual family trip to the Bronx Zoo yesterday, but this time around was a little different for me. For the first time, I was not so sure who was observing who.

Walking around the extremely crowded paths of the zoo, I noticed how strange it was for a place like this to even exist. Here were are, thousands of people from all over, all packed together in one small area to watch animals in cages. What!? What other species of animal congregates like we do to observe the behavior of other animals? Then you think, these animals are NOT behaving like they normally would in their natural state. How could they? They cannot hunt, they cannot run, they cannot explore their environment. They are domesticated. The animal has been taken out of them. They are acting quite human actually, all because we put them in a zoo so we could watch how they act. Then you look at us, pushing and shoving to get the best view, waiting on lines for food, getting aggravated, taking pictures, all sorts of strange behavior. It just makes me wonder if we are doing things right. I understand that human beings and animals are different, but why have we taken the liberty of enslaving these animals, why do we have that right?

Alright so maybe I am getting a little too cynical and just mad that my childhood naivety has gone, but part of my point is that humans are taking too much advantage of their ability. Just because we have "superior intellect and reasoning skills" does not mean we have the right to abuse other animals and do whatever we want with them. I will consent that part of what the zoo does is great; they are saving endangered species and attempting to learn more about our world through its inhabitants. But isn't there a more humane way of doing that? Let me rephrase because it probably is very humane, but it isn't very just. I just get so frustrated when people think that we have the privileged of walking around and doing whatever we want to the planet and everything in it. We have a responsbility to take care of it, not mutilate it.

So part of me is thinking I will never go to a zoo again. Another part of me thinks I will keep going because it has such amazing people watching opportunities. Maybe the animals don't have it that bad, perhaps they like the entertainment too.