Virtuous viewers, this is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television with today’s program focusing on animals in captivity and the horrific suffering they endure.

Zoos around the world vary widely in size, but whether they are large or small the animals they house, who are used to roaming wide expanses of wilderness, swimming freely in the deep oceans, or flying through vast blue skies, do not belong in concrete-and-steel exhibits. No matter how hard a zoo tries to enhance its animal enclosures, the fact remains that its residents are not free and can never experience the complex social, environmental and physical benefits that nature bestows.

Zoos are businesses that rely on income from ticket sales and the selling of merchandise in order to continue to operate. To keep costs low many zoos are under-staffed, and those who are employed there may lack the training and skills to properly care for the sensitive animals. Thus the residents’ welfare is low on the priority list when zoos try to stay profitable.

Let’s first examine from where the imprisoned beings in zoos are obtained. Some are bred in the zoos, a process fraught with danger and untold misery for the animals involved. In order for successful captive breeding to occur, the conditions must be as close to the animals’ natural environment as possible in terms of climate and habitat. A large enough space, minimal human contact and a population of sufficient size to avoid the negative effects of inbreeding are also required.

Small gene pools lead to inbreeding and in turn decreased vigor, longevity and survival rates among offspring. As zoos can never provide the ideal circumstances for natural breeding, they typically resort to the degrading, painful and emotionally damaging process of artificial insemination. Let’s learn about this procedure from Catherine Doyle, the elephant campaign director of the esteemed US-based non-profit animal welfare group, In Defense of Animals.

Elephants in zoos are not breeding well and of course that’s because of being kept in these very small exhibits and in unnatural conditions. And that includes not just the physical conditions, but also being kept in inadequate social groups, and really living a life that bears very little semblance to what they would have in the wild.

So what the zoos are trying to do now to overcome problems with breeding is they are using artificial insemination with elephants. And though humans may choose this procedure, the elephants certainly do not. And we believe it is cruel and invasive to be performing artificial insemination on elephants.

And even given those efforts, though I would say, they’re not succeeding very well with that either. And again, as long you’re keeping elephants in these unnatural conditions and inadequate conditions, they are going to continue to have problems with lack of breeding success as well as reproductive disorders and several different health issues as well.

Some zoos bring in animals that are bought from circuses or captured from the wild, showing they have no real intent to support conservation efforts. Private collectors may trap the animals and then sell them to zoos. The rarest animals are most in demand and thus fetch the highest prices. The process of capturing wild animals is highly stressful for them and many are injured or killed in the process.

A kidnapped animal is ripped away from their family, causing great distress to its members as well as to the individual involved. Next, the frightened animal is shipped in dark, cramped, dirty boxes over thousands of kilometers. During the journey many animals die from heat exhaustion, thirst, starvation or lack of medical supervision.

What awaits abducted wild animals when they finally arrive at their destination? The only way to describe it accurately would be a “life long prison sentence.” It is well documented that captive animals have much shorter life spans than their counterparts in the wild.

For example, a recent study conducted by the University of Guelph in Canada examined the longevity of African and Asian elephants in European zoos between 1960 and 2005 and concluded that while elephants in their natural habitat can live for 50 or more years, African elephants in captivity live on average only 17 years and Asian elephants only 19 years.

Now let’s look at the conditions in zoos and their adverse physical and psychological effects on their inmates. First, the area within many zoo enclosures is extremely limited. Most large zoos are located in or near major cities where land is scarce. This often means that some of the world’s fastest land animals don’t even have enough space to trot, and birds that are used to soaring in the sky can barely flutter around in their metal cages.

Polar bears having a normal range of approximately 80,000 square kilometers, are kept in small concrete pools. Currently there is only one captive polar bear in Britain. According to the Born Free Foundation, a UK-based non-profit wildlife conservation group, 12 out of 20 or 60% of polar bears that formerly lived in British zoos were found to be mentally deranged as a result of their exceedingly poor and cramped living conditions.

In the wild, animals naturally distribute themselves into groups of various sizes. In other words, social animals such as elephants and wolves need to live in appropriately sized herds or packs. Normally solitary animals should not be forced to live with others. These important points are rarely taken into consideration by zoos. Rather space availability and cost of housing are the overriding factors for these animal prisons. When we return we’ll continue our program on captive animals in zoos. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

This is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television where we are examining zoos and the many reasons why these institutions should be immediately closed as the animals within them are living under abusive and unnatural conditions and deeply suffering.

The way that elephants suffer in zoos, certainly, well, there are a few different levels of it, but one of the most disastrous I would say, for elephants, is foot and joint disease. And that’s caused by not having space for movement, and also by standing on hard surfaces like concrete, but also even hard-packed soil because when the elephants walk on it, it becomes hard, and becomes compacted. So what this does is it causes irreparable damage to their feet and joints and that, in many cases, leads to an elephant’s death.

Animals also need psychological and physical stimulation through play, foraging and other natural behaviors. No matter how many toys or pieces of play equipment a zoo may provide, they are never enough to equal the conditions provided by Mother Nature. The variety is simply not there nor can it be created in such artificial settings. Animals also need privacy and shelter, and the psychological pressure of being constantly on display and stared at is simply too much for some.

In fact, captive primates often cover their faces with their hands in an attempt to hide from the public’s prying eyes. These inadequacies of zoo life cause frustration, boredom and stress in animals, leading to the mental condition known as zoochosis, whose symptoms are abnormal, repetitive behaviors such as swinging, bar biting, pacing and self mutilation. It is believed that not being allowed to follow their natural instincts damages neurotransmitters in animals’ brains, thus leading to psychosis.

An estimated 80-million of the world’s captive animals suffer from some form of zoochosis. Big cats pace endlessly and obsessively in their enclosures, wearing down grass and leaving their habitually trodden paths bare and great apes and elephants sway from side to side. Giraffes lick the walls and chew on the metal bars of their pens. Reptiles scratch the glass walls of their enclosures, unable to understand why they can’t escape. Gorillas driven insane purposely vomit and then eat it, repeating this behavior again and again.

So that is certainly a problem that’s pervasive in zoos. You also have other disorders, if you will, behavioral disorders. It’s very common in zoos to see elephants standing there swaying or rocking repetitively, just non-stop. Or bobbing their heads up and down, that’s an abnormal behavior; it’s not seen in the wild. And again this is caused by living in an impoverished environment where they don’t have the space, they don’t have choice. And they certainly don’t have the stimulation that they would naturally have in a complex environment.

More often than not, the food provided by zoos fails to meet the nutritional requirements of their residents. In the wild, animals spend hours foraging for food, with elephants spending up to 20 hours a day in this behavior. Also, most animals’ natural diet consists of a variety of fresh food items, but in zoos the provisions are not as varied or fresh. Moreover, zoo animals are fed at certain times once or twice a day.

However, this routine usually causes health problems in many wild animals, as they have specialized stomachs that are used to receiving food all day in small amounts. Eating only once a day may thus cause gastric disorders such as ulcers, further adding to their stress.

Elephants will eat over a hundred different types of foods. And yet in a zoo, that elephant will be very limited. And they will be eating hay, which is dry. It’s already cut, right? So they’re eating dry hay. They’ll be given some vegetables; they’ll be given some supplements in that as well. But certainly you do not have anywhere near the variety in a captive situation that you would in the wild.

After zoos close for the day, the animals are moved to even smaller night quarters where they wait until the following day to be let out. For all these reasons and more it must be emphasized again that zoo animals have shorter lives compared to those living in nature. In 1991, 25 Asiatic lions were born in zoos and 22 died shortly afterwards. In the same year 166 cheetahs were born, of which only 54 survived.

In one Australian zoo, approximately 30 animals died in a four-month period, a rate much higher than found in native environments. Thus, the situation is truly dire for any animal unfortunate enough to be locked up in a zoo. How do we address this huge injustice to our animal brethren?

Please inform your friends and families of the cruelty inflicted on zoo animals and encourage them not to visit such places as they rely on our patronage to survive. With enough people electing to support nature conversation projects and other constructive initiatives instead, these institutions will soon close and all animals can live free.

We would like to thank Catherine Doyle and In Defense of Animals for their compassionate work in protecting the precious fauna of our planetary home and especially for advocating on behalf of zoo animals. We wish them the very best of success in their mission to inform the public that all animals are our brothers and sisters.

For more details on In Defense of Animals, please visit www.IDAUSA.org

Loving viewers, thank you for your presence today on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May Heaven always preserve the natural beauty of our world.

A heartening new trend is occurring as farmers around the world switch from livestock raising to peaceable livelihoods.

I witnessed how animals suffered on the factory farms. And when we would take the animals to be sold, they would look at us as if one of the family members was going away. I couldn’t bear such scenes. These scenes were a kind a torture for me.

We need to learn that God left us the lands for us to take care of them, to protect them, not to destroy them.

Watch parts one and two of “Planting New Seeds: Livestock Farmers Switch to New Careers” Friday, June 4 and Saturday, June 5 on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants.