There are more than 5 million wild animals in zoos around the world. Each year, 500 thousand die in their facilities, which are never appropriated to host the species that have the right and the necessity of live for free.

Zoos were created in England in the beginning of last century to exhibit humans, especially those with disabilities and the ones of primitive origin. Quickly they realized that it was a trick against our own species and that it was inappropriate to exhibit abnormalities.

Then great primates and big animals substituted humans as entertainment objects. To fulfill the desires of the zoos, mainly in the most developed countries, a lot of orders spread out in the Third World, which hosts the most wanted species.

Millions of individuals of every species were taken out their habitat and sent to zoos in the five continents. Zoos grew up with no control and encouraged some people to have their own private zoos. From dictators to artists, including leaders of drug trafficking, as Pablo Escobar, had or have their own zoos, taking important animals out of their habitat just to enrich their collection.

The obsession got to a point that today, for instance, there are more than seven thousand tigers in the backyards of North-American houses, an amount higher than the population in the wild – today there are not more than five thousand tigers living for free.

When the zoos realized they were being attacked and exposed for society due to their fauna predator activity to enrich collections, they created a justification to their existence: to educate the youths, preserve threatened species and show kids the most exotic species that live in the wild. But the real function of the zoos is to amuse the public and this remained hidden, as long there was no explanation for destruction of nature aiming to entertain people.

If there was no replacement of species, possibly Brazilian zoos would not have one third of the great primates they had ten years ago; more than 70% of great apes in Brazilian zoos died in the last ten years. And there were not more deaths because GAP Sanctuaries rescued a lot of apes that were threatened to death.

When São Paulo zoo tried to shut us up in the Justice five years ago, due to our denounce of the death of all its great primates in a few weeks, it argued that “our denounce had avoided the zoo to replace the dead species coming from other sources and zoos”. Months later the zoo received eight chimpanzees from Portugal and two orangutans from Europe, replacing those who died in an early age, probably due to a viruses infection transmitted by rats, which has never been explained.

Now the case of gorilla Idi Amin and the two females, imported with a high cost from England, to live near or together with the male, who lives more than 25 years by himself, has only one objective: “publicity to the zoo of Minas Gerais and to the politicians of the state”. A TV news show of great audience presented the story and the host repeated several times “the only zoo in South America that has a group of gorillas.”

What society must discuss is the need of the existence of zoos in the way they are today, which causes them to be predators of the species in the wild to complete their collections. Do human beings not have enough entertainment resources today, especially with the latest electronic and cybernetic launches, to continue to encage millions of innocent beings, which die prematurely due to a life out of their natural habitat? Is it ethical, humane, logical or legitimate condemning to death 500 thousand wild animals each year to entertain humanity?

Think, Argue, Discuss, React and Prevent this massacre to continue!

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International