Zoos Exemplar Grade 6
Prompt: You have read two texts and viewed one video that claim that the role of the zoos is to
protect animals. Write an essay that compares and contrasts the evidence each source uses to
support this claim. Be sure to use evidence from all three sources to support your response.
A zoo's job has always been to 'protect' animals. Each of these texts and the video offer
evidence to suggest they do just this. The first text, “Zoos Go Wild,” explores the historical context of zoos, and how they have changed to become more like the natural habitats of the animals. The video
then details how a zoo now cares for lion cubs. The second text, “Stripes Will Survive,” overviews steps
zoos take to ensure the continuation of animals possibly going into extinction, focusing on the Siberian
Tigress. These texts and the video provide various similar and different evidence supporting the idea
that a zoo’s main purpose is to protect its animals, and this has not changed. But what has changed over
the past few decades is the question of what protecting animals actually means, and from what we are
protecting them.
Early zoos, described in “Zoos Go Wild,” had a greater focus on displaying animals for human
enjoyment and less on protecting them, and that limited focus that was given to protection was of
dubious quality. For example, this text stated that Willie, a gorilla, survived for 27 years in a zoo, but
degenerated from having a gentle nature to one of anger and hostility due to the quality of his
experience. While there were superficial attempts to protect Willie from unhappiness such as giving him
a television, more attention seemed to focus on displaying Willie. This text explains, "their primary
mission [was] simply to collect and display as many different species of animals from around the world
as they possibly [could].” Yet, even these early zoos still protected animals from predators, kept them healthy, and attempted to make the animals happy, which can be viewed as a form of protection as
well, even if misguided notions such as giving televisions to them were used to do this.
“Zoos Go Wild” then shows how zoo designers evolved now to "study not only what the habitats
[of various animals] looked like but how the animals used the space and behaved in it." Zoos now
consider the animals’ needs more carefully and find ways to make their habitats more authentic. Not
only are animals protected in the safety of the zoo (away from predators and poachers), they can have
more favorable and comfortable living situations to best ensure their overall health and happiness. As a
result, the animals now thrive in new open-air type enclosures where animals’ social needs are also
taken into account.
Also in sharp contrast to the story of the gorilla in the cage for 27 years, in the video “Seven Frisky Lion Clubs”, Craig Saffoe, curator at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, discusses how zoos go to
even greater lengths to best meet the needs of animals such as the cubs, so as to protect them more
effectively, even from well-intentioned humans. He mentions how one’s natural instinct would be to go and care for a cub’s health when it is born or to satisfy the needs of curiosity by feeling the animals.
However, through their understanding, the curators have learned early on the cubs are best taken care
of by their mother to allow for “nature to take its course.” This text illustrates the strong need for zoos to learn about the needs of each particular animal and to make the appropriate changes to best protect
the animal. Although this differs from Willie’s zoo experience at first, the approaches are more similar 65
when after 1961, Willie’s zookeepers changed the habitat and zoo design for Willie to make it more
natural as well.
Likewise, in the third source, “Stripes Will Survive,” the tigers Tatja, Gaia, and their cubs Danya and Dasha, exhibit similar behavior to tigers in the wild, suggesting they are comfortably “protected” and well-adapted to their environment. They are happy in animal terms. Tatja, the father, is "mellow,"
and Gaia, the mother, is "an absolutely perfect mother—tolerant, loving, and protective." If she were
stressed, it would be unlikely she would take care of her cubs so well. This suggests zoos are doing
better work in protecting animals on a more fundamental, emotional level. Yet in this third source on
tigers the concept of protection goes even further. These tigers are becoming extinct, and as a result,
the notion of protection has now evolved to one of ensuring that species do not go extinct. Humans are
not only caring for these animals but are protecting them from other humans. One way they are doing
this is to "teach the public about the plight of tigers and do research." Other related organizations like
the World Wildlife Fund try to educate local populations not to kill and poach these endangered
animals. Even Saffoe, the curator of great cats at the Smithsonian's National Zoo, explains how their real
goal is now not just the animal's happiness but breeding for "the most genetically stable population
possible."
We have come a long way from a centuries-old urge to consume and collect as much as
possible, putting anything and everything on display in order to assert a person's wide travels and
ownership of odd 'curiosities.' Animals in zoos are respected and well-cared for. Humans no longer
follow misguided notions of protection by using cages, or even well-intentioned practices such as
touching baby animals, and they even go as far as to seek to protect the animals from extinction. Saffoe
attributes the zoo's extreme luck not so much to being able to protect the lions, as to the fact that "only
a handful of people on the planet have seen things that we're seeing, and it's pretty unbelievable." At
some level, it still looks like zoos are about us humans, even if zoos claim that their role to protect is
paramount.
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