The Shocking Truth About What Happens to ‘Surplus’ Zoo Animals

by Corrine Henn  as published on One Green Planet

“These surplus animals are often sold and traded through an online database…”

photo by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation

When we capture animals from the wild and put them in zoos, these animals become commodities. They are stripped of their ability to display natural behaviors and lead a stilted existence filled with stress and boredom. Despite the harm that life in captivity does to zoo animals, both mentally and physically, many zoos run captive breeding programs. As such, zoos can sustain their captive animal populations and the draw of a new baby animal is a great way to get paying visitors in their doors. The only downside to captive breeding is the occurrence of “surplus” animals.

Unlike the many sanctuaries that take in abandoned and abused animals to live out the remainder of their lives, zoos don’t…