For the closure of the Himeji City Zoo and the end of all animal arrests and tortures

Opened on 1st December 1951 to celebrate the completion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty (between the Allied forces and Japan, signed in 1949 to end officially the Second World War and specify the compensation to civilian allies who had suffered crimes of war by the Japanese imperial forces), the Himeji City Zoo, with its four animal enclosures (the House of Reptiles, the Inner Pit, the Interaction Farm and the Mini Farm) that most resemble detention centers and concentration camps, is completely outdated and scrapped, light years away from modern animal welfare standards.

Tourists from all over the world who visited the Himeji City Zoo and who had already visited other zoos in different countries, confirm my impressions and say that they have never seen anything so sad and disgusting. You can check out hundreds of horrified testimonies and vehement protests against the Himeji City Zoo on the internet. On the Tripadvisor platform, for example, there is no lack of reports of people who witnessed, like me, desolate and highly stressed animals gnawing the doors and bars of the cages, walking like crazy in their cages, and even banging their heads against the cages bars. The enclosures are so small that animals can barely move and exercise, especially those that share space with several others of their kind. The majority recommendation is “Do not go there”, “Horrible place, avoid it!”, unless, of course, you want to be sad and revolt. I even made a point of writing a review denouncing the terrible conditions of the Himeji City Zoo.

Here are some eloquent testimonies I selected:

"There was a polar bear walking around in a cage no more than 5 meters wide and a 42-year-old elephant who must have spent his life in an area the size of a small urban garden."

"Large animals like polar bears, hippos and lions are kept in tiny enclosures!"

"The polar bear had a pool that was so small that it couldn't even swim."

"The polar bear is literally 10 meters from the camel and 20 meters from the hippo."

“The zoo had two polar bears in small enclosures with a small pool. I visited during the heat wave, when temperatures reached 40 degrees, but there were no additional measures for polar bears to cool off. I was horrified that a zoo like this was still in operation.”

“Absolute atrocity. I was literally heartbroken to see animals walking around in small cages.”

"It is depressing to see two polar bears in such a small cage walking around all day, with only a small puddle of water on each side of the cage to cool off."

“On a very hot day, the elephant had no access to water and continued to raise its leg and cross it repeatedly in 1, 2, 1, 2. Polar bears were walking in anguish around their cages.”

“My heart sank when I saw a huge polar bear squeezed into a tiny cage. He was lying in his own excrement and was obviously very dehydrated, as his breathing was very rough and his jowl was dry."

“This place just sucks the joy out of you! The animals are kept in extremely small and dirty cages, with little space to move! Avoid the place if you have any respect for life. This place is just not depressing for a sadistic person.”

“We went there just for fun, as it was very cheap, but we were shocked by the standards of this zoo. The poor animals live in terrible conditions, in tiny cages. I don't understand how this is still allowed. These poor animals cannot even be close to being happy to live in such conditions. This is really a shame!”

“Small enclosures, distressed animals, aging infrastructure. We all left depressed with the quality of life of those animals.”

“The animals looked stunned. One of the two grizzly bears was pacing back and forth repeatedly - he was obviously having mental problems.”

“I visited a lot of zoos during my travels and in Japan I was also at the Tokyo Zoo and the Kobe Animal Kingdom, where the animals seemed happy and better taken care of. The Himeji City Zoo, however, should be closed, as it does not care at all about animal welfare.”

“If there is an animal rescue association in Japan, I ask you to do something to free these animals from a terrible existence that they DO NOT deserve. The way they live in prison is tremendously cruel. If I could have, I would have freed them myself.”

"The saddest place in Japan."

Himeji city authorities urgently need to rethink and reconsider the existence of this macabre zoo that is on the same perimeter as the castle that receives a large influx of foreign tourists, as many of these end up leaving a very bad impression of Japan if they decide to visit the zoo as well. There is not a single happy animal in this place. The Himeji City Zoo simply dishonors the city and Japan as a whole. It is more than just for the sake of promoting a good image of the country, that politicians and administrators sympathize with animals and make a drastic change in their policy, in response to the calls of animal rights organizations and preservationist groups to put an end to this pitiful and sinister situation.

That animals that had, for some reason, to be removed from their natural habitats, are not kept in zoos, but in animal sanctuaries not open to public visitation, in order to guarantee their tranquility and well-being. Confinement and overexposure generate strong traumas and psychological disturbances in animals, which are very stressed by the lack of space and mobility and the constant and invasive presence of onlookers, who sometimes treat them only as objects of amusement and even perversion. In these sanctuaries, only the presence of biologists, zoologists, veterinarians and other specialists would be allowed, with visitation being monitored and strictly controlled, with few people at a time and in restricted places, with the utmost respect for the privacy and condition of each animal in a very different from the permissiveness of public visitation.

In sanctuaries, animals are also held captive, however, unlike zoos, there is no intention to maintain captivity indefinitely. Zoos exist with a focus on the visiting public, while sanctuaries exist with a focus on animals. It is not, therefore, a “romantic view” or idyllic, but an objective finding, based on a sensible comparison. Sanctuaries exist to maintain and assist animals in need: animals that were rescued from institutions where they were exploited, animals run over or injured, animals displaced due to the suppression of their natural environments, animals recovered from trafficking, etc. The purpose of a sanctuary is noble: to protect animals, rehabilitate them and then reintroduce them into their natural habitats.

A HORRIBLE PLACE: What I saw, photographed and filmed at Himeji City Zoo, the terror zoo

I wonder what crime these animals committed to have been condemned to being trapped in tight spaces, many of them dirty and with little water or food.

I was moved when I approached a cage where there was a Cockatoo (Salmon-crested cockatoo), a bird of the order of the Psittaciformes, originally from Indonesia and whose habitat is the coastal regions, mountains and forests. When she saw me, she grabbed the bars of the cage and tried to communicate with me, as if asking for help, to get her out of there. She kept saying the word “ohayo” (good morning in Japanese), which someone must have taught her, and stretching her claws out of the cage, so I stretched out my arm and hand to try to touch them, but I couldn't reach them due to the distance... It seemed that she needed some kind of contact, affection or attention...

The stressed and needy Salmon-crested cockatoo, confined in its tiny cage, seeking to make "contact" with this author, as if asking to be released.

These are Red Macaws (Ara chloropterus), a parrot bird, native to the forests of Brazil (also found in Panama, Paraguay and Argentina). In Brazil, they can be found from the Amazon to the west of Piauí, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and São Paulo. The macaw's nest (a word that comes from the Tupi a'rara, ararapiranga being the Tupi term for red macaw) is made in hollows of trees or in holes in rocky walls, where it lays the eggs, which are hatched only by the female, who stays in the nest. The one who takes care to guarantee the feeding of both the female and the young is the male, who, in this species, is faithful, believe me, keeping the same companion throughout his life.

A blue macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus), bird of the Psittacidae family from the biomes of the Amazon Forest or the savannah and wetland.

A military macaw or green macaw (Ara militaris), originally from the forests of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador or Peru.

These are already from Japan, and they are very rare. They are Manchurian Cranes or Japanese Cranes (Grus japonensis), currently at risk of extinction (the sum of the mainland migratory population from Korea, China, Mongolia and Russia and the Japanese resident in Hokkaido, does not reach 1,830). With a height of approximately 1 meter, it has a white color on the body and wings and black on the neck and tip of the wings, and a red hood on the head. His elegant dance inspired many Japanese artists. Clad in a mythical aura, tanchōzuru, as they are called in Japan, are believed to live for 1,000 years. A pair of red crowned cranes was used in the design of the 1000 yen D Series banknote (back). Cranes are said to grant favors in exchange for acts of sacrifice.

Given the crane's reputation, Jerry Huff, an American brand specialist, recommended it as the international logo for Japan Airlines (JAL), after seeing a representation of it in a samurai coat of arms gallery. Huff wrote: "I had faith that it was the perfect symbol for Japan Airlines, as the crane mates for life (loyalty) and flies high for miles without getting tired (strength)."

A pair of Temminckii Pheasants (Tragopan temminckii),found in the Himalayas, East of Arunachal Pradesh, from Southeast to Northeast Burma and North Vietnam, and North to Central China. In this species the males have the whole body with a red color, speckled with white balls and the black head and a blue mask, while the females have a grayish brown color speckled with white balls. Its diet consists mainly of leaves, flowers, grass stems, ferns, bamboo shoots, mosses, insects and seeds from a wide variety of plant species (46 registered species). The mating dance of this bird is very beautiful: the male inflates a kind of crop, which forms a multicolored “bib”. Another curiosity of this species is that because they are arboreal birds, the chicks need to accompany their parents after birth, so that they are already born with flight feathers and very prominent nails that help them climb.

What a sad and miserable life for this couple, far from their habitat, which is dense forests or mixed bamboo and rhododendrons.

Seeing an animal as noble as the eagle, with its elegant and admirable size, majestic and proud, oppressed and reduced to nothing, locked inside a cage, is painful. Venerated as mystical and religious symbols for its sovereignty, beauty, courage, strength and grandeur, and used as a symbol of power and authority in many cultures for its nobility, majesty, freedom, agility and other virtues, the image of the eagle is inextricably associated with leadership, elevation, determination, overcoming and victory. Who has not used the expression “eagle eyes” to refer to visionary people who see beyond and are able to advance, overcome limits and reach the top? And, in fact, one of the few animals that sees more and better than man is precisely the eagle.

In Ancient Egypt, the eagle was the symbol of Eternity and its image appeared on the royal emblem used by the pharaohs, as a symbol of power. In Freemasonry, it is the symbol of transcendence and spiritual strength. For Hindus, it was the eagle who brought the sacramental drink "Soma", used in their religious rituals and ceremonies. In Scandinavian mythology it is associated with the god Odin. The Greek god Zeus is symbolized by an eagle. In Celtic culture it is a symbol of rebirth and renewal. In Ancient Rome, the eagle was the symbol used by General Julius Caesar. In Christianity, the eagle is a celestial symbol and of communication with the divine, mentioned in several biblical passages. In alchemy it is the symbol of transformation. In the Byzantine Empire, the double-headed eagle (two heads) was a symbol of the emperor's double power, who was both a political and religious representative. In the Aztec Civilization, the eagle was a divine symbol and its representation appeared in the religious ceremonies of that people and as a historical and cultural heritage, the flag of Mexico has an eagle. For shamanism, the eagle is the guardian of the East, where everything originates and represents the connection of the Divine with the terrestrial. Native Americans worship the Great Golden Eagle, which has the power of the Great Spirit, representing the connection and balance of the spiritual realm with the physical realm. In Imperial Russia, a double-headed eagle represented the absolute power of the tsars. In monarchical Germany, the eagle was used as symbols of many princes and the main symbol of 19th century German reunification.

How sad it is to see these white-tailed eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) of such noble bearing reduced to nothing, without even being able to fly. His “eagle eyes” today are gnarled and aim only at emptiness. White-tailed eagles are a species that lives in northern Europe and Asia and have been heavily persecuted, as well as threatened by contamination with environmental pollutants, mainly insecticides. Its largest remaining population in Europe is found today in the fjords of Norway.

A hawk-winged hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), bird belonging to the family Accipitridae.It is distributed in the southwest of the United States (from Texas to California), in Mexico and in arid areas of Central and South America. It occurs in eastern, southern and central Brazil. North American subspecies are larger than those in Brazil, and in addition Brazilian individuals have a lighter plumage, while North American individuals have a very dark brown color. It is similar to an eagle and hunts in flocks of up to six individuals, allowing them to catch rabbits, which are quick to be hunted by a single bird. Here it is practically all the time just standing there like a statue and hunting only the void.

Owls, these nocturnal birds of prey, mysterious and mythical, capable of turning their heads up to 270 degrees and seeing both in the dark and in the light at great distances with their large, round eyes, are also kept imprisoned at the Himeji City Zoo. Symbols of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, are here prevented from using any of their innate abilities.

The desolate, sad and hopeless look of a Ural owl (Strix uralensis), whose name refers to the Ural Mountains, in Russia, and which are found in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and sporadically in central Europe across the Palaeártico, widely across Russia to the eastern tip of Sakhalin and across Japan.

A couple of snowy owls or arctic owls (Nyctea scandiaca), so called because they are distributed in the arctic regions of the old and new worlds. Highly nomadic, every 3-5 years mass movements of them occur in southern Canada and the northern United States. The sexes differ in the degree of dark pattern of the white plumage. Males have a white and ill-defined facial disc, with totally white upper parts and some dark spots on the tiny ear tufts, in the alula and in the tips of some primary and secondary. The tail feathers are almost all white, sometimes with indistinct terminal bars. The lower parts are all white. The tarsus and toes are densely streaked with white. The claws are blackened. The female has brown spots and smudges on the crown and upper parts. The flight and tail feathers are slightly brown. The lower parts are white, with brown spots and barred on the flanks and on the upper part of the chest.

I always wanted to see lemurs up close, but never in this depressing condition of prisoners, especially in the case of species so peculiar, rare and endemic, only found on the island of Madagascar and on some small surrounding islands like the Comoros. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), founded in 1948 and affiliated with UNESCO, based in Geneva, said in July 2020 that almost all of the 33 species of lemurs in Madagascar, all of them herbaceous, are threatened and about one third is on the verge of extinction, due to deforestation (less than 10% of the original forest in Madagascar now) and hunting.

Despite being similar to apes, in appearance and habits, lemurs [a name that derives from the Latin lemures, which means "spirit(s) of the night" or "ghost(s)", which is probably due to the fact that these creatures are white and mostly nocturnal], they have a muzzle that resembles that of a fox, large eyes, woolly hair, very soft, and a generally long and hairy tail. And unlike the rest of the primates, lemurs live in a matriarchal society. While their ancestors competed with monkeys and other primates, lemurs were safe, without any kind of competition, and therefore differed in a large number of species.

In 1864, in his workThe Mammals of Madagascar, the English zoologist and biogeographer Philip Lutley Sclater (1829-1913), using a classification he called lemurids, which includes groups of related primates, and intrigued with the presence of fossils of these animals in both Madagascar and India, but not in Africa or the Middle East, he proposed that Madagascar and India would have already been part of a larger continent, in what was correct, although that supercontinent was Pangea. For him, “The anomalies of the fauna of mammals of Madagascar can be better explained by supposing that a great continent occupied parts of the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and that this continent was divided into islands, of which some amalgamated in what is Africa , and some in what is now Asia.” Since in Madagascar and the Mascarenhas Islands there were relics of that great continent, Sclater then proposed the name Lemuria to him.

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), French naturalist and zoologist, considered the founder of teratology (branch of medicine that studies congenital malformations), had already suggested, two decades before Sclater, a southern continent, but did not give one name to him. The mistaken idea of ​​Lemuria was subsequently incorporated into New Age occult philosophy and theosophy, and even today there are those who believe that a giant continent existed in ancient times and sank under the ocean as a result of cataclysmic geological change, such as poles.

There are two genera of lemurs at the Himeji City Zoo. One of them is the Ring-tailed lemur, a primate strepsirrino more recognizable due to its black and white ringed tail.

It is behind the bars of this tiny cage that Ring-tailed lemurs live, like prisoners who have been convicted of a crime they did not commit.

The other genus is the Varecia (Ruffed lemur), which are the largest lemurs within the Lemuridae family and very sensitive to disturbance of their habitat. Of daytime habits, they are highly vowelish, and their screams are shrill, as I myself could hear. Varecias are considered an “evolutionary enigma”, as they are the largest of the existing species of lemurids, and show a different behavior, as they are the only primates that build nests for their newborns and still take them by the mouth and hide them when they leave to hunt.

Endangered in the wild due to loss of their habitat, they breed easily in captivity and have been gradually reintroduced into the wild since 1997. Organizations involved in the conservation of Varecia include the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Lemur Conservation Foundation (LCF), the Madagascar Fauna Group (MFG), Monkeyland Primate Sanctuary in South Africa, Wildlife Trust, and the Duke Lemur Center (DLC).

Varecia lemurs live withdrawn and unhappy in these cages that are far from reproducing their natural habitat in Madagascar.

Monkeys live in even worse conditions, in shy cages that offer little or no mobility. The species that exists there is the Guiana capuchin monkey (Broun capuchin), a New World capuchin monkey of the Cebidae family and Sapajus apellagenus. The species occurs in the forest of central-eastern Colombia, southern Venezuela, Guiana and Brazil, with the northern limits defined by the Orinoco River and the southern, southeastern and eastern limits by the Amazon Forest itself.

Guiana capuchin monkeys live in these tiny cages, without any space to move around.

The hedgehog or land urchin (Erinaceus europaeus), better known as porcupine, primitive insectivorous mammal of the Erinaceidae family, comprising 16 species that are distributed throughout almost the Iberian Peninsula, Western and central Europe, including the British islands, coastal and southern areas of Scandinavia, extending to the Baltic countries such as Finland, Estonia and western parts of Karelia, Russia. Its eastern border reaches the western portion of Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

The approximately six thousand sharp spines of 2 to 3 centimeters that cover the back and flanks of your body, except the muzzle and the belly, are modified hairs whose mobility is controlled by the muscles. When he feels threatened, the hedgehog curls himself, hiding the exposed parts of his body, such as the belly, the limbs and the head, becoming a “ball with spikes”, quite difficult to penetrate. However, they are not aggressive animals.

Despite the small legs, the hedgehog can travel one to three kilometers in a night looking for food, especially small insects. Its menu also includes wild fruits, seeds, earthworms, snails, birds' eggs (from nests that are built in the soil) or even small frogs and reptiles. Here, in his tiny cage, he can barely move and his thorns are bumping into the bars.

A caracal (Caracal caracal), wild cat also known as desert lynx or Persian lynx, carnivore of the felid family, close relative of the serval, coming from the steppes and deserts, as well as from the forests and savannas of Africa and the Southwest Asian. The caracal can reach more than 90 cm and weigh more than 18 kg, has long legs and a slender appearance. A wild caracal lives about 12 years, but in captivity it can reach 17 years old, and since it is an easy animal to domesticate, it is used for hunting activity in countries like Iran and India. Here he spends his days sad and huddled inside a “shelf” in his cell…

The desert lynx spends his days sad and huddled on a "shelf".

Even a Japanese raccoon dog, also known as a tanuki, a species of the Nyctereutes, a typical canidian family in Japan, has been imprisoned here. I say even because the tanuki have been revered by the Japanese since ancient times, seen as almost mythical beings, shapeshifters, masters of disguise, capable of changing their shape, including assuming the form of inanimate objects.

They say that the tanuki love sake, which is why they are often portrayed with a bottle of sake in one hand and a promissory note in the other (a bill they never pay). Tanuki statues can be seen especially outside restaurants and bars to attract customers. Often mistaken for the mujina (old Japanese term that mainly refers to the badger), he is to blame for all the ghostly apparitions. Arriving at drinks, food, women and mischief, the tanuki usually take leaves and turn them into money, deceiving everyone.

Prominent in Japanese folklore and proverbs, the tanuki are mischievous and cheerful, but here they live sad, sulky and shrunken.

A Japanese raccoon dog, contained here in its mimetic and mischievous abilities.

A red fox, so named because of its generally reddish-brown hair. Its habitat extends from North America to Eurasia, and in populations spread across North Africa. With nocturnal and twilight habits, it usually hunts small animals such as rabbits and hares, but its menu can be extended to rodents, birds, insects, fish, eggs and fruits, and if necessary, remains of human food and dead animals. Red Fox sport hunting is allowed in many countries in Europe and the United States, but in England, where hunting is considered a secular tradition, this practice was banned in 2005. If on the one hand it does not run the risk of becoming a target hunting here, on the other, this is one of the two subspecies of red fox native to Japan (Vulpes vulpes japonica) - the other is the Hokkaido fox (Vulpes vulpes schrencki) -, lives depressed, sleeping all day inside a crate, locked in a cement cell.

Keeping a kitsune (Japanese word for fox) like that for me is quite an act, a heresy that hurts the Japanese tradition itself, because foxes are very present in the folklore of the country, described as being intelligent beings and endowed with magical abilities, capacities that increase with your age and wisdom. Among these magical powers, like the dolphin in Brazil, would be the ability to assume the human form, usually of a beautiful woman, young or old. While some stories say that kitsunes use this ability only to deceive people, others portray them as faithful guardians, friends and even lovers. In addition to the ability to assume human form, they would possess the powers of possession, being able to generate fire from their tails and mouth, and the power to appear in dreams and to create illusions.

Locked in her “cell”, this red fox (Vulpes vulpes japonica) spends her days depressed and sleeping in a crate.

The lion (Panthera leo), a species of the genus Panthera and the family Felidae, from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, is classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and has suffered a population decline of 30-50% in the last two decades in African territory, where it preferably lives in open grasslands and savannas. In Asia, the lion is confined to a single protected area and its population is stable, but it is classified as "endangered", since the population is no more than 350 animals, that's right.

There is no doubt that it is better to face a lion up close when he is imprisoned, but seeing the king of animals in these conditions, precisely because of his majestic image of peaceful grandeur, justice and loyalty, is depressing. The lion translates wisdom, power and justice, bravery and nobility, as well as pride, dominion and security, and in various religious cultures in the world it is also associated with the figure of the father, the master, the chief or the emperor, who can be protective or tyrant. Above all, it is a solar and luminous symbol (its mane would represent the rays of the sun) and has been widely represented in sculptures, paintings, national flags and coat of arms for millennia by various civilizations and cultures in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Lions that once reigned in the African savannas reduced to the condition of prisoners and exposed to public humiliation in small cages. The lioness sleeps the sleep of the just and certainly dreams of her home of origin...

Recognized as the national and state animal of several European countries, the brown bear (Ursus arctos) is found in parts of Russia, Central Asia, China, Canada, the United States (mainly in Alaska), Scandinavia and the Carpathian region (especially the Romania), Anatolia and the Caucasus.

This brown bear (Ursus arctos), one of the largest carnivorous mammals, is barely seen, losing only in body size to its close relative, the polar bear, behind these thick bars.

Inhabitant in African savannas, zebras are mammals of the same family as horses, equines, but unlike them, they have never been domesticated and live from small harems to large herds.

Previously it was believed that zebras were white animals with black stripes, but embryological evidence showed that the animal's background color is black and the stripes are white. Several hypotheses try to explain the reason for the stripes, among them are camouflage (the stripes can help to confuse predators), control of the body temperature (underlying mechanism to suppress the warming) and even repellent effects (experiments indicate that the stripes are effective in attract less flies, including blood-sucking tsetse flies and horseflies).

This lone zebra in its small enclosure at the Himeji City Zoo spends most of its time static, looking out into the void.

The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), the only living species of the Elephas genus, which originated in Sub-Saharan Africa during the Pliocene (last time of the ancient Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era, between about 5 and 2 million years) and spread across Africa before migrating to South Asia. The first indications of the domestication of Asian elephants are engravings that date back to the third millennium BC.

In danger of extinction, it is threatened mainly by hunting and destruction of its habitat in Southeast Asia (India and Nepal) and in the west and east of Borneo. In 2003, the wild population was estimated at around 50 thousand individuals. Female captive elephants easily exceed 60 years of age when kept in semi-natural environments, such as fields and forests. In zoos, however, Asian elephants usually die quite young.

Despite their 5 ton weight, Indian elephants move with relative agility and safety, even in mountainous terrain. The average speed of the march is 5 to 6 kilometers per hour, although they can run at more than 40 km / h if they are afraid or angry. They are good and resistant swimmers, a quality that in the past allowed them to colonize some Indonesian islands that could not be reached on foot, not even during the typical lowering of the Pleistocene seas (at the time of the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era between 2.588 million and 11.7 thousand years ago).

The lonely Asian elephant manifests clear symptoms of stress here: repetitive and monotonous movements, standing in the same place, not least because the available space is very small. The life span of an African elephant in zoos is also reduced: on average it is 16.9 years, very little compared to 56 years for elephants that die of natural causes in national parks, such as Amboseli National Park, Kenya.

The tallest mammal in the world, the reticulated giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata), also known as the Somali giraffe, a native subspecies of the Horn of Africa that lives in savannas, woodlands, seasonal floodplains and tropical forests in Somalia, southern Ethiopia and northern Ethiopia. Kenya, described and named by British zoologist William Edward de Winton (1856-1922) in 1899, is by far the most commonly seen giraffe in zoos along with Rothschild's giraffe.

To save the remaining 9,000 reticulated giraffes, several conservation organizations were formed. One of these is the “Twiga Walinzi” (meaning Giraffe Guards) initiative at San Diego Zoo Global, whose mission is to save wild species around the world.

And this couple of giraffes at the Himeji City Zoo needs to be rescued immediately and returned to their habitat, as they live in this situation that you are seeing, trapped in a small barred shed, without even being able to go out in the yard. Note the sad and distant look of this giraffe. It is heartbreaking.

The tallest mammal in the world can barely stretch its neck inside this stifling, suffocating and claustrophobic shed. His release is urgent.

NO MORE ZOOS: IT IS ALREADY OVER THE TIME OF THE HIMEJI CITY ZOO AND ALL THE ZOOS IN THE WORLD BEING CLOSED

We have no moral right, as a species, to allow animals to suffer just because we are curious about them. We humans do not have the right to deprive freedom and to make other beings vulnerable because of our mere interests. Observing the suffering of trapped animals is not really a leisure and entertainment activity, except for sadists. Would you agree, for example, that aliens visiting Earth would abduct humans and take them to their home planets to be displayed as "rare pieces" in their "zoos"? Well, this is the perverse logic of the zoo.

The act of imprisoning animals and placing them in captivity and in private collections dates back to time immemorial, to Prehistory, when they were captured and kept to be sacrificed and eaten at festivals where the regulars believed they were able to absorb the strength of animal themselves and its mystical powers. Thus, it was in the form of sacred orgies that the custom of keeping wild animals in captivity appears for the first time in history. In antiquity, Egyptian kings kept animals in their palaces or in sacred buildings, which were considered as sacred forms of their deities, such as snakes, eagles, crocodiles and hippos. Since that time, therefore, there has been an association between the habit of keeping wild animals in captivity, and the power of the aristocracy. The family of the pharaohs had lions close by, for example. The habit of keeping animals in captivity was common, for the same reasons, in all courts of the first civilizations, both in China, India, Babylon, Persia, Judea, Syria, Palestine, Greece and Rome.

In the Middle Ages, several sovereigns in Europe kept wild animals in their royal courts. The oldest example is that of the emperor Charlemagne, in the 8th century, who had three different collections in territories today corresponding to France, Germany and Holland. Their collections included elephants, monkeys, lions, bears, camels, hawks and many exotic birds. Many of these animals were gifts from sovereigns in North Africa and Asia.

The modern custom of collecting exotic animals was born in the French aristocracy of the 17th century. It was there that the term menagerie was used for the first time to designate a collection of captive animals, usually wild and exotic, of royalty or aristocracy, the most famous example being the collection of wild animals in the luxurious Palace of Versailles, which can be considered the predecessor of current zoos.

Until the early 19th century, collections of exotic animals generally belonged to kings and queens and were symbols of royal power. Little by little the “stables” were being “democratized” for the entertainment of the bourgeoisie.

The first scientific zoo in the world and intended to be a collection of unusual animals for scientific study, was established by the London Zoological Society at Regent's Park in 1828. Yes, it is necessary to consider that a lot of scientific research has been done since then, but the fact is that research with confined animals, outside their habitat, without the behavioral characteristics inherent to their natural environment, is worth little or nothing. Do confined animals provide fundamental and concrete data for research? No. Life at the zoo is so artificial that many animals exhibit behavioral disorders and their life span is radically altered. This research, therefore, to be scientifically validated, must be done in their own habitats or in natural protected sanctuaries. This is how zoos show society, in an antididactic and cruel way, an unreality of wildlife: animals living outside their environments, behaving in an unnatural way in reaction to a foreign environment.

In a world plagued by climate change and destruction of natural habitats, we must provide protection for endangered species by not confining them in zoos, but helping to preserve and restore these habitats and returning the animals that have been taken from them.

Find out the 5 reasons that make the zoo a torture environment

Source: Animal Rights News Agency [Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais – ANDA]

HUMAN CARRASCOS

Although zoos claim to play an important role in preservation and education, they are artificial and inherently cruel. The harm they do is infinitely greater than the supposed good.

Since 1250 BC, zoos have taken advantage of this, using animals behind bars for the entertainment of millions of people.

Life in a cage is not a real life. Below are five reasons listed by Care2 to explain why zoos are cruel:

1. Zoos don't have enough space

No matter how big some zoos make their enclosures look, or how many beautiful images they paint on their walls, or how many branches and plants they place around them - these spaces are in no way comparable to the habitat where animals have the right to live. They are much smaller and not at all stimulating.

This is a particularly critical case for those species that roam great distances in their native environment. Studies show that elephants (which typically walk about 40 km a day) are confined in spaces an average of 1,000 times smaller than their habitats, and polar bears are in spaces of area approximately one million times smaller than their territories in the Arctic.

2. Confined animals suffer behavioral disorders

The repetitive compulsive behavior - "abnormal repetitive behavior", or ARB - is the scientific term for behavioral disorders noticed in captive animals. This includes all kinds of behavioral deviations indicative of stress such as pacing (felines pacing repeatedly), or the habits of shaking your head, swinging from side to side, hitting walls, sitting to stand still and bite your own body. These behaviors, which are typical of animals kept in captivity like zoos, are attributed to depression, boredom and psychosis.

Although these signs of stress are common, many zoo keepers are unaware of them - or have no interest in recognizing them and explaining them to visitors. If the public begins to notice these problems, some places routinely administer anti-depressants or tranquilizers to animals to control such symptoms.

3. “Excess” animals are killed

There are animals considered “surplus” and unwanted, which results from systematic forced reproduction in zoos. These animals are killed (and in some cases their bodies are supplied as food to other animals), or are sold to other zoos or retailers. The sale of animals is a lucrative business and implies a chain of sneaky and unknown cruelty, with many animals being sent to hunting ranches, pet shops, taxidermists, circuses, the exotic food industry and even research laboratories.

Animal death in UK zoos is a regular occurrence. In 2005, two wolf cubs and an adult female were shot dead at Dartmoor Wildlife Park, "due to overcrowding and the financial crisis". A year later, in 2006, an entire pack of wolves was killed in Highland Wildlife Park, with a similar claim.

4. Animals are taken from nature

Despite the fact that zoos try to convey a different image of this reality, animals are still removed by force from nature. In 2003, UK authorities allowed 146 penguins to be caught in the South Atlantic and faced a 7-day boat trip as goods. Those who survived were given to a wild animal vendor in South Africa to be traded to zoos in Asia. Anyone who sees animals in a zoo does not see this ordeal that they (or their predecessors) certainly went through.

In 2010, Zimbabwe planned to capture two individuals of each mammal species that lived in Hwange National Park including lions, cheetahs, rhinos, zebras, giraffes and elephants, to send them to North Korean zoos. Fortunately, the plan was halted, but this came under a lot of pressure from several international animal rights organizations. As if that were not enough, numbers also show that 79% of all animals in aquariums, which are glass zoos, were captured in the wild.

5. Zoos do not assist in preservation or education

Zoos claim to act in preservation, often making the public believe that they breed animals with the intention of releasing them into the wild, but in reality these breeding programs are done primarily with the aim of keeping the population in captivity.

There is also the myth that zoos play an educational role in raising the awareness of children and adults about wild animals. However, the truth is that this gain in understanding about the animals' behavior and instinct when visiting these places is small, if it exists - not least because the animals do not behave in a natural way simply because they are confined. People can learn more about wild animals by watching documentaries that show them in their habitats or by undertaking specific expeditions to observe these animals in the wild.

If the five reasons above are not enough to overturn the validity of zoos as far as animal rights are concerned, we can still add the following facts, which are already common sense: animals in zoos die prematurely, suffer diseases resulting from inadequate care and neglect, and many venues train animals for circus-like performances.

The best way to bring an end to these places of confinement and compulsory cruelty to wild animals is to boycott and publicize these atrocities, to raise public awareness of this historical misunderstanding.

Observing the suffering of trapped animals is not really a leisure and entertainment activity, except for sadists.