C-E-R: Marking the Text
Instructions:
1. Read the article "Zoos should be Banned"
2. Find the claim in the article (should be 1 or 2 sentences) and Highlight it
RED
3. Find the evidence in the article (all of the evidence you find) and
Highlight it BLUE
4. Find the reasoning in the article (there will be multiple as well) and
Highlight it GREEN
5. Once you finish Highlighting, respond to the questions at the bottom
of the article.
Zoos should be banned
By Megan Zhou
1. Picture a zoo. Are you imagining a nice place for wild animals to live?
If you are, think again. Zoos are harmful to animals. They should be
shut down for good. There are three main reasons why. First, zoos breed
animals without thinking of the animals' well-being. Second, zoos do not
help animals return to the wild. Third, they do not take care of the
animals they have.
2. The first reason zoos should be shut down is that they allow captured
animals to breed. When animals breed, they have babies. Zoos want to
have baby animals. They draw big crowds. Most zoo animals are born
inside zoos. Many are raised without ever seeing where they came from.
3. When zoos have too many animals, they do not return them to the wild.
They simply kill the "extra" animals. Here is an example. There was once
a giraffe named Marius. He lived in the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, a
country in northern Europe. Marius was raised as a baby in that zoo.
When he became an adult, he was killed. The zoo did not think Marius
was worth keeping anymore. They did not need him to breed and make
baby giraffes. The zoo said they had other male giraffes they could use
instead of Marius. The public was very upset about this.
4. Some zoos pretend to care about animals in the wild. They say they
breed animals to help endangered animals in nature. When an animal is
endangered, it is at risk of dying out forever. National Geographic did a
study. It found that most zoos do not work with programs that
reintroduce animals into the wild. Most do not return animals to their
habitats.
5. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a nonprofit
group. It fights for animal rights. This group says that fewer than one in
five zoo animals in the United States are endangered. Zoos spend tons of
money on building spaces for these animals. They do almost nothing to
restore wild places for animals.
6. Finally, zoos do not properly care for the animals. They cannot remake
natural, wild spaces in a zoo setting. It is just not possible. Zoos do not
have the resources to care for animals' health, either. In 2015, the
news outlet Vice ran an article. The article argued for shutting down
zoos. It said that three out of four zoo elephants are overweight. Four
out of 10 lion cubs in zoos pass away before their full life span. Many
more animals have zoochosis. This is a psychological disorder. It is
found in zoo animals. It leads animals to repeat behaviors. They pace in
their cages or bite the bars.
7. Zoos breed animals. They do little to improve wildlife populations. And
they cannot provide what is needed to support animals' lives and health. For
all of these reasons, zoos should no longer exist. They should give their
animals to animal sanctuaries. These places let animals live in big, natural
spaces. No one makes money off of them there. If possible, animals that can
survive in the wild should go back into nature. Then zoos will not have to pay
to keep these animals alive. Isn't that a win-win?
After-Reading Questions: 1 Paragraph for each question (4-6
sentences)
1. After reading “Zoos should be banned”, what is the author’s claim on
banning Zoos? Do you agree or disagree with their claim?
The author claims that Zoos should be banned because they are harmful
to animals. I agree with this claim because Zoos don’t help animals
return to the wild, meaning they do not take care of the animals
correctly. It is important to take care of the animals because they also
have feelings and they can understand things. It is not healthy for an
animal to be locked up in cages all their lives. Especially if Zoo animals
are being killed instead of released or getting bad treatment, then there
shouldn’t be any Zoos.
2. Looking over the evidence, was the evidence appropriate and sufficient?
Pick one piece of evidence that you believe was most supportive of the
author’s claim. Why was that evidence the most supportive?
The evidence in the article was appropriate and sufficient because there
were many reasons that supported the claim that referred to studies and
credible sources. The evidence that I believe was most supportive
evidence was, “ There was once a giraffe named Marius. He lived in the
Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, a country in northern Europe. Marius was
raised as a baby in that zoo. When he became an adult, he was killed.”
The evidence was the most supportive because the zoo didn't think
Marius was worth keeping anymore. Since they did not need him to
breed and make baby giraffes, they decided to just kill him. The zoo said
they had other male giraffes they could use instead of Marius. This
shows that Zoos do not really care about the animals since they kept
Marius in a Zoo for his whole life.
3. Does the author’s reasoning make sense? What is the purpose of this
article? Who is the audience for this article?
The author’s reasoning makes sense because she uses a lot of
information to support this claim. She also uses evidence from trusted
sources that also appeal to the emotion people have when they read
about it. The purpose of this article is to get other people to support her
claim and take action to ban Zoos. The audience for this article is the
people that go to Zoos and people that like animals. She doesn’t want
people to support Zoos since it would support bad treatment for
animals. She also wants people to feel that they need to do something
about it.
