The Price of Wildlife Entertainment

Way back in primary school, one thing that excites me so much was our usual excursions to the zoo. I grew up in the capital city of Ghana, Accra and those days which was way back in the early 2000s there were so many zoos and recreational parks around. Usually, my school would organize an excursion to the zoo for the entire school just for us to be able to go and see most of the animals that we learnt about and know but haven’t seen with our naked eyes. And from there, we would all move to a recreational park around to have fun and play as kids that we were. It was really fun and I must say, those were really the days.

Fast forward till today, we barely have zoos in our country anymore and even with the ones we have, we can only boost off a few animals in there. Way back in primary, the zoos we used to visit were always full of different animals. We had the opportunity to see monkeys, chimpanzees, horses, zebras and even lions. The last time I visited an actual zoo was in 2024 and I wouldn’t say it was totally bad, there were animals there but not as much a expected. I saw lions, zebras, ostriches, snakes and some birds also.

Comparing our zoo situations currently to the situation in about 10 years ago, it’s safe to say that most of these animals we had then have gone extinct. Why because, most of these animals Beijing kept in the zoo naturally belong in the wild and once they are brought out of their natural habitat to zoos for people to see them, they’re not able to reproduce and live as well as they would in their natural habitat. This, I believe is the main reason why we no more see most of the animals we used to see in the zoos anymore.

Some years back, I heard that most of these animals had gone extinct in Ghana and so we had to buy and bring them in from other countries just for our own people to be able to see them. Away from the issue of zoos, we have so many wildlife forests in Ghana where most of these animals are left to live naturally. You’d mostly find these areas in the central region and in the northern parts of the country and I’ve been able to go visit such places multiple times over the years. These places are actually bustling with a different animals you can think of and people are able to go and see these animals in their natural habitats.

If you ask me, leaving animals in their natural habits is the best thing for us all. Because with this, they are able to breed and live where they are supposed to and we humans can also go to wherever they are to see them. This way, the lifestyle of these animals is not being interfered with and we can also avoid the issues of wild animals attacking and killing visitors in the zoos. This also allows us as individuals to also explore and experience the beauty of nature. At the end of the day, it’s a win win for us all.

all images belong to me.