I’ve never been able to look at a cage without feeling guilty. Even now, staring at a parrot that doesn’t sing, barely moves, and probably no longer remembers what the open sky feels like. It has feathers, sure—but it doesn’t fly. And I know that what we’re doing here isn’t protection, it’s punishment. We dress it up as education, conservation, or love for animals. But at its core, it’s about control. A branch inside a cage doesn’t make it any less of a cage.
Zoos aren’t temples of life. They’re just glass cases for our misguided sense of superiority. They say these spaces are saving species—but from what? Freedom? Their natural habitats? Or the extinction we caused? The idea that we can fix destruction by locking up its victims is nothing but cruel irony. Animals born in captivity never know anything beyond confinement, and that, to me, is not life. It’s routine, locked away behind metal and glass.
The gaze of that raccoon behind the bars—it’s the stare of a prisoner who committed no crime. It was just born in the wrong place, in the wrong century, under the wrong dominant species: ours. And yet we walk past it, take pictures, smile, applaud—as if we weren’t part of the very system that keeps it confined. There’s a word for that: hypocrisy. There’s nothing educational about displaying suffering dressed up as wonder.
What’s more grotesque is how we profit off their sadness. The ticket, the photo, the “experience”—it all sells. We’ve turned their tragedy into product, their sorrow into business. And all under the false flag of love: “Come see them. Help us protect them.” But no one protects what they refuse to release. No one loves what they cage for spectacle. What we’re really doing is capturing beauty, sealing it in a box, and charging admission to watch it fade.
Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever be honest enough to look in the mirror and admit what we’ve done. To accept that we are the only animals who, in the name of doing good, kidnap. What you see in those cages isn’t civilization—it’s failure. Because true evolution isn’t measured by what we control, but by what we let go. And today, looking at these beings behind bars, I feel we’re still savages—just better dressed, with prettier justifications for our cruelty.
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
