History Main / MenagerieOfMisery

A Sister trope to PoundsAreAnimalPrisons. Compare BadPeopleAbuseAnimals, in that zoos that treat their animals badly often indicate the character of the people who run them. See also FreeTheFrogs and HilarityInZoos.

* ''Website/TheOnion'' gives us "https://local.theonion.com/shitty-zoo-promoting-hell-out-of-new-fruit-bat-1819572934 Shitty Zoo Promoting Hell Out Of New Fruit Bat.]]"

[[quoteright:320:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zoo.png]]]]

[[quoteright:320:[[WestenAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zoo.png]]]]

-->--''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes''

[[folder:Film -- Animation]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

In real life, zoos have changed a lot throughout time. In the 1800s to early 1900s, they were originally just harsh concrete cages. As time went by and regulations and concerns for animal welfare were established, zoos started to improve more and more, especially after the concept of endangered species appeared, when zoos gained an extra role to play: preserving animal species and breeding them in captivity. Now the US, Canada, and European countries have strict regulations on exhibits and must meet certain standards that give animals large, roomy enclosures made to resemble their natural habitat.

* Discussed in the Film/{{Dragnet}} film, after Joe talks about how good the animals have it at the zoo. Pep expresses skepticism.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo itself turns out to be an aversion, being the equivalent of a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come to look at them. Unfortunately, a guilt-ridden Dag believes this trope to be the case and ends up destroying the zoo, so the animals lock him up in a cage that actually looks like a prison cell.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo itself turns out to be an aversion, being the equivalent of a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come to look at them. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo, so the animals lock him up in a cage that actually looks like a prison cell.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo itself turns out to be an aversion, being the equivalent of a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come to look at them. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo, so the animals to lock him up in a cage that actually looks like a prison cell.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo itself turns out to be an aversion, being the equivalent of a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come to look at them. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo, prompting the zoo animals to lock him up in a cage that actually looks like a prison cell.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo itself turns out to be an aversion, being the equivalent of a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come to look at them. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo, prompting the zoo animals to lock him in a cage that actuslly looks like a prison cell.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo itself turns out to be an aversion, being the equivalent of a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come to look at them. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo turns out to be an aversion, being a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come to look at them. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo turns out to be an aversion, being a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come look at them. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo turns out to be an aversion, being a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures, although the animals have to behave naturally when guests come look at tgem. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expectation of this trope. But the zoo turns out to be an aversion, being a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expection of this trope. But the zoo turns out to be an aversion, being a luxury resort with beautiful open enclosures. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expection of this trope. But the zoo turns out to be an aversion, being a luxury resort for animals with beautiful open enclosures. Unfortunately, Dag believes in this trope and ends up destroying the zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': In the episode "The Zooing Time", Norbert gets arrested for a crime Daggett committed and is taken to a zoo, building up the expection of this trope. But the zoo turns out to be an aversion, being a luxury resort for animals with beautiful open enclosures. Unfortunatelt, Dag believes in this trope and ends yp destroying the zoo.

Zoos are portrayed, generally, far less negatively than circuses; the animals are rarely deliberately neglected or mistreated and the keepers in such settings are very rarely portrayed as abusive or even malicious - either well-intentioned, but lacking in knowledge, or simply struggling to provide adequate care, but suffering under incompetent/greedy superiors.

Administrivia/TropesAreFlexible, so this trope could apply to any collection of exotic animals under human "care" - barring, of course, a circus, which is already covered under the "animal abuse" variant of the sister trope CircusOfFear.

* In ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation'', two academically-minded people from the Literature/{{Discworld}} cross to [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Pasadena, California]]. While quantum research Wizard Ponder Stibbons is finding lots of things in common with people like Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter, his co-researcher Johanna Smith-Rhodes, an Assassin by education and a zoologist by vocation, is being shown the animal handling facilities at Caltech by an excited Amy Farrah-Fowler. After a very big wince at Amy's casual terminology - she dismisses orang-utans as mere monkeys [[note]]Johanna knows the Librarian. Who is very defintely an ape[[/note]], Johanna looks around her, at bare spartan cages, not big enough for their occupants, in a warehouse room with no windows, and is horrified. Reminding herself not to get angry, she starts reforming the animal-handling culture at Caltech.

* The zoo from ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Fearful Symmetry" was explicitly stated to have been abysmal in the recent past before the episode, to the point where they actually hired new management along with a scientific adviser to reform the zoo. Also notable in that the (fictional) zoo in question had never once had a live birth of any animal in captivity, ever. [[spoiler: The animals are regularly abducted by aliens and made the subject of strange experiments, including the theft of their unborn children.]]
* A bit in the first episode of ''Series/BrassEye'' concerned an East German[[note]][[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp in 1997]], mind you[[/note]] zoo that was so bad that an elephant stuck its trunk up its own arse to escape. Of course, it was all fake.

* The first season of ''Series/TheMightyBoosh'' fits this trope well. In the episode "Jungle", Howard tells Vince the zoo has been falling apart since the old manager, Tommy, went missing. Bob Fossil, the current manager of The Zooniverse, is often shown to be incompetent and unable to even remember the names of different animals, often referring to them by describing their appearances instead. He also often makes demands and comes up with ideas that put the zookeepers and animals at risk, such as making Howard box a kangaroo.

* Hobbes from ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' hates the zoo and sees it as equivalent to a prison for animals, as shown in one strip, when Calvin asks to go to the zoo, Hobbes asks Calvin if they can visit a prison afterwards.

* You can invoke this in ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon'' by making your animal pens extremely small, making the environment inside the enclosure as different as possible from the animal's natural environment, and by not feeding the animal. However, as one would expect, neither the animals nor the visitors will be too happy about this. There are also several challenge mode games that involve fixing up zoos that keep the animals in poor conditions.
* While ''VideoGame/PlanetZoo'' goes out of its way to avert this, making the captive animals' requirements as realistic as possible and encouraging the players to meet these, it still has some VideoGameCrueltyPotential if you intentionally ignore these requirements and build habitats obviously unsuited for the animals or place incompatible species (such as predator and prey) in the same habitat.

* The Imperial Zoo in the ''Tabletop Adventure'' special of ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'' is a place of squalid, cramped cells with stone floors and a pile of straw to sleep on. It's no wonder the Dragon goes berserk when it escapes.

* Justified and eventually defied in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. In one Book 2 episode, Aang visits a zoo in Ba Sing Se, where the animals live in tiny, cramped exhibits. The zoo has very little visitors and the place doesn't look very lively. This is because the government wouldn't give the zoo any more money to improve conditions because kids weren't visiting the zoo, so the zoo had a budget cut and thus couldn't get enough money to fund itself. Aang suggests to the zoo's manager that the animals should roam free for once - which leads to the animals stampeding across Ba Sing Se. Luckily Aang gets an idea: using his Appa whistle, he herds the animals to the city border, then uses his [[ElementalPowers earthbending]] powers to make a better-looking zoo with more lush and habitable landscape. As a result, the new zoo gets more visitors and the animals are now happier and living comfortably.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheReplacements'', Riley is concerned about the welfare of animals living in a zoo. Fitting in with this trope, the animals live in tiny, cramped concrete cages with steel bars. Initially, she blames the grumpy zookeeper and has him replaced with a crazy animal rights activist who releases all the animals. Naturally, this turns out to be a bad idea, and Riley soon learns that the conditions weren't the zookeeper's fault: the owner of the zoo, a rich CorruptCorporateExecutive, didn't bother having conditions improved because he wanted to keep the money for himself. Eventually, they threaten him into converting his golf course into a nice, roomy zoo for the animals.
* Played with in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Madagascar}}'' movies. In the first movie, the animals enjoy a life of luxury in the zoo, but a few of them (Marty the zebra and the four penguins) dream of living in the wild. After Marty escapes and his friends follow him to get him back to the zoo, an AnimalWrongsGroup declares that they escaped from the zoo because they suffer there, and ship all of them to the wild. Two movies later, the trope is played more straight: after Captain [=DuBois=] captures the animals and returns them to the Central Park Zoo, it looks more prison-like with higher fences around the habitats. And even after being locked there, [=DuBois=] is determined to shoot Alex with a poison dart.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/MuppetBabies1984'' focuses on this trope with Rowlf thinking zoos just keep animals locked in cages. Even after Nanny explains most zoos don't use cages anymore, he's still unconvinced and the rest of the episode is spent explaining the benefits zoos offer such as protecting endangered species. By the end Rowlf changes his view and is now anxious to visit the zoo, but [[HereWeGoAgain now Gonzo is scared to go]], fearing he is an endangered species and the zoo will want to keep him there.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E7EightMisbehavin Eight Misbehavin']], Apu and Manjula seek financial aid for their TooManyBabies by becoming a zoo attraction. In that zoo, the kangaroos are miserable and the koalas are fed meat instead of eucalyptus leaves.
-->'''Mr. Kidkill:''' What? Everybody loves my zoo. You don't love my zoo? I ''dare'' ya to look at a kangaroo and not laugh. I dare ya.
-->''[he walks past kangaroos looking out of their cage, slumped and miserable]''
-->'''Mr. Kidkill:''' Well... they're usually funnier...
* ZigZagged in ''WesternAnimation/FindingDory''. The film has a major "Fish belong to the ocean, not to tanks" message, but also establishes that the Marine Life Institute is primarily a rescue center that releases animals that recovered from their injuries, and its fish habitats are more or less accurate to real-life aquaria. Yet, the "touch pool", from the animals' point of view, is depicted as a terrifying place where the poor starfish and sea cucumbers hide for their lives from [[HumansAreCthulhu the giant hands of human children]]. Also, the Cleveland Aquarium is referred to as a scary place where animals end up if they are in a too bad condition to be released to the wild.
* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'':
** The Evil Horde from maintains its own zoo where they keep more exotic animals of Etheria... whether they want to be or not. Kowl and his new friend Kowla were taken there and it was used as an allegory for the whole "gilded cage" idea, along with a nasty caretaker named Vultak. The AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle PSA afterward went out of its way to explain that real zoos are not animal prisons and often the last chance for endangered species they harbor.
** A second zoo is mentioned to be maintained by Horde Prime, home to unique and one of a kind animals found throughout his empire. When Hordak captures Swift Wind to send as an exhibit, he takes great pleasure in telling the winged unicorn how he'll be fed the best food and kept fastidiously groomed, but will never see the sky again as his wings wither and his feathers dull from disuse and captivity.
* ''WesternAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'': Exaggerated in the episode "A to Zoo", where the cast goes to a zoo. The zoo is bad both for the animals, who have tiny, cramped environments and lax safety and protection; ''and'' the guests, with all the animals being fiercely violent and homicidal (resulting in the majority of the episode's deaths) and no security, employees, or first aid being available at any point.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee'': In "The Great Escape", June's class visit the zoo but the animals are less then lively. The zoo itself isn't too bad with some decent conditions. But the inhabitants turn out to be monsters glamored to look like animals and kept prisoner by a Demoness named Gigi who uses their energy to remain beautiful. Naturally anyone who isn't magically inclined can't hear them and they're taken down to an even worse prison underground after closing hours which does have cramped cages (though oddly get free time like a prison yard). June ends up captured, turned into a lemur and stuck there for a bit when she initially tries to break them free.

Often a character will comment on the poor conditions of the zoo, and sometimes it becomes a plot point. Generally, the story ends with either the animals being transferred to a location more conducive to their needs or the protagonists helping to improve conditions at the zoo.

In period settings, ValuesDissonance is often applied - the protagonists may view the conditions as perfectly acceptable (or even ''revolutionary'') and/or the care of the animals is based on outdated knowledge.

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Indexes:
* AnimalTropes
* Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease
* PrisonTropes
* YouWouldNotWantToLiveInDex

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLifeAndTimesOfJuniperLee'': In "The Great Escape", June's class visit the zoo but the animals are less then lively. The zoo itself isn't too bad with some decent conditions. But the inhabitants turn out to be monsters glamored to look like animals and kept prisoner by a Demoness named Gigi who uses their energy to remain beautiful. Naturally anyone who isn't magically inclined can't hear them and they're taken down to an even worse prisoner after closing hours (though oddly get free time like a prison yard). June ends up captured, turned into a lemur and stuck there for a bit when she initially tries to break them free.

->'''[[CatsAreSnarkers Hobbes]]:''' Can we tour a prison afterwards?