There was a time in our country when cruelty to animals by their owners was an accepted right, under the notion that animals were property and their owners could do with them as they willed. Thankfully, in our more enlightened age, deliberate cruelty to animals has been criminalized and such cases tend to draw public outrage.

How, then, are we to view the apparent “right” of private zoos like that at Lagoon to keep large wild animals like lions, tigers, kangaroos, etc., in tiny, concrete-floored cages where they are denied the ability to roam about at all, in keeping with the demands of their instincts and basic tendencies? One need not whip, cut, or poison an animal to achieve “cruelty.”

While there are at least reasonable arguments for keeping relatively humane large zoos open in the public interest, I can see no reason that Lagoon or other “private zoo” owners that operate with so little concern for the welfare of these animals should be able to justify their practice as being within the laws of this state.

Since they will not cease the practice voluntarily, is it not the time in our history for the public to put an end to such practices through enactment of stricter regulation?

M. Gary Widdison, Salt Lake City