MARWELL Zoo’s annual animal audit will fail to count the physical and mental suffering endured by these wild animals as a result of the frustration of a lifetime spent in cages (All creatures great and small in Marwell head count, January 6).

At the end of the day the paying public can go home, but zoo animals are stuck as living exhibits until the day that they die in captivity – thousands of miles from where they truly belong.

Anyone who cares about protecting animals should donate to programmes that protect them in their natural habitats and stay away from these glorified animal prisons.

BEN WILLIAMSON, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), London.