If you want to learn about animals, watch a nature documentary that shows how animals behave in their natural habitat.

I guess you can argue from a perspective that if you're already aware its worth avoiding?

I am well aware of its worth avoiding harming animals. This includes capturing them, holding them against their will, using them, forcibly breeding them and killing them for profit and food.

I have also been to many zoos in my life but I only got this perspective by watching educational documentaries, reading up on the topic and, most importantly, applying simple reasoning, like: "Would we do this to humans? Would I volunteer to be in their situation for the rest of my life?"

There’s some innate connection that happens when I make real eye contact with another mammal only feet away from me. You can’t really earn the respect for nature or the respect of nature from a documentary.

Honestly it’s this same lack of connection I get on Zoom calls and I think it’s undervalued and difficult, if not impossible to measure.

I do think zoos have positively impacted many people, myself included, my kids (who are extremely passionate about taking care of the planet and animals partly due to their exposure). Of course I also feel the need to explain the business/darker side of zoos but young kids aren’t ready for the world to be so grim. They need to start learning coming from a place of optimism and hope. There will always be time for the other parts when they might actually be able to do something about it.

Could, but we don't.

Your post was flagged (not by me) so I can't go back for exact context, but I do agree with you, zoos are pretty messed up.

I feel like seeing wildlife, even in non-native habitats, may help encourage people to act to conserve that wildlife. Seeing a creature in real life is different than in a video.

Edit: I went back and looked at your replies to other people. I will have to think about this more.

A video is simply not the same.

By visiting zoos, children get taught at a very early age that it is OK to capture animals and use them against their will for amusement purposes / profit. They get presented the animals in a completely unnatural habitat. Most of these animals have developed mental disorders due to their situation.

Please feel free to read some of the research on this - there is plenty more:

References: - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261254556_Evaluatin... - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338313609_Psycholog...

There are zoos which have massive spaces for animals and generally animals are very well taken care of, there are 'zoos' full of animals that would otherwise be dead (ie taken from smugglers, illegal ownership, overpopulated, injured in accidents etc.).

You can't watch most of say african big animals in wilderness on your own, even if you go on African safari its very much modern zoo-like experience.

In what way is my POV biased? What you describe is a purely egoistic attitude. Ask the question: Who does this serve?

Your answer might be: primarily the animals (this includes fish). But this is not true, as the only reason we would have to conserve any species in the first place is because we humans (almost) drove them to extinction by e.g. killing them for profit (e.g. leather, ivory, etc.), burning their habitat for animal feed (which happens when you eat land animal meat) or by overfishing (which happens when you eat fish). Either way, the reason is not valid because the root cause is driven by human behavior, which almost all people causing it could change it in an instant - but they choose not to. Why? Because their pleasure is more important than non-human animals' lives.

Hence, the answer is: the humans who pay for it. It only serves the entertainment of humans at the cost of the (non-human) animals.

Kids visiting a zoo for sure don't consciously think "its OK to capture animals for amusement", but they get subconsciously conditioned by the fact that it is portrayed as "normal".

My guess is that you never researched about how zoos work. If you did, I promise you will be shocked what happens behind the scenes in order to "give kids a view into a world beyond the one in which they live day-to-day".

On the other hand when they see conservation status "threatened" on the sign by the animal they wonder about it.

And there's nothing wrong with putting an animal is a zoo - you are correct, they don't behave the same. But that doesn't make it wrong. Animals are not trophies to be displayed in the wild and always to be some distant unknowable thing.

Instead animals and humans share the same planet and we should encounter them up close, and experience them, and zoo's are how you do it.

You are relegating animals to these "things" that no one ever sees or hears about - or cares about.

"Because they are animals" is not an argument. The singular fact that you state that humans aren't animals implies that you are lacking even the most basic knowledge in biology and taxonomy. Given that, I can understand that applying ethics on top of that is currently too much to ask.

After all, maybe a good documentary film, that actually deals with these topics, could help you with that. I can assure you that no zoo will.

And how well do you think zoos are doing at helping people care about animals?

We continue to eat them, destroy their homes, etc.

Seems to me: Yes. And you are not alone, so actually, yah, it's working.

And why are you mentioning "eat them" there's nothing wrong with that. Destroy their homes is quite unrelated.

People eating animals in the developed world is almost without fail “wrong” because of the inhumane practices surrounding getting the meat off of the animal and into our mouths. Sure, plenty of people hunt their own venison or catch their own catfish but let’s get real.

But that’s fine. Humans “won” and the world is ours to wreck. I don’t fault anyone for not caring or for living the way they do.

Please supply one single reason why this is not wrong:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14152756/

So many things I didn't appreciate

Not all zoos in the world combined will educate you like this 90 minute video does.

I didn’t see what I read by googling “seaspiracy facts” but you will see some opposing views, including some people in the documentary.

However, this does not mean that "smaller" problems are somehow not worth mentioning/tackling. IMO zoos, just like TV shows for children in which cartoon animals are portrayed to live happy lives on farms, happy cows on products, etc. are all tiny little but VERY effective weapons for the industry to manipulate people into thinking that using animals for profit is actually good, because the animals are said to be so happy. The opposite is true.