[localplume]

do you think the same for fish tanks? that when kids see fish tanks they think its OK to capture animals for their own amusement? What an insanely biased POV. zoos are fantastic for conservation and giving kids a view into a world beyond the one in which they live day-to-day.

[cb5r]

What makes you think that fish are in ANY way different than land animals or even humans? Why should they not suffer from being captured and not being able to live freely in their natural habitat?

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".

[ars]

Your worldview is very very very narrow. The reality is that kids who don't visit zoos, or farms grow up not caring at all about animals. Because to them animals aren't "real", they are these distant things that have nothing to do with them.

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.

[cb5r]

My world view would be classified as "ethical", because I take the feelings and desires of others into account and don't put myself before them - which you, on the other hand, don't. And this is the exact same reason why humans exploit animals in every possible way imaginable, reasoning with all kinds if "pseudo-arguments" that don't hold up a logical and ethical consistency check.

"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. 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.