To think that zoos are morally wrong?

You only need to see these animals out in the wild to see just how amazing their lives are out there.

You read all these nice brochures and talk to really nice staff, the animals don't. They are surrounded by concrete and metal bars put to display for us to snap pictures and point fingers at all day.

do you pay the animals or do you pay the zoo?

Next time after a trip to the Zoo just switch on nat-geo or grab a nat-geo mag or just best just go to Africa and see how their world there compares to that cage in the middle of your city.

A Lions territory in the African Savannah is about 100sq miles, yet the zoo keeper will tell you "oh we give them plenty of space". What a bunch of BULL.

And as far as conservation is concerned... the zoo's only need an animal to appear on an endangered list to add to their money making assets.

If you really want to conserve these animals, conserve their habitats! That's where they are meant to live!

They keep changing the name zoo to all sorts of new buzz terms like "bio enclosures". Zoo's are an industrial complex regardless of whatever they choose to call themselves.

This is my opinion but feel free to do your own research, in fact start with Wikipedia and scroll to the bottom to see the crap they've been keeping from you.

I honestly cant agree or disagree on this one
Yes the zoo is ruining the animals sence of instinct, and they should be were they belong instead of a public area in a cage

On the other hand some animals rely on zoos to keep the speices alive and cant fend for them selfs due to inconvineances (pouchers, abused, already tamed)
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On zoos and by extension aquaria:
We must recognize that we share this planet with many different types of Creatures.
We should endeavour to learn about these creatures. They can be broadly separated into three classes.
1) Non-Sentient
2) Sentient
3) Sentient AND Ethical
It is Ethically acceptable to keep Non-Sentienf Creatures in a zoo or aquarium as long as an adequate habitat is provided for them. We must be
extremely careful that these Creatures do not escape and become exotic and invasive pests (this applies to ALL classes of creatures). We should be very careful when removing ANY creature from it's natural habitat, but this might be necessary for conservation purposes (All classes). These Creatures should not be kept for Human amusement, but for educational purposes (All classes). [Creatures that are suitable for pets are acceptable, as long as they are treated humanely (Sentient or Not)]
Sentient Creatures are often difficult to keep in captivity. We must recognize when these Creatures are distressed due to their captivity. They will often exhibit abnormal behaviour, such as lethargy, depression, violent temperament, etc. We should endeavour to correct the causes, where these occur.
Problems occur when collecting Sentient Ethical Creatures from the wild. (These are the Great Apes and SOME of the Cetaceans). Simply, it is NOT Ethical to collect these Creatures from the wild (or to hunt them). We should endeavour to protect their natural habitat. The one's that ars already in captivity (whether collected from the wild or born in captivity), might have lost their survival skills in the wild. We should endeavour to communicate with these individuals, and ask them what their preferences are. They do not have the same level oc higher reasoning ability as Humans do and their thought processes might also be very different from ours.
Take, for example, a Dolphin born in captivity, even if we learned to communicate with her/ him, and asked if he/ she would like to be returned to the wild, the response would be, "The Wild?" It would be Unethical to release this individual into the wild, as she/ he would be unable to survive.
Another example, a Dolphin that was collected from the wild, and has been in captivity for some time, might actually choose to remain in captivity to educate us on Dolphin society and our relationship with them.
Also, some Scientists, although well-intentioned, do cause harm to wild Creatures in their endeavour to study them, more care should be taken.

It depends. Most zoos are primarily commercial not conservational (this is why they are so expensive to get in); they want to make money first and preserve species second (but they wouldn't tell you that). Zoos, at least in my country (the UK) are not how they were a couple of decades ago; animals are not kept in harsh conditions or badly mistreated. That isn't to say breeding animals in an unnatural habit for the primary purpose of entertainment and profit is a good thing to do, because it isn't in my books.

Of course, some zoos to a lot more for charity projects than others, but most I'd say were morally corrupt. Which is a shame because they are great fun to go to and now I can't!

Most zoos i have seen take great care of the animals so i would not call it cruel i can agree on the prison though since they are not free but they still have all they need...

Normal zoos are cruel. But nature preserve/zoos like the California adventure one that has all their animals in multi acre enclosures without cages, yeah. The northern white rhino is about to go extinct and would have been a hundred years ago if not for captive breeding programs and artificial insemination. The last breeding male lives is Kenya Nairobi. The prezwalski horse, totally extinct in the wild, now only lives in private herds and zoos. And if we had known, they dodo and thylacine would probably be alive too still. We as humans need to take responsibility for our impact on this biosphere and everything in it, living or not. All of the fore mentioned species have been wiped out or brought to the brink of extinction by the actions of man. Poaching. Hunting, global warming and deforestation are all genuine threats. We will see the polar bear take it's place among these guys soon. And there isn't a thing we can do to stop it.

A zoo is good for breeding purposes, and it would be very rare to see a zoo that doesn't feed them very healthy diets. Think about it like this, if a lion lives in the wild, he lives a shorter life, eats less, has less healthy offspring, and probably is agonized by heat and other predators most of his life. Let em chill.

As with all things, there are up-sides and down-sides. I'm happy they exist, because I've enjoyed visiting them and seeing amazing animals. I'd also be happy if the animals had the freedom to live in their natural habitat.

It really depends. Yes its probably shitty for the animals in a lot of cases, at the same time if a zoo gives their animals plenty of space and keeps them happy and well cared for, I can't say theyre all bad either because of the essential purpose they serve; preserving endangered species.

I think whats more depressing is to think that someday many animals may only be seen in zoos.. unless things change. o.o

They serve a purpose. Often to bring awareness to endangered species and allow to strengthen the sheer numbers of certain species, as well as entertain and educate people.

There are very few zoos that torture, underfeeding, or imprison their animals.