Well?

They suck

Have you been to a good one? You know, with leopards and shit?

traditional zoos are pretty bad. Zoos that cage in the visitors and have open land for the animals are better but in general zoos should be obsolete.

I lean this way, but I see the wonder in my kids eyes when we see the animals at the National Zoo, and I can’t help but reconsider. How to you build connections with animals that only appear on a tiny screen? What about kids in cities like NYC? I’m not settled on this

Why is it important that kids "build connections with (wild) animals"?

you'd understand if you were a parent

I like seeing animals, and I've gone to a bunch of zoos, but they are very hard to defend. Every argument seems flimsy

agreed

You kind of remind me of my sister talking about having cats for her kids. she's not much of a "pet person" but her kids wanted them. So they had two cats which mostly lived in the basement, and were only allowed in the kitchen upstairs.
The basement wasn't terrible but it always bothered me. The were restricted to a small amount of space, they had limited interaction with people, and weren't very sociable as a result.

My feeling is they aren't here for us, we're here for them. Caging animals for our convenience seems selfish.

also, in about 10 years virtual reality will negate the need for going to a zoo to see the wonder in your kids eyes anyway...

I think a well run zoo is great. I do get a little queasy with some of the larger animals in captivity though but snakes, birds, and other small animals I am 100% good with. If the animal is large dog size or smaller odds are very good that they have more room to roam in a zoo than the same size cat, dog or other pet has.

The best (well funded) zoos are great. Henry Doorly's indoor rainforest comes to mind. They have occasionally been crucial to repopulation efforts, and in (thus far) rare instances maintain the last remaining populations of some species. Research has found zoo-goers to be on average more informed about the animals, their plights, and their needs than non zoo-goers, and while this isn't necessarily causal, other studies have found that visitors spend measurably more time at zoos when researchers, experts, or deep-tissue information points about the animals are available.

I would say that a zoo which provides adequate living conditions to its animals is doing better than my brother, who has one dog and leaves it home alone 10 hours a day.

I say it depends on each animal we're talking about. Animals that can be kept reasonably well in captivity strike me as a positive, particularly for kids (as mentioned above) that may marvel at nature's wonders and grow up to give nature its due respect. Animals where captivity is unreasonable should not be kept in zoos.

Even when I was a kid, I remember thinking zoos were a boring slog.

Boring Slog sounds like the perfect account under-image identifier.

McParadigm's brother: Good or Bad?

Full disclosure: he is a zoo.

Aren't most zoos in the US (I'm talking real zoos here, not Joe's I-64 Zoo), either rescuing animals, taking only animals born in captivity, or working on some sort of revitalize and release program (NC's Zoo was actually part of a program replenishing a nearly extinct red wolf population)?

They also do a lot of inspiring future scientists (like NASA) or giving biologists laboratories to study in.

I know there's a good anti-zoo argument, but I think most zoos now are aware of such things and work to justify their existence by improving the natural environment.

For the same reasons it's so beneficial for young adults to travel: to stop their mind from narrowing the world.