Are zoos ethically bad?

if there were no zoos many species would be totally extinct(as opposed to "extinct in the wild")

We dont seem to give a rats ass about ecosystems and interdependence of species .

http://able2know.org/topic/7690-1

zoos/ pro-con ... thread that's been running intermittently for over a decade

Some zoos seem to be better run than others. If it is done properly, I would think they can, as has been noted here already, at least keep some endangered species alive.

Zoos are good for educating the public about animals and animal related issues. Zoos are good for raising money for animals and animal related issues. Zoos are also good for housing and caring for animals who for various reasons would not survive in the wild.

Zoos are bad when animals are captured in the wild for no reason other than to put them into zoos. Zoos are bad when animals in the zoo are mistreated or receive poor care. Zoos are bad when there are viable wildlife preserves or wildlife sanctuaries available for the animals.

Is keeping a species from extinction in and of itself a good enough reason to cage and display them? Do we interfere in a natural process by preserving a species in captivity? Unless of course men are the reason the species is threatened in the first place - in that case I can see it as reasonable that man tries to police his own mess-ups.

when we are the cause of the impending extinction, yes. When an ecosystem can totally collapse because of a few missing participants due to extinction, yes. "Caging" the species is no longer the way that animals are kep[t, in fact, one of the biggest things that zoos now have are ecosystem"architects" to house and keep the animal species "entertained" so they live as naturally as possible.

Natural uavoidable extinctions are things we hve neither control over, nor means to return. However loss of species that represent nodes in a living web (plants or animals) based upon our overexploitation, pollution, or habitat loss can result in unknown consequences for us, and the gradual loss of the species should be a wake up call.I see no difference between "Game Farms " and "Zoos' as a means of keeping animal species.

If we dont go about capturing and holding species in various zoos or game farms around the world, we can be sure that we will lose the species forever.
Despite all the hullabaloo about genetic cloning and species ressurection, we need some host species upon which to derive the clones. We cant "bring em back from extinction without a host form. Like elephant, there were 13000 000 African elephant in the mid 1800's. Today there are only 500 000. Its reaching criticallitycritical levels and many uniquely diverse genomes gone from nature, are held in zoo specimens.