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Well, as an herbivore who is married to a past PETA-freak (lol j/k), animal rights is something I've looked into a bit.
Zoos these days are changing pretty rapidly, as are museums BTW. Rather than a cage w/ tigers, a cage w/ monkeys, etc, they are becoming more ecosystem oriented. The new exhibits are very cool indeed. At the Cincinnati zoo a couple of years ago I noticed this. They had a couple of manatees they had gotten from the Miami Seaquarium (a *wonderful* manatee recovery and catalogue program runs out of there BTW) and they used them as the centerpiece for an ecology exhibit. They are trying these days to recreate a snapshot of a particular ecosystem rather than just take the animals from it and put them on the shelf for viewing. And, there are important lessons to be taught to zoo-goers by doing this: such as using one ecology as an example to drive home the point of how all the creatures in it are interconnected. Some very cool stuff.
Museums are following a like trend. In fact the Field Museum here in Chicago has random pictures in exhibits as to "how this exhibit looked 60 years ago" to explain how they are changing. Rather than just mummies in glass cages, its Egypt exhibit now tries to show the daily lives and routines of the people of the times, down to board games they played and how they carried water, etc, etc. Important and cool way to teach history, no?
I see the zoos as a necessary evil. Education is key. As are animal recovery programs. Though I grimace when I say it, I support the enslavement of a few critters so that humans may be educated as how to preserve ecosystems and species. I try not to lose the forest while fixating on individual trees.
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