Zoos? Evils?

The internets... such a strange place.

I was researching the next agency to send a query to, which means I was looking at the authored represented, and recognized one book--Monkey Love by Brenda Scott Royce--which I bought but haven't yet read. So I read the first chapters, and then went to look up her web site, and discovered she's done primate conservation work, and she writes articles on animal issues for the Huffington Post, which led me to a debate between animal activists and a zoo over an elephant, and her interesting argument for zoos.

As she's worked both for sanctuaries and zoos I think her arguments are interesting. That (a) when activists talk about "Free the elephant!" we have to investigate what they mean by free. And (b) free usually means a sanctuary rather than a zoo, but sanctuaries receive less income/funding than zoos and don't have to go through the same strict accreditation process, so animal treatment can be worse than at a zoo. And (c) that while anyone who loves animals would prefer them to be free in the wild, there are fewer and fewer safe wilds left for animals to live in. Which is just depressing.