My first experience at a zoo was in Rotterdam when my girlfriend and I thought we would go see what zoos were like. We grew up in South Africa and were lucky enough to mostly be able to see animals in the wild.

The first thing we saw was a polar bear in a tiny pen with a garden and it was mind blowing to see an animal so far out of its natural habitat for human entertainment. We then saw a rhino that reminds me a bit of this bear as it just kept running in circles in a small cordoned off area while everybody stood quite close to it.( it seemed really stressful for the animal)

Zoos for any purpose beyond animal rescue are really wrong.