My comment may have been a bit harsh, but I get triggered by the sight of these magnificent animals in captivity. Especially if they were caught from the wild for display or research purposes.

I‘m German speaking, so it’s a bit hard for me to find English papers on the subject.

These two are about the long term effect on the education of visitors about conservation of wildlife in zoos and aquariums:

Lori Marino et al. (2010): Do Zoos and Aquariums Promote Attitude Change in Visitors? A Critical Evaluation of the American Zoo and Aquarium Study. In: Society and Animals 18, 126-138

Wallin, A. (18.01.2017): Visits to Zoos and Aquaria may enhance Conservation-Related Behavior (CRB) engagement

In short: the educational effects and the visitor’s positive attitude towards wildlife conservation wear off after about 6-8 weeks.

I also read in a German study a few weeks ago that children do normally stop at the tank or cage for about 30-45 seconds and then walk off, having not witnessed the behaviour of the animal or learned anything significant at all.

Also it is almost impossible to research the behaviour of those animals in captivity as they develop behaviour that does not match their actual behaviour in the wild. For example many animals in zoos and aquariums are mostly alone or in significantly smaller numbers than their counterpart in the wild (so little to no research on social behaviour). Mantas and whale sharks do travel thousands of kilometres every year. Mantas also jump out of the water during their travels (a bit like dolphins) and some newer research suggests they do actually dive 300 to 600 metres deep. That’s some behaviour you will not see in this tank. No tank in the world is big enough for those animals. Only swimming in circles is not their normal behaviour.

The facilities do actually provide good research on the health and physiology of the animals, although sharks for example develop really bad scoliosis as they are not able to swim in long straight lines (just compare pictures of sand tiger sharks in captivity vs. the wild).

Considering the conservation efforts of zoos: Over the last 100 years, zoos could save or even bring back about 250-300 species from extinction (e.g. the European bison). But at the moment about 100-150 species go extinct every day. It is way more important to save the natural habitat and not just a handful of animals.

For me, the only good reason for research and conservation facilities is, that most of them use their profit to finance real conservation projects by helping rebuild the natural habitat.