I went to a zoo today.

It is really depressing seeing the animals when they look unhappy an bored. If it's a good zoo with large naturalistic habitats for them then it's not quite as bad, but I hate seeing them in cages or concrete pits just pacing back and forth or other repetitive motions that show stress and boredom. I love animals, but it's just not worth it to ruin their lives so that I can look at them.

There are zoos today that are doing vital work in conservation of species that human activity has caused to go near-extinct.

Conditions need to be excellent, I agree, otherwise it's miserable, but most zoos have vastly improved from the bad old days.

If you visit zoos, do your research and only go to those ones that strive for optimal conditions and have breeding programs, rather than old-style "stick 'em in a walled enclosure until they die".

Zoos also no longer just take an animal from the wild -- in the bad old days they literally did just that, taking a wild animal from its habitat.

The animals in zoos today will have been the descendants of descendants of a conservationist breeding program.

All life has no purpose.

Actually I did too. I road the train with my wife and two kids. I saw some brown bears a polar bear a gorilla, a pigmy hippo, a rhino, elephants a couple of lions and a sleeping tiger.

At times I can kind of appreciate cats being majestic or something but for the most part I don't really care for them. I don't really care that they have to kill other animals to live. I don't really care if they die. I don't care for predators. I've seen enough nature films showing crocodiles drowning and ripping apart other animals, I've seen enough nature shows showing lions ripping apart screaming animals that are still alive. If they are lucky they'll kill it first but many times they'll start ripping the animal apart still alive.

I got home last night and read in the news a tiger killed a zookeeper in England. Yes, I know they must "eat to survive" and the "balance of nature" would be off if there were no predators. I still don't care. I don't care if they have awful lives in the zoo, I don't care if they die.

Poor lion has no purpose? I couldn't care less.

Did a talking parrot try the "sell me this pen" bit to you?

That is always the best part.