Well, being the animal lover I am, I had to vote mixed. There are the pros and cons to everything, including animals in zoos.

For the pros side, think of scientists. They need to study how a certain species lives so they can save them in the future. Like for example, white tigers. I was watching a show on TV the other day and it said that only 1 in 10,000 tigers are white. Basically they are going extinct because of habitat loss, but there are other reasons; starvation, poaching, etc. There was even a tiger in Russia that moved into someone's basement to have its cubs. That's pretty desperate. Anyway, so scientists need to study how the animals live. If they didn't, we probably wouldn't know how to approach a wild animal if we ever needed to. We wouldn't know their temperment, what they eat, if they're dangerous or not, etc.

For the cons, yes, the animals will die faster. They will not get to experience freedom in their short lives. I wouldn't want to be locked in a fenced in area for my whole life. I mean there are certain zoos that have large pastures and such for the animals, but then there are the ones who only have cages. Like here we have Parc Safari. The animals roam free and go up to your car and you can pet them, feed them, and they'll even stick their heads in the car window. But what would happen to them in the winter? I mean here on the border of Ontario/Quebec we have pretty cold winters, and these animals aren't used to cold climates. I'm sure they have some sort of barn or something but I certainly would not want to be locked up inside a barn for 3 months.

I'm neutral on this topic.