Although they are well taken cared of, I personally get very sad whenever I go to the zoo. Its so sad to see lions pacing around in a small cage when in the wild, this king of the jungle would roam freely like royalty. I also noticed how bored the bears looked as they walked back and forth in there enclosure thinking of what to do. The polarbears just swim around doing nothing. The only animals that look happy are the monkeys, LOL! Those silly animals always find something to do and they have the trees they need to swing around and be happy on, but lions/tigers/bears are not of the nature to stay happy confined like that. The birds and ducks in the zoo are usually happy because they have their own pond and trees and a whole area to themselves. And the parrots, in our city's zoo they are tame and people get to go inside their area to get a good look at them. I got 7 of them swoop on to me and perch on my arms at one time! It was so cool. I think it depends on the nature of the animals and what type of confinement its in. Our pets may be in homes with us, but they are tame and used to people and enjoy their company. I have taken my birds outside many times to see how they will react (when their wings were clipped) because I wanted to see if they were happy being pets or if they wanted to be free. I took them outside and they clung to my finger as if to say, "DON'T LEAVE US HERE!" Then I put them on our driveway far from the house and watched them closely to see if they wanted to leave or wanted to stay. They wandered around for a while but when I pretended to walk away, they started running after me and yelling. Then they noticed the house's door open and both of them ran back inside to their home sweet home. I tried this on many occasions and always got the same reaction. Tame animals like people and want to stay with people. As for animals in the zoo, they are completely wild and have their wild instincts in them. To confine a wild animal in my opinion, is cruelty. For an animal that was born as a pet, its different, because that's the world they know, and that's the world they want to be in; but a wild animal at the zoo definitely isn't happy about sitting in a cage or having a very small area to itself and having to watch all those silly humans staring at it all day long, everyday, for life. Its just not fair. I personally like open safaris where the animals are all open in their natural habitat, and people get to go in their cars on on a train to see them. My uncle once took me to this really cool safari in England when we were visiting him. It was so cool. The lions came right up to our car and were staring at us inside. LOL! They seemed pretty calm. When we got to the monkeys, like 10 monkeys came and jumped on our car and pooped on it too. My uncle wasn't too happy about that. LOL! Then when we got to the camel area, all the camels came to the car and started begging for food. It was a great experience to see all the animals happy, free in their own habitat. I left the safari happy, but I often leave the zoo sad. Its not fair to confine such wild and strong beasts and make them sad only for the happiness of people. Safaris rule.