I was quite impressed with the San Diego Zoo as well. The human animals on exhibit there are in pristine shape, well groomed and so well mannered they were allowed to walk amongst us. They are often seen feeding on only the healthiest organic product they can find and walk around with their infants in state of the art fully articulated infant carriers that were just amazing. You could even observe them running thru the zoo with their infants in child rearing groups and listen in on their highly intellectual conversations with others of their kind. I was awe struck by the experience.
The city zoo where I grew up had the old school concrete cubes with glass or barred fronts for viewing. Slowly those were all replaced, and one of the buildings was converted to administrative space. I cracked up the time I was walking past, and found that a desk and chair, a phone and a computer had been moved into one of those spaces, setting up a “homo sapien in it’s natural environment” display, and labeled as such.
there may not be a lot of conservation success stories at this time, but I like this one: Przewalski's horse - Wikipedia
I say let the lions and tigers run free in the shopping centres.
Mrmanface: Pride of Baghdad.