Well that raises the question of what about my dog? He spends almost all day sleeping, because food is just given to him. I know dogs don't really have a "wild" as they are human creations, but if there was a proper "wild" then he'd be dead because he's an old dog who has trouble with stairs let alone catching food. But he would have loved chasing things and sniffing things and getting to potter around a forest peeing on things, doing whatever he liked. When he was young he worked out how to escape a 6 foot fence by taking a running jump up a compost heap, a giant leap, and scurrying over the fence.

So I feel like no dogs get to live the life they would if there was a "wild" for them.

Plus of course almost all endangered species would be gone and many close behind if there were no captive animals at all.

Is it better to have captive endangered species or none at all? Would it be better for dogs if they didn't exist?

[–] liv 2 points 11 months ago

I think that's a bit different. Dogs are social animals and have been domesticated for so long they can even read human facial expressions, so in a sense your life is your dog's natural state. Most dogs I've met are fairly happy.

I'm not anti-zoo, for pragmatic reasons, but if I could somehow cause planet-wide changes to human nature I'd rather they were replaced with ecological conservation.