And for that matter, since I worked on the Cuban Prisoner's Project back at the time of the Mariel Boatlift, sorting out the political prisoners from the criminals, I spent a good deal of time in the Atlanta pen, and a couple of the guys assigned to me were fellows it would make you shiver in your boots to be alone in the room with (although with an interpreter and a corrections officer within call, it still would have been too late for me . . .)
Your position is hyperbolic. Certainly there are animals that do not do well in captivity -- as Kipling said, "Some - there are losses in every trade - /Will break their hearts ere bitted and made, /Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard, /And die dumb-mad in the breaking-yard."
But I have seen contented animals in captivity in the revamped Atlanta zoo, and in the National Zoo in Washington, as well as some of the open air situations like Wild Kingdom. The old-fashioned concrete-and-bars zoos are thankfully passing away and will not be missed. Since I have worked with animals my entire life, I'm confident I can tell the difference between a terminally bored, anxious obsessive captive and a bright-eyed soft-coated calm animal.
Of course the animals are dependent on the good will and competence of their keepers, and those who do not care well for the wild animals under their charge deserve the scorn and reproach of everybody. But living in a decent zoo is better than dying slowly with a poacher's underpowered AK bullet in them. Capstick told us about the encroachment of "civilization" (read subsistence farmers) on the game preserves in Kenya and other African countries, with the resultant near extinction of many species. For that matter, it beats being a South Georgia deer with the browse line at 46 inches and climbing.
P.S. . . . everybody who happens to disagree with you is not necessarily (1) ignorant; (2) a liberal. Pass the word.