Zoos aren't bad, Jurassic Park and Jurassic World were bad zoos

(Spoilers for the movies, mostly JP1 and JW1)

Ray Arnold: We have all the problems of a major theme park and a major zoo, and the computers aren't even on their feet yet.

 

Well-run zoos are an important part of conservation of endangered species. They educate the public on the animals and their place in the ecosystem, and work to increase the populations in the wild in their natural ranges as well as providing a place to live and dedicated care for individuals (of endangered but also more common species) that can not be released but are able to have a good quality of life in captivity. They are hardly prisons for the animals, but homes, and the key to preventing escapes is to keep the animals happy enough that they don't want to escape.

Jurassic Park and Jurassic World didn't fall apart because of some inherent evil in keeping animals in captivity, in the animals themselves, or in science. But they were always going to eventually fall apart and deserved to do so in some way, and it wasn't the fact of having dangerous animals in them that made the parks bad or by itself caused the suffering and loss of life involved in their destruction.

Jurassic Park

To be fair, we never saw this park in its complete state, but it kind of also never got to be completed because it was bad (and that was the point of the story, but I'm sure it can get lost in "wow, cool dino", so let's elaborate on a few points).

• The entire premise, basically?
  
  I don't need to repeat what the characters already bring up in the movie in too much detail, but making animals that have nothing necessary to contribute to today's ecosystem just so people can stare at them is not a very responsible thing to do.
  
  
  
  John Hammond: Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction. If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say.
  (Yeah, so why aren't you cloning condors, John? Working with conservation programs to help preserve species, including those of already present-day dinosaurs, that indeed are being obliterated by deforestation and such?)
  
  
  
• Understaffed, staff probably underpaid, endangerment of staff
  
  The first two points are not as severe as in the book, where Nedry has a pretty understandable motive to betray Hammond, even if putting people's lives at risk to do it is inexcusable, but he is still in charge of way too much for one person in the movie, too, or he wouldn't have been able to do what he did.
  
  
  
  John Hammond: Dennis, our lives are in your hands and you have butterfingers?
  Dennis Nedry: I am totally unappreciated in my time. You can run this park from this room with minimal staff for up to three days. You think that kind of automation is easy? Or cheap? You know anybody who can network eight connection machines and de-bug two million lines of code for what I get for this job? Because if you can, I'd love to see them try.
  
  Jophery's death in the operation to move the Velociraptors to the smaller enclosure looks like something that should have been preventable. Are the security flaws that led to it being looked into, or is drumming up good PR so they can open the park anyway the main reaction?
  
  
• Lack of knowledge on the animals and their care
  
  Since the animals have been extinct for millions of years it's hard to know too much about them beforehand. This is shown in how the Dilophosaurus turns out to be able to spit venom, when they had been planned to be shown to guests on a tour where they pass right by the fence to their enclosure in vehicles the windows and doors of which they can open at any time. Apparently some prehistoric plants, too, have been cloned, but that's hardly a complete ecosystem (on top of that most of the animals in the park are from different time periods and environments), and not a whole lot can be known about the plants, either.
  
  In addition to how ignorance of some of the animals' basic behaviors and being unprepared to deal with them puts the guests and staff in danger, it does so for the animals, too, especially when the animals themselves are also unprepared for some of the differences in the environment they've been cloned into as opposed to the ones they evolved for.
  
  
  
  Dr. Ellie Sattler: The question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore how could you ever assume that you can control it? You have plants in this building that are poisonous, you picked them because they look good. But these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they're in, and they'll defend themselves, violently if necessary.
  
  
  
  
  Dr. Gerry Harding: We know they're toxic, but the animals don't eat them.
  Dr. Ellie Sattler: Are you sure?
  Dr. Gerry Harding: Pretty sure.
  
  (The scene where the cause for the Triceratops' illness is discovered is left out of the movie, but it's included in the comic adaptation. Turns out that like some birds, Trikes regularly swallow stones to aid in digestion by grinding up their food, and this Trike had picked the stones from under the poisonous lilacs, getting the poison into her system from lilac berries on the ground next to them).
  
  It's also apparent in nobody knowing how to handle the Velociraptors, which turn out to be much smarter and much more interested in not letting fences hold them than had been assumed. As intelligent animals they would have needed a lot of enrichment, and they probably did not consider their original paddock a big enough territory to roam. The raptors have a complex social structure that being functional in is greatly helped by learning social behaviors from parents, and naturally formed raptor packs are likely family groups. The park threw a bunch of young adults raised by humans together and recreated the conditions that led to the misconception on wolf packs as full of violent dominance struggle, when studying packs in the wild has shown them to be, you guessed it, families.
  
  
  
  Robert Muldoon: She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came.
  Dr. Ellie Sattler: The fences are electrified, right?
  (Repeatedly electrocuting itself - sign of a healthy animal. /sarcasm)
  
  The park had limited ways of monitoring the raptors' behavior and needs when they weren't right at the fence, and eventually opted for locking them away more tightly instead of providing them what would have made their living conditions more up to their standards. Muldoon is probably right: instead of moving them into that tiny, cramped enclosure they were surely even more eager to get out of, they should all have been destroyed.
  
  
• Feeding live animals to large carnivores
  
  Just, don't do that. They may want to hunt, but you don't want to teach them to be good at it in case they do get out. Also, poor goats and cows, that's not exactly a humane death for them. There's a risk to the carnivores, too, especially when feeding them animals close to their own size or larger, as prey animals definitely can fight back and injure their hunters.
  
  I think the cow fed to the raptors was probably drugged enough to not put up a struggle, but can you be sure of the effect that consuming a heavily drugged animal will have on the raptors? Even if it's just regular animal tranquilizers, safely tranquilizing an animal includes calculating the dosage based on the animal's weight, which is acknowledged a couple of times in JP/W movies, too, including being a plot point in The Lost World, so I hope they've taken into account how much of the drug each raptor will potentially ingest. At this point, at least the three adult raptors they have in the small holding pen are kind of more of a problem than an asset (but the species in general is apparently not considered to be, since they're making more, and, well, they probably shouldn't be at least before figuring out how to better care for them), so maybe they didn't even care that much about their health anymore. In which case, again, just euthanize them, then.
  

 

Jurassic World

Especially considering Isla Sorna apparently could not eventually support so many invasive species in addition to its native fauna, this park's existence could actually be justified. Unless you want them all to die and before doing so probably make things for Sorna's native fauna and flora even worse, it's a good idea to move the animals back into captivity. The populations on Nublar could benefit from that, too: Rexy for example may have liked her freedom at first, but by the time she was recaptured she was suffering from tooth problems and malnutrition, which vet care and guaranteed regular meals could fix. By then there was probably more research on their behavior and how they would need to be cared for, too. But then they had to go and prioritize making money with the animals over making sure the animals are content.

Claire Dearing: Verizon Wireless presents: the Indominus rex.

• Indominus rex
  
  The fact she was made at all; how she was treated; how utterly unprepared the park actually was for the possibility she'd escape, endangering the guests, too. The Indominus herself is just a big, confused animal, and a victim rather than a villain. Even with the true reason she was created being a secret to even the park's owner, "wow factor" is not a good reason to make a living being. The Indominus is a culmination of the park's irresponsible practices, though, and not where things started to go wrong.
  
  
• Making more in the first place instead of just housing the already existing ones
  
  Surely some of Jurassic World's animals are ones originally made for Jurassic Park, and those animals' descendants, but probably more of them are new. Again, no reason to make them but for people to stare at; nature doesn't need them. Maybe some species could have needed a bigger social group to be happy than they were able to rescue from Sorna, but that doesn't cover cloning completely new species Jurassic Park never had.
  
  
• Hypocrisy about which animals were kept
  
  I think this is info from Evolution of Claire, so I'm not sure how firmly canon it is, but as I recall they specifically did not want to have animals in the park that had a history of killing humans, because it's a "family friendly park". Their star attraction is Rexy.
  
  
  
  
  
• Again with the live feeding large carnivores
  
  In pretty poor taste, too, how much of a show they made of Rexy's feedings considering the previous point, tbh.
  
  
• For that matter, what are they feeding the Mosasaurus?
  
  I mean I assume those fish are dead at least, but... is that a shark?
  
  
  
  By the looks of that closeup shot, a great white shark, which is a protected species and listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. I guess if they can clone dinosaurs they can clone sharks (and condors), too, but I feel like there'd be a better use for those sharks. Like, in the ocean. I have no problem on principle with animals being raised for food, but when it's an animal that needs help in the wild in order to not go extinct at the same time, that's not a good order of priorities.
  
  
• Guests in direct contact with wild animals, unnecessary stress to infant animals
  
  
  
  
  Guests in direct contact with wild animals is by itself already a big no-no even when talking about contemporary wildlife - it's not safe for either party and also encourages seeing every animal as a potential pet regardless of how badly suited they are for that. Petting zoos should be limited to domesticated species, and any guest interaction with wild animals should only be done if it can be beneficial for the animal (such as guests participating in enrichment in ways that are controlled and safe and for the animal both voluntary and based on its natural behaviors).
  
  I'm sure your kid getting to ride a baby Triceratops sounds cute, but poor baby Triceratops having to be in that noisy space with weird creatures pawing at and sitting on it. Poor your kid if they happen to be in the way when the baby Trike decides it's had enough and wants its mommy. Also that river paddling with the sauropods and Stegos in the same space doesn't look safe. At least with gyrospheres there's a barrier even if you're going in their enclosure, though that, too, feels like it would have potential for the guests to bother the animals. Are there precautions in place for if some genius decides to use their gyrosphere to deliberately bump into them to see how long it takes for them to get thagomizered?
  
  
• The I.B.R.I.S. Project
  
  Never mind its goal, the methods were pretty irresponsible as well. Teaching large canivores to hunt, imprinting them on humans, having all that happen right next to a busy theme-park? Masrani mentions the raptors often try to escape. They're not all that happy in their enclosure, then, and probably need more space and enrichment. Owen's training methods are also pretty shit, I don't think that's even how you're supposed to use a clicker. What qualified this guy to be in charge of some of the island's most dangerous animals?
  
  
• Insufficient enclosures in general
  
  The Indominus sure didn't like hers, but there are problems with others than hers and the raptors', too. The aviary doesn't look nearly big enough for that many animals of that size, and its residents seemed to agree, with how quick they were to head for a bigger body of water as soon as they got out.
  
  
  
  I'm also not quite on board with the decision to house the Pteranodons and Dimorphodons in the same enclosure just because they're both pterosaurs. Judging by their behavior towards the park guests, JW's versions of both can be pretty aggressive towards animals of a different species and don't need something to be tiny or a fish to see it as food.
  

Probably the part of Jurassic World (the movie, but also the park) that on the contrary makes me the happiest, however, is the Innovation Center being full of kids excited about everything around them. They're not even looking at living dinosaurs! They're looking at holographic replications and information screens, and fascinated with all of it.

Which is probably also the most 100% realistic part of the movie, because kids love learning about stuff, and they'll love seeing those living dinosaurs, too, but you don't need a gimmick for it. That they're looking at dinos "like an elephant from the city zoo" is a compliment, because have you seen kids at zoos?

But this wasn't enough, and the animals just being happy wasn't enough, and that's a bigger evil than poor Indominus can ever hope to be.