I'm no expert on any of this by any means. But as this is seemingly an opinion based question, I'll give it a go. Keep in mind I'm probably hopelessly optimistic about all of this.
In my opinion, recreation/fun, conservation, and education are all so intertwined in the concept of a good zoo that it's difficult to pick one. They should all be important, ideally with conservation and education lifted above recreation. And I still think that without even one of these three, a zoo isn't respectable. But when it comes down to it, all a zoo NEEDS is recreation. As long as it's a fun place to bring the kids, spend a day to relax, and at least looks nice on a surface level it's going to get visitors.
As for which of the three I think is most important? Education. How can we expect people to care if they don't know why they should? Conservation depends on education fundamentally. Teaching future generations about why we should protect these animals and inspiring THEM to join the cause should be the number one priority for zoos. Of the three this is in my opinion the most vital.
But zoos need to have a balance. Ideally they have all three. They teach guests about the values of conserving wildlife and educate them, but also provide fun for guests and have innovative ideas that keep drawing guests back for recreation. They then use these profits to make impacts elsewhere and support conservation, which in turn improves their image.
I largely agree with this.
There is a triumvirate of priorities here which need to be balanced.
From an ideological point of view, conservation is the most important. However, without revenue from visitors - you're relying on public funding via taxation, for which you need to justify the spending.
Which is where education comes in - if you can't justify your spending by educating the population about why conservation is important, then nobody is going to support your cause and you won't get funding.
Conservation does not happen in a vacuum - it costs money to undertake conservation activities, therefore there is a significant economic aspect to the activities.
This is where the entertainment aspect comes from - by providing a venue to entertain the population, you can avoid or minimise the vagaries of public funding and be more self-sufficient.
Coupled with education programs to justify your existence, the conservation activities can then be funded without relying so much on fickle political support.
You can certainly run conservation programs without public funding or education - if you have a wealthy private sponsor - but would not be common.
It's interesting and somewhat telling that the Australian government providing support to zoos right now is doing so via the Minister for Tourism - not the "Minister for the Environment" or the "Minister for Education". It's an unfortunately cynical view of the world that it is primarily the responsibility of entertainers (tourism) to conserve our wildlife.
Of course, this is a very narrow view of conservation. Conservation does not only happen in zoos - but because they can get funding from the general public via entrance fees, the role of zoos in conservation outside of zoos is still important.
So in answer to the original question about which is the more important purpose: ideologically it has to be conservation, but you can't do that without both education and entertainment - so it comes down to a matter of balancing those factors. Zoos will each approach those aspects in their own unique way - which is what makes them all so unique and interesting.
There wouldn't be much to discuss on ZooChat if all of the zoos did exactly the same thing, would there?
