Don’t buy the spin. Zoos aren’t good.

Zoos often claim they are conserving species, and that is their reason for existence. However this claim is really a public relations tool, not a fact based on evidence. True conservation means rehabbing and returning animals to their habitat in the wild. The fact is most large exotic wild animals will likely never be released to the wild from a zoo. Aquariums are guilty of spreading the same kind of misinformation.

Take elephants, for example. No elephant will most likely ever be returned to Asia or Africa from a zoo. Elephants in zoos die at half their expected lifetimes in the wild, and elephant breeding programs are miserable failures. At the Oregon Zoo, 21 of the 28 elephants born at the zoo are now dead. Zoo enclosures are inadequate to meet the needs of the world’s largest land mammals.

Even if there were one iota of evidence that confining exotic animals for life saves them in the wild, it is cruel to incarcerate such intelligent and social animals for years in small enclosures with little to nothing to do. They often exhibit stereotypical stress behavior. Such as, head bobbing, pacing, swaying, rocking back and forth. They suffer through loud music concerts, screaming kids, trains that rattle past their yards, day after day, month after month, year after year.

We urge the public to consider alternative means of experiencing wild animals. There are sanctuaries where you can visit. There are many excellent films and documentaries. There are livestream videos of elephants and other exotic animals living in sanctuary. The massive amount of money that is spent on maintaining and expanding elephant habitats in zoos could fund refuges in Africa.

We can do better than this. And we have to see through the propaganda that is sadly being touted by American Humane in its USA TODAY column — a group supposedly dedicated to animal welfare. Stop buying the age-old story that zoos are about conservation. They are about entertainment for profit. Courtney Scott, president

Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants Portland, Ore.