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I agree, keeping chimpanzees in an aquarium is unethical.
...now I have a mental image of chimps in an automated current "Lazy River" in inner tubes or wearing water wings. Almost spit my coffee out.
You have to ask the question why zoos at all, I know most have been promoting their role in conservation but I'm quite sceptical about that.
Why zoos?

Because furtivism, habitat loss, contamination, sixth extinction, education and conservation.

Because some species only survive in zoos today.

Because only 9 of each 10 wild lions in Africa had dissapeared in one human generation lapse time, etc, etc...

At first the zoo was menagerie only for the pleasure not about conservation. They evolved to conservation.

Now they see that they can not properly take care of animals, even if they try to do their best they still do not know how to do it right. New sickness, etc.

The only way to save animals is by decree a land where human do not have any rights to go their.

This is just plain old Bullshit. People in zoos are professionals and of course they know how to care for the animals.

The only way to save animals... [set them free, blah, blah, blah]

Then why the white rhinos are still endangered? Will survive the californian porpoise four years more? I, and many other people, seriously doubt it.

Yes, they are "professionals", but nobody is better than the nature itself.

The whales and dolphins are not happy to do the show. This is proven and give them drugs (http://www.dauphinlibre.be/le-zoo-de-nuremberg-drogue-ses-da...) to kept them happy. Nice professionalism there.

Many other species lack diversity and therefore suffer from genetic diversity, they need to exchange species between country in order to grow the diversity, new sickness are born but yes they are professionals.

There's not real reason to stay in the old menagerie system, animals have rights to live and if we need food we need to protect them. Point barre, like we say in French.

Your link do not makes any sense.

Any real expert in dolphins can tell you that dolphins can not be safely sedated because, unlike us, the breath in cetaceans is voluntary. Basic zoology principles. Yes, zoologists and vets are professionals for something. They studied a lot of years and know their stuff. Surgery in dolphins is always a risk. If you put a dolphin to sleep, the dolphin "forgets to breath" and dies quickly.

Therefore the author of the article wrote some very unlikely accusations without any clear proof (and obviously do not know much about real dolphins). The idea of sedating dolphins regularly in a show for any extended period of time just because they "don't feel like dancing today" is ludicrous. This kind of defamatory articles are sadly as common as successful collecting money from their naive public.

>Any real expert in dolphins can tell you that dolphins can not be safely sedated because, unlike us, the breath in cetaceans is voluntary.

I don't understand any french so I can't say much about that article, but as a local from Nuremberg, I can support the prior statement about them using drugs to keep their animals in check. I'm also not so sure about your statement because I found a paper regarding the effects of diazepam use on captive bottlenose dolphins [0], explicitly stating that:

"It is very tempting to use these medications as a management tool. They can be used to help mask the problems of poor husbandry, and of inappropriate and depauperate environments."

and:

"There is considerable potential for diazepam to be misused and the welfare of animals compromised. It may be used to help cover up serious deficiencies in management and husbandry, and there is strong evidence of it being misused in dolphinaria."

So this practice most certainly ain't as unheard of as you are implying.

They use psychotropic drugs, along with a rather long list of 20 other medicaments to keep the animals alive in those sorry living conditions [1], the data on the medication came straight out of the zoo's files. The zoo's director himself argued that giving dolphins diazepam is a totally normal thing to do to increase their appetite [2].

Even as a kid I never liked that place, seeing these animals perform tricks in a sterile indoor pool, with their back fins hanging down, felt unnatural and made me feel sorry for these poor creatures. They also had a hippo there that was housed in a tank that's barely been bigger than the hippo itself. I'm not an animal expert, but I have empathy and that was and still is enough to recognize what's happening there ain't good or healthy for these animals.

[0] http://endcap.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Diazepam-its-use...

[1] http://uk.whales.org/news/2012/07/german-zoo-data-reveals-ca...

[2] http://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/tierschuetzer-kritisieren-...

Of course they're professionals, but modern Zoos are there for entertainment first. The conservation part is not priority anymore. If we need them for conservation then let's focus on that, no need to have thousands of people visiting.
Many of the conservation efforts contributed by zoos would disappear without the funds generated by the thousands of people visiting.
And no need to spend lots of money each day to feed the animals. Just put the zebras and lions in the same recint and watch the good old PETA-approved nature in action. You obtain super-happy lions (except those kicked in the head with an open fracture maybe).
A while ago I read about the DMZ between North/South Korea being a place where endangered species thrive again.
The area around Chernobyl is a haven for animals for the same reasons.
For some animals yes, but not for all. It seems that for some birds is more like a sink, constantly recolonized by birds from other zones that die quickly. Chernobil is unique in many aspects, as a defy, an economic burden for all european countries and an opportunity. I think that should be declared as the first supranational european park, watched and cleaned as soon as possible. Radioactive animals living in Chernobyl travel across all europe and migrate towards the nord also so is a problem for EU, and also for the countries belonging to the old Soviet Union that can't be managed for one single country.
I don't doubt that there is a problem, just whether zoos can do anything about it.
There are global breeding programs run by zoos and animals are routinely released back into the world.

Think of zoos as the world's DR environment.

Zoos had quite big success at breeding back THE African wild dog.
Yeah though I'm on the fence regarding orangutans, considering how their natural environment is being quickly destroyed.
As an aside Vancouver does not have a zoo and I think someone attempting to start one would run into similar controversy.
Greater Vancouver Zoo exists [1]. But the zoo in Stanley Park closed down long ago [2]. Here's an interesting shot of the polar bear enclosure from 1963 [3].

[1] http://gvzoo.com

[2] http://www.miss604.com/2012/04/vancouver-history-stanley-par...

[3] http://www.miss604.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/...

as much as I agree with you I don't find it realistic and find more realistic excluding at least most intelligent self aware animals
Well, to begin with, Vancouver doesn't really have a zoo.
Greater Vancouver Zoo. Another really said place.
Yeah, that's why I said "really". It's an hour outside the city ("30 minutes from Vancouver" my ass) and is a sad excuse for a zoo, especially given the price of admission.
Octopuses?