hi again @zvezda51, please see my other comment first. again, i appreciate and respect your thoughtful comments and i want to share my responses to you, out of respect because obviously you like animals and nature, so we are on the same side :-)
I understand the argument you are trying to make, but that is the argument used by zoos and other businesses that profit from keeping animals for entertainment: that introducing people to animals up-close will create an appreciation and love for the animal, educating them to help these animals in the future. Unfortunately this is bad logic, because there are many people who have seen hamsters, ferrets, iguanas or cats up-close and in-person, but they do not grow to like hamsters, ferrets, iguanas or cats, or become advocates for hamster rescue, ferret rescue etc. Seeing an animal up-close and in-person may introduce the person to that animal but it does NOT mean the person will care about the animal's welfare. Look at all the people who don't like cats and dogs, even tho they have met them in person.
I also understand your point that if people can't see animals from outside their local region, then they might ignore them. This is also a bad argument because today, unlike in the 1950s, there is the internet and streaming video and people in South America can see videos of polar bears in real time. People don't need to see a polar bear at the zoo, in person, to care about polar bears starving to death from global warming -- people can just look at all the polar bear stories/images/videos/content from social media and the internet. Again, the traditional zoo has no place in modern society.