ZOOS

This article was contributed by the Captive Animals Protection Society. 

Zoos claim to exist for conservation, education, research and entertainment.  Few animals bred in zoos are released into the wild, and there is a real danger that potentially devastating diseases could be taken to the wild by captive bred zoo animals. The traffic of wild animals coming into zoos from their native homes is greater than many people realise. Often surplus zoo animals are culled (killed) or sent to exotic meat farms because there is no room for them at the zoo. 

Studies have shown that visitors spend a few minutes, or seconds, sometimes just a fleeting glimpse at an exhibit before moving on to the next. Seeing an animal neurotically pacing like the polar bear at Flamingoland, the tiger at London Zoo, the swaying of the elephants at Chester, or Joe, the Twycross Zoo gorilla, eating again the meals he regurgitates is shocking and tragic. We have reduced these magnificent animals to freaks in a sideshow.

Polar bear at Flamingoland

As for research, studying these ‘freaks’ will not teach us about conservation and the wild. The way to do that is to study and protect habitat. This is the only way to save our endangered species.

Which brings me to entertainment. Elephants lifting a front and hind leg simultaneously, sea-lions balancing balls on their noses, parrots riding parrot sized scooters – all acts seen this year in UK zoos and all reminiscent of the circus.

London Zoo's performing elephant     

Zoos exist as a day out, somewhere to visit and then go home. For the animals, however, it is the longest life sentence…

The History of Zoos

The term ‘zoo’ was not used until 1826 when the Zoological Society of London was founded. At the end of World War II, there were only 14 zoos in the UK, but in the late fifties and early sixties the number rose, reaching about 250 by the 1980s. 

A zoo is defined in the Zoo Licensing Act as being ‘an establishment where wild animals are kept for exhibition ... to which members of the public have access, with or without charge for admission, on more than seven days in any period of twelve consecutive months’.

To persuade the public that to keep animals in concrete barren enclosures is appropriate, zoos claim that they are working for the greater good; for conservation, education, research and entertainment.

Conservation

In 1992 the then Director of London Zoo said “Nobody realised conservation can sell tickets”. He went on to launch a PR campaign advertising the zoo as ‘Conservation in Action’.

There are thousands of species worldwide that are endangered, yet few are in captive breeding programmes; even less have been returned to the wild with any degree of success. Most animals in zoos are not endangered, and are there only as exhibits, because they are ‘attractive to look at’, or scary and exciting. The majority of endangered species are not beautiful like tigers or majestic like elephants, they are the unattractive insects, or the fairly unspectacular birds.  But their presence doesn’t sell tickets. Visit your local zoo and you will see pretty much the basic zoo exhibits. Tigers, lions, elephants and giraffes – the weird and the wonderful. But how many of these ‘key’ zoo species have been released into the wild? The answer, quite simply is none.

Zoos hit the headlines when they have bred an endangered species. But breeding is a natural behaviour. Animals don’t need help reproducing; they have been doing it successfully for a very long time. Tiger numbers have been threatened by habitat destruction and poaching. Unless these problems are addressed tigers will never be ‘put back’ in to the wild. There is no point allowing captive breeding programmes for tigers, if when those tigers are released, there is no food for them to eat. Conservation should not be about the protection of one species, it should be about the protection of a whole ecosystem.

Tiger expert Valmik Thapar, presenter of the BBC series ‘Land of the Tiger’ spoke at the Year of the Tiger Conference in Dallas 1998. He claimed that captive breeding programmes receive a disproportionate amount of money compared with the contribution they make to conservation. Cubs born in captivity cannot go back to the wild, because they are usually hand reared as captive tigresses do not make good mothers. Hand reared cubs become accustomed to humans and have no means of learning how to hunt, a skill learned from their mother during their first two years of life.

Taken from the wild

Zoos would have us believe that they are not consumers of wildlife. Yet you only have to read the International Zoo Yearbook to see the species that are snatched from the wild to be incarcerated in zoos. Included in the list as they put it ‘imported from the wild’ are bush dogs, maned wolves, black footed cats, bears, cheetah, rhinos and otters, to name just a few. Between 1984 and 1991, 32 Sumatran rhinos were taken from the wild in Indonesia to supply zoos in the USA. 9 died during or after capture. In 1992 9 black rhinos were captured from the wild for an Australian zoo, for a captive breeding programme. One male died during quarantine, another died after charging at a metal fence at the zoo. The remaining rhinos were all female.

One of the reasons that animals are taken from the wild may be to introduce new blood. Of course, if you allow the same animals to breed, and only have a limited number of animals to use in your captive breeding programme, you are working with a limited gene pool. A 1979 study reported in Science magazine, argued that lack of genetic diversity is a serious problem among captive animals.

Having to maintain genetic diversity means that some zoo animals become surplus and unwanted. Chester Zoo is known to have supplied some of their unwanted bison to an exotic meat farmer in the Midlands.  Other animals are killed because they are STR or 'Surplus To Requirements'. Lions breed prolifically in zoos and surplus African cubs have in the past been a problem. The solution was to kill them or send them off to circuses.

Imagine that an animal has been bred in captivity and released into the wild, a primate for example. The animal has to learn how to cope with the environment, the weather, other species that the animal may encounter and diseases that the animal may not have any immunity to. The release of an animal is a stressful business.

Of over 100 captive bred tamarins released into the wild, only around 30 survived. Some were unable to cope as they were unused to climbing on natural springy branches; a few could not handle the natural diet.

  tamarin

In 1991 a lethal virus was identified in a zoo bred tamarin just three days before the animal was due to be released into an area of the wild where the virus was unknown. The virus was thought to have come from mice fed to the tamarins whilst they were at the zoo.

In the wild, species build up resistance to naturally occurring disease, but zoo animals may not be able to develop immunity. Zoo animals spend their lives in close proximity to other species and people. Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (similar to BSE or mad cow disease) has been reported in a wide range of species found in zoos including cheetah, kudu, eland, Arabian oryx, puma and ostrich.

There are zoos and safari parks which are known to have supplied animals, including primates, to laboratories. Some UK zoos still have close relationships with circuses and circus trainers/animal dealers. Fred the Canadian Black bear, now with Circus King, was, according to his owners, born in a UK zoo.