A Letter to Minister Madeleine Meilleur and Premier Kathleen Wynne regarding "province taking action to enhance animal welfare" announcement

The Honourable Madeleine Meilleur
Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services
18th Floor, George Drew Building
25 Grosvenor Street
Toronto, Ontario M7A 1Y6

The Honourable Kathleen Wynne
Premier of Ontario
Main Legislative Building, Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario, M7A 1A3

Dear Minister and Premier:

On behalf of our thousands of members, supporters and constituents throughout Ontario, we would like to express our profound disappointment in your recent announcement regarding the protection of animals and the enhancement of animal welfare in Ontario, particularly with regard to wildlife in captivity.

While we have no issue with increased funding for the Ontario SPCA, your October 25, 2013 announcement failed completely to address the long-standing core issues regarding the keeping of wild animals in zoos, menageries, aquariums and by private individuals in Ontario. In fact, not a single key point discussed in your consultation conducted earlier in 2013 was included in your announcement. Wildlife in captivity in Ontario will remain largely unmonitored and unregulated and the fall out from lack of regulation will be left for the Ontario SPCA to deal with.

After so many similar kinds of discussions and consultations on the wildlife in captivity issue, going back almost 30 years in this province, we find it remarkable that your announcement took so long to be made and that it was devoid of substantive measures to address wildlife in captivity issues.

The key points discussed that needed to be implemented to deal with this issue, and that were generally agreed upon by the NGOs attending your consultation, were entirely absent from your announcement. I will describe them below.

1. The key component of any wildlife in captivity regulatory system is an upfront licensing/permitting regime for all zoos, aquariums, private menageries and wild animal collections. Anyone wanting to acquire wild animals or establish an animal collection should be required to meet a set of criteria prior to a license/permit being approved. The license/permit serves as a filter to weed out the bad and irresponsible operators, rather than letting them establish their businesses and/or personal animal collections, letting them fester and then leaving it to a private charity to deal with the fallout. License/permit revocation is then also available as a sanction for dealing with those facilities who will not or can not maintain acceptable standards over the long term. The suggestion that a voluntary registration program and spot inspections for non-registering facilities will be sufficient is naïve and will do little, if anything, to control the proliferation of wild animals in captivity in Ontario. Anyone will still be able to acquire animals, open a captive facility or keep exotic wild animals as pets. As well, the Ontario SPCA already has the authority to enter zoo premises, without a warrant, to conduct inspections.

2. Comprehensive, enforceable standards for the operation of zoos, aquariums, private menageries and animal collections or for the housing, husbandry and care of wildlife in captivity are essential. The current standards under the Ontario SPCA Act are brief, non-specific, highly subjective, inadequate and, in some cases, unenforceable. Your announcement did not include any mention of more comprehensive standards for wildlife in captivity in Ontario.

3. Although NGOs at your consultation agreed that a prohibition on the keeping of whales and dolphins was warranted and in step with other progressive jurisdictions around the world, your announcement merely stated that experts would be consulted and a set of standards developed and publicized sometime in 2014. There was no information about who would develop the standards or what they would be based on. The concerns about marine mammals in Ontario and the voices of tens of thousands of Ontarians who spoke out have been largely ignored. What is particularly alarming is your statement that regulatory standards will consider the economic and tourism impact on affected communities.

4. Your announcement made no mention of a prohibition or any controls whatsoever on the keeping of dangerous wild animals, such as big cats, bears and giant constricting snakes. Any citizen of Ontario will still be able to buy these animals for personal amusement purposes, impacting animal welfare and endangering family, friends and community members.

5. NGOs at your consultation agreed that transparency and accountability were integral to any regulatory scheme to make it more effective and to create public confidence and support for it. There will be no change to the current system whereby members of the public find it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain information about “official actions”.

6. Whistleblower protection was another important issue that was discussed in your consultation. However, whistleblower protection that would encourage the very people who are best positioned to report on animal abuse and neglect, compassionate staff and volunteers at animal facilities, was not even mentioned. Instead, those brave individuals who do speak out to help animals will continue to be faced with intimidation and legal threats by the facilities who keep animals.

As you know, Ontario has a proportionately greater number of zoos, menageries and aquariums than any other province in Canada and that situation is due, in large part, to the fact that wildlife in captivity facilities have never been properly regulated. Your announcement will not change that situation.

You probably already know that support for increased oversight and regulation of Ontario’s zoos, menageries and aquariums is very strong. A 2013 Nanos poll found 83% of Ontarians support regulation, while a 2012 Broadview Group poll showed 82% support and a 2010 Oracle poll showed approximately 90% support. Other polls indicate similar levels of support.

We strongly encourage you to revisit this issue. You stated repeatedly over the past year that you were committed to doing whatever has to be done to address the wildlife in captivity issue in Ontario. The tens of thousands of Ontarians who spoke out on this issue deserve better and, it should go without saying, the animals do too.

Sincerely,

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Inc.

Time to put aside differences and get elephants moved as smoothly and safely as possible

On October 25, 2011, City of Toronto Council voted 31 to 4 in favour of retiring the Toronto Zoo’s three surviving elephants, Iringa, Toka and Thika, to the PAWS sanctuary in California.

The Toronto Zoo had originally proposed sending the elephants to an American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) accredited facility. Council decided the more appropriate and compassionate choice for the elephants was the PAWS sanctuary.

The move to PAWS has been endorsed by many of the world’s leading elephant experts, including Dr. Joyce Poole, Dr. Cynthia Moss, Winnie Kiiru and Dr. Keith Lindsay, to name just a few. In addition, animal experts, like Dr. Jane Goodall, animal welfare and wildlife protection organizations and many others endorse the move.

On November 24th, the Toronto Zoo Board of Management affirmed City Council’s decision and set a target date of April 30, 2012 for the elephants to be moved. This time frame allows for a working relationship to be established between the Toronto Zoo and PAWS staff, permits to be obtained, training to be conducted and winter to pass (since the elephants will most likely be moved by truck).

A number of people, such as some Toronto Zoo staff (including several elephant keepers), argued that the decision by City Council, and even by the zoo’s own Board of Management, was ill-informed and inappropriate. Some Toronto Zoo elephant keepers also said all potential recipient facilites should be evaluated and compared to find out which one was best and that the keepers should be the ones to make the decision about where the elephants would go.

In my view, the decision by Toronto City Council and by the Toronto Zoo Board of Management was reasonable, informed and appropriate. Here’s why.

1. The City Council decision was not made in a vacuum. Councillors had a large amount of material at their disposal, representing all points of view, and many of them conducted their own research.
2. The City of Toronto (and by extension the citizens of Toronto) own the elephants under a governance agreement that has been in place since the zoo was created approximately 35 years ago. Zoo staff do not own the elephants.
3. It was the Toronto Zoo Board of Management who terminated the elephant program in the first place and later affirmed City Council’s decision to send the elephants to PAWS.
4. A significant number of animals are moved into and out of zoos regularly on the recommendation of external committees, zoo managers and curators, and from time to time, other people and/or agencies. Sometimes keepers are involved in those decisions, but many times they are not.
5. The Toronto Zoo elephant discussion has been ongoing for approximately three years. Only after the discussion had run its course, nearly six months had passed since the Board of Management voted to terminate the elephant program and City Council voted to move the elephants to the PAWS sanctuary did keeper staff make a serious effort to have their voices heard publicly and independent of the Toronto Zoo senior management and the Board of Management.
6. Even though the PAWS sanctuary had been promoted for three years by animal welfare groups as the preferred destination point for the elephants, it was unreasonably excluded from the review process established by the Zoo’s board in May 2011, even though no one from the Toronto Zoo had ever visited or contacted the PAWS sanctuary to obtain information about their operation.
7. A review has been done. After the May meeting, Zoocheck compared the AZA elephant management and care standards with conditions at the PAWS sanctuary.
8. The National Elephant Center (NEC), which had been proposed as a possible recipient facility for the Toronto Zoo elephants does not exist and construction of its first phase may not even begin in 2012.
9. A professional poll conducted by RA Malatest and Associates showed that the majority of Torontonians want the Toronto Zoo elephants moved to a sanctuary, instead of a another zoo.

Here are just some of the reasons why I think the PAWS sanctuary is the correct choice for the Toronto Zoo elephants.

• A 323,748 m² (80 acre) African elephant enclosure (647 times larger than the AZA minimum standard of 500 m² adult elephant).
• Natural terrain with hills, pasture for grazing throughout the year, mud wallows, water pools that allow complete submersion and swimming, and other features.
• A 1,858 m² (20,000 ft²) “state of the art” elephant barn with rubberized flooring and heated stalls.
• Other African elephants to socialize with.
• A stable, lifetime home.
• Highly skilled elephant caretakers with a solid track record of successfully caring for old, injured, ill, infirm and retired elephants.
• Humane management and no use of the ankus (bullhook).
• 24 hour monitoring of elephants and staff that live on the grounds (something few zoos have).
• Excellent veterinary care.
• A more elephant friendly climate.
• PAWS is accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.

The decision to move the elephants has been made. It is now incumbent upon those who truly care about these wonderful animals to do whatever they can to ensure their move to California is as smooth and safe as possible. The elephants deserve no less.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck