Shifting Baseline Syndrome and White Geese

How Questionable Wildlife Management Devours Tax Dollars

In Canada, we have a federal government infamously downloading or cutting off a myriad of valid environmental research programs—inconvenient facts being an impediment to what’s really important to the right-wing ideologues now in power—while ignoring one area of waste that is quite disposable, but oh, ever so convenient if you don’t mind a total, absurdly wasteful sham.

The Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) has come out with its latest “Population Status of Migratory Birds in Canada” and is now vilifying a species that is, I’d guess, unknown to 99 percent plus of federal politicians, or other Canadians. The Ross’s goose is nearly identical to a somewhat better known species (although I suspect still unfamiliar to most Canadians): the snow goose. These are both white geese with black wing tips. The snow goose actually comes in two color patterns, called morphs. A minority are dark brownish-grey with white heads and light blue-grey wing patches, and are known colloquially as “blue geese.” They were once thought to be a separate species. The Ross’s shows this “blue” version only very rarely. Otherwise, the Ross’s resembles the snow but is smaller, with a much shorter, stubbier beak with a kind of blue-grey, warty-looking patch around the nostrils. Even the geese can get confused and hybrids occur.

The snow geese are also divided into “lesser snow geese” which breed in the central to western Arctic, and the wee bit larger “greater snow geese” of the eastern Arctic. The tendency is to “lump” them all as “white geese” for the sake of “management.”

The snow goose was already thoroughly vilified by employment of something called the “shifting baseline syndrome.” That phrase was coined by fishery biologist Daniel Pauly, who used it in 1995 in reference to fish management (another tax-funded wildlife management disaster; remember the northern cod?) but applicable to a wide range of wildlife management policies. “Essentially,” Pauly wrote, “this syndrome has arisen because each generation of fisheries scientists accepts as a baseline the stock and species composition that occurred at the beginning of their careers, and uses this to evaluate changes.”

Around the same time, I said the same thing, only about waterfowl biologists with regard to snow geese. A tight group of (mostly) men raised shrill alarm that the white goose population had increased startlingly—there being so many that they were damaging the environment by pulling out plants by the roots, thus altering salt levels in the soil of coastal areas, to the detriment of numerous other Arctic and subarctic species. The northern ecosystem was, they said, “in peril.”

In 1998, I visited the primary research site, near Churchill, Manitoba, in company with Dr. Vernon Thomas, Department of Zoology at the University of Guelph. True, there were mud-flats where geese had eaten the vegetation, but the subarctic ecosystem seemed in no way imperiled, and the desert-like conditions suggested by the lurid prose were restricted and rarely bigger than, say, a football field. We viewed the area from the air, and then landed, and on the ground found rhizomes under even the most barren patches of soil criss-crossed with goose footprints. The region is under something called “isostatic rebound,” whereby the ground is not-so-slowly rising, adding more land as Hudson Bay retreats, in a state of continued, natural change.

I found that the original 1997 report, used to justify a massive increase in hunters’ ability to kill large numbers of “lesser” snow geese, contained a glaring error by giving an incorrect publication date for a life history study that clearly showed something that was being ignored by these waterfowl “biologists,” as surely as the fishery biologists referenced by Dr. Pauly ignored historical data about the size of fisheries (with disastrous results).

There is nothing “scientific” about ignoring data that don’t fit your theory, and this cluster of waterfowl managers wanted us all to believe that the Arctic ecosystem was in peril, only to be relieved by culling (or “harvesting”) vastly more snow geese. Goose numbers were presented as being higher than ever. Classically displaying the avian version of the shifting base syndrome, they had assumed that the conditions they had seen on their first visits to the north as young men, when the white geese were at or close to all-time lowest numbers, were the “norm;” thus, the changes they had seen as white goose numbers increased were seen as abnormal. And, as has been said of a suite of other species, the change was attributed to anthropogenic (human-caused) changes—in this case, the planting of crops that provided wintering geese in the southern U.S. more food than they had ever had before. It was called an “agricultural subsidy.” So, how much food did geese have before, say, the industrial revolution? No one even asked.

This differs from the fisheries’ version of shifting base syndrome only because so many fish species never got a chance to recover, while the snow geese did. But, in both circumstances, management decisions are based on faulty estimates of what “should” be there based on the historic record—and would be, had they been left alone.

I know this is all sort of technical, thus boring, which is why it’s so easy to waste Canadian tax money… But stay with me on this, because it is also not very hard to understand.

If these “biologists,” on government payrolls and/or various government grants or funding from NGOs in the business of supporting the entire sham, flying about the Arctic and subarctic garnering “data” to prove their point, were right, then surely early records would show low numbers of white geese. The exact opposite was true.

Most of the killing off of snow geese occurred before there was much effort or ability to count them, and long before aerial photography and other technologies for producing accurate estimates were available. But, read this quote from pioneering ornithologist Herbert W. Brandt, describing an experience in Texas, where, on March 23, 1919, he and his companions visited a marsh on the plains. “As we approached it looked as if it was covered with snow, but it proved to be thousands upon thousands of snow geese and other wild geese. Here is their winter home, coming into the great pastures at night to feed on the abundant grass. Last year for the first time known a couple of large flocks remained the entire summer.” Indeed, like small numbers of other such first-hand accounts that survive from that era, it suggests abundance comparable to, and possibly greater than, what we experience today. Brandt continues that the owner of the ranch “told us that the geese we saw were just a few left from the great winter flocks, most of them having now departed for the northland. He has seen 500 acres of solid geese, he said, just one snow bank…”

There are other such accounts, even photographs, all dutifully ignored or dismissed as “anecdotal” by the CWS. It’s important, because assuming that the various accounts were right, huge numbers of snow geese have naturally occurred before, and left no permanent damage. Indeed, in a private moment at a waterfowl conference in Memphis some years ago, a CWS waterfowl manager said to me, “Barry, it will take a good fifty years for some of that vegetation to recover.” I just looked at him. He blinked, and then said, “But that’s your point, isn’t it?”

Exactly.

Politicians would far, far rather scapegoat wild animals than address serious and real environmental threats. I mean, yes, the Arctic is in peril, but from a wide range of anthropogenic forces culminating in rising temperatures on average—not from a native species who has been there since the retreat of the glaciers.

Which brings us back to Ross’s geese. When I was a young child in the 1950s, it was, to me, a mystery bird: a small version of the snow geese, whose nest had not been discovered until 1938. In one of my childhood reference books, it stated, “They winter entirely in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys of California, where they are known to gunners by the name ‘China geese’ and now enjoy absolute protection under the game laws.”

No longer. They made the mistake of trying to recover to former numbers. Those stubby little beaks of theirs are now implicated in the increased “peril” we are supposed to believe the Arctic endures at the hands, or beaks, of the white geese—even the little, once endangered Ross’s goose. The CWS has issued its “notice of intent” to designate these small geese as “overabundant.” Well… They were rare back when I was ten years old, and now they aren’t… Wow… Maybe their current numbers are unprecedented.

Well, no, not according to the always easy-to-ignore historic record. It is a fragmented record because, apart from a handful of ornithologists, no one in the 19th and early 20th centuries could identify them as anything other than, at most, puny snow geese. And yet, a knowledgeable chronicler wrote in 1928, shortly before the bird became endangered, that on its wintering ground in central California, it was “often quite common. It seems to be tamer than other species of geese which visit that region; hence many are shot for the market…” Remember, we are talking about an era that saw the elimination “for the market” or otherwise, of vast herds of bison; the extinction of our most common bird, the passenger pigeon; the elimination of huge flocks of Eskimo curlews, now extinct; the elimination of our only native parrot, the Carolina parakeet; the extinction of our only flightless birds, the spectacled cormorant and the great auk; the extinction of the Labrador duck; the extinction of the Atlantic gray whale; the extinction of the heath hen; and on and on… It was an era of mass wildlife destruction, and a small white goose who came from a place where few or no humans lived—and we thus had not learned to fear them—wouldn’t have had a chance.

Based on what happened with the snow geese when they were designated as “over abundant,” what will be wanted when the designation is given (and it will be) is absurdly extended bag limits, use of recorded calls and baits, a spring hunting season, and anything else that replaces the concept of “fair chase” or “sport” with permission to slaughter. There is the added advantage that hunters who enjoy this sort of thing (and I emphasize that many don’t) will be able to bang away at any white birds with black wing tips (hoping they exclude whooping cranes and white pelicans) without the nuisance of having to tell the Ross’s goose from the snow goose. They will be able to kill large numbers of them using bait and electronic calls, all with federal blessings.

At the time this all began, we predicted it wouldn’t work. First, there was no way hunters would or could slaughter enough snow geese to reduce their continental population to a number satisfactory to the wildlife managers: a number where their feeding showed virtually no “impact” on vegetation. In fact, many hunters were quite disgusted with the idea, and with the inevitable waste of meat if one meets the bag limits. Snow geese are not generally tasty, and we taxpayers unwittingly funded a government cook book on how to make them more palatable. A guy who shoots twenty a day is hardly going to eat all twenty! Also, Arctic wildlife populations typically display “boom-bust” increases followed by population crashes; think lemmings, for example, and the predators who eat them. But, by knocking the top off the growth curve, one assures that the “bust” part does not happen… They don’t peak, there is no subsequent crash, and numbers stay high.

Two decades later, we have been proven to be right. As the CWS puts it, “Despite recent efforts to reduce the numbers of mid-continent Lesser Snow Geese, the population continues to grow.” But, paradoxically, that’s good news for wildlife biologists whose ineptitudes are so seldom challenged; their work, their grants, are assured into the future.

And, even if a government infamous for cutting funding to work that raises alarms about the environment figures it all out – which is highly unlikely – well, they will happily keep signing the cheques so they can say they are funding conservation. I mean, hey; you could address, say, climate change, but that might mean limiting, say, the Alberta oil sands, or proposed pipelines, or Arctic resource exploration… So, you can see the dilemma. It’s easier to kill geese.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA

Originally published http://www.bornfreeusa.org/weblog_canada.php?p=4063&more=1

National Bird Day 2014: Cockamamie, Contrarian Cockatoos

Why You Really Do NOT Want to Have this Group of Parrots for "Pets"

In celebration of National Bird Day 2014, Barry Kent MacKay, Senior Program Associate for Born Free USA and lifelong bird enthusiast, is writing a special six-part blog series in December and January where he will describe some of his favorite avian species.

Scientists are a bit at odds: do the 21 species of birds collectively known as “cockatoos” belong in their own family, or are they members of the same family as other parrots?

Answer: it doesn’t matter to anyone but those scientists. To the rest of us, they’re all parrots.

The parrot family has a world-wide distribution concentrated in warm climates. The cockatoos are pretty well restricted to the Australasian region. All have at least some degree of crests and many are mostly white. However, there are six species that are mostly black, one that is dark gray with a red head, one that is mostly pink and gray, and the smallest, the Cockatiel, is predominately gray but with a yellow head and orange-red ear patch and white wing patches.

Because they are loud, conspicuous birds, most cockatoo species tend to be well known to various communities within their range, and many species have a variety of English, or “common,” names. For example, the Pink Cockatoo is also called the Leadbeater’s Cockatoo and the Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo. The Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, or some of its subspecies, are also known as the Yellow-crested Cockatoo, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, the Timor Cockatoo, and the Citron-crested Cockatoo.

Many have quite limited ranges, restricted to certain islands or island archipelagos. About eleven species naturally occur in the wild only in Australia, with a couple of others found only in Australia and some nearby islands. Some are abundant in the wild, but others are endangered (some critically so). One subspecies of the Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, the so-called “Abbott’s Cockatoo,” found only on Masalembu Islands in the South Java Sea, was rediscovered after being thought to be extinct, and has been called the world’s rarest bird (a claim unfortunately made for several other bird species). A few cockatoo species do breed fairly well in captivity and have self-sustaining captive populations. Arguably the most dissimilar of the group, the Cockatiel, is probably the only one reasonably well suited as a companion animal, and has been essentially domesticated. It now comes in a variety of odd colors and patterns, although I think the wild type is the prettiest of all.

Cockatoos are not only beautiful; as birds go, they are very intelligent, and they tend to appeal to us by virtue of their hand-like use of their feet (a trait they have in common with other parrots, but which is exceptionally well-developed among the larger parrot species, including cockatoos). At least one cockatoo, the Palm Cockatoo (also known as the Cape York Cockatoo, Great Palm Cockatoo, Black Palm Cockatoo, Black Macaw, Great Black Cockatoo, and the Goliath Cockatoo), has been filmed “tool using;” it can take a sturdy stick and beat it against a log, like a primitive form of drumming.

Cockatoos are, by any reasonable definition, intelligent. That makes them inquisitive, restless, and intellectually engaged in their surroundings. They are quite emotional. They naturally occupy huge regions where there are uncountable interactions with a vast multitude of physical complexities. Captivity provides none of that. And so captive cockatoos are easily bored, and when bored, they can literally become psychotic and indulge in unfortunate, often self-destructive, stereotypic behavior. Most notorious is so-called “feather plucking,” a serious form of self-mutilation whereby the birds pull out all the contour (body) feathers within reach. Once this horrific behavior starts, it is extremely difficult, if not almost impossible, to cure. It can lead to bleeding, hypothermia, and infection, and is sadly unsightly.

Cockatoos form strong bonds, and these can cause problems with captive birds when they bond with one human, and become jealous or resentful of others, to the point of biting other people. And, a cockatoo bite is quite powerful and can cause a very serious injury and permanent scarring.

And then there is the noise: loud screeches that developed over millions of years to allow the birds to communicate long distances across mountain valleys and through jungle forest canopies, or over vast desert landscapes. They grate on human nervous systems and exceed safe decibel levels to the point of putting human hearing at risk.

They are also destructive. It is in their nature to chew, and so the well-intentioned cockatoo owner who allows a bird some freedom of the house may incur expensive repair or replacement bills to doors, molding and sills, books, and furniture.

And finally, since captivity is not healthy for them, if they are to be humanely treated, they may generate costly veterinarian bills.

There is a certain irony here. Many owners, thousands of them across the country, finally become fed up each year—or, perhaps the birds, being long-lived, outlast their owners, and it is assumed that the now unwanted birds will easily find a new home. They are valuable, aren’t they? In fact, as a general rule, so many people get rid of them that zoos are soon filled to capacity and will take no more. Sanctuaries and refuges are never guaranteed to be available, and even if they are, they are usually filled to capacity, or beyond, having reached that unfortunate state where they have so many birds that they can no longer provide adequate care for each one.

Sadly, huge numbers of these birds spend years, even decades, huddled in steel cages or chained to perches, unfortunately deprived of the rich stimuli their minds crave, until death finally releases them from miserable existence.

They may look ever so cool when seen in movies or on TV shows, or in properly equipped zoos—but after the initial novelty of having a pet cockatoo is replaced by the frustrations they generate, the results are too often tragically negative, for bird and human both.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA
Zoocheck Inc.

Artwork by Barry Kent MacKay

Something Fishy Going On, Impressions of My Aquarium Visit

Question: Why would you take a wild, innocent animal and stick it in prison?

Variation: Is it justifiable to imprison a wild, innocent animal for entertainment or to make money?

Those questions are too general to answer properly, but let me try: To question one I’d say when it is in the better interest of the animal or when it is in the better interest of the species to which the animal belongs, and maybe, just maybe, when it helps educate people to better care for the either individual animals or species entire species, the latter consideration captured by the term, “conservation”, it is justifiable to confine wild animals. The zoo and aquarium industry tries to convince us that they contain animals in captivity not just to profit and to amuse us, but to educate us and to conserve species.

To the second question I’d personally answer “no”, while recognizing many people would answer “yes”. Both answers reflect value judgements.

Toronto recently opened Ripley’s Aquarium, in which some 16,000 animals live in some 5.7 million litres of carefully maintained, very clean water. Presumably it will make money and will amuse and entertain visitors. But does it educate? Does it provide conservation?

A visit to the website (http://www.ripleyaquariums.com/canada/) provides no clue, although we are assured that it is “dedicated to developing and supporting unique initiatives that promote environmental awareness and aquatic ecosystem literacy” and its “team aims to foster a culture of sustainability that supports the environmental protection and conservation goals of the organization and the greater public, while building a strong legacy of ecological stewardship.”

I couldn’t tell what those environmental protection and conservation goals might be, but those of the greater public have, to date, resulted in the greatest extinction spasm in some 65,000,000 years with the loss of the over 90 percent of the large, predatory fish essential to the well-being of fish stocks overall. (http://saveourseas.com/threats/predatorloss). I think Ripley’s might want to aim higher, and maybe a good place to start would be with convincing people to not indulge in practices inimical to the welfare of fish species.

An aquarium representative told me that being new, they are “still solidifying our conservation and sustainability programs before we roll them out completely and develop displays for them,” and some “species status and conservation signage & videos” are in place. There will be partnerships with the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Region Conservation Authority, Water Brothers (I had to look that one up; it appears to be an “eco-adventure” TV show) and the Vancouver Aquarium, adding, “all our curriculum-linked educational programs incorporate a conservation message and call to action.” I don’t recall any such call to action during my visit.

There is no doubt that a person equipped with pen and paper, a recording device or total recall could, upon touring the aquarium, come back with a wealth of factoids that might qualify as “education”, many of the “gosh-wow” nature of the old Ripley’s “Believe it or Not” feature most folks are too young to remember. But I’d wager that few of the visitors could, upon exiting, give the English name of even a dozen species of fish they saw…at most maybe generic or family names, like shark, ray, bass or trout. However, I think visitors, especially kids, might agree that they got value for their entertainment dollar.

I remember one section mentioning how the first Europeans to fish the waters off eastern Canada could dip a container overboard and pull it up filled with fish. That’s about the only suggestion that aquatic species face anything that could be called a conservation concern I recall, beyond stickers put besides the names of species that are threatened and, I think, a reference to shark finning. I saw some videos but irritatingly unpleasant “music” piped through the entire facility drowned out commentary, if there was any.

I saw very few people read the educational material provided, and most spent little time viewing the various displays or looking at the names and connecting them to the fish. While I saw a lot of fake coral, I came away not recalling any references to the various threats, from siltation to climate change to crown-of-thorns starfish, threatening the world’s coral reefs or an explanation of why it matters; I recall one exhibit featuring fake mangrove roots, but no mention of how the destruction of mangroves is affecting the foundation of ocean food chains; I recollect no reference to the above-mentioned decline in large predatory fish; I recall no mention of the threats posed by the ubiquitous aquarium trade, and how poisons and explosives are sometimes used to acquire fish for home aquariums; I recall no mention of the disruption of essential migratory movement by dams across rivers; I recall no mention of how deforestation is affecting salmon survival in breeding rivers; I recall no concerns about fish farms or genetically altered fish, nor exotic introduced species; I remembered no mention of how so-called traditional oriental medicine and food is threatening seahorses and other fish and other marine species; I recall no mention of how ocean-side tourism development is destroying sea turtle habitat. I recall nothing being mentioned about the threat of plastics and other marine debris to both fresh water and sea life, nor reference to cut-away drift nets, abandoned crab and lobster traps and the destruction of dolphins, sea turtles and other species as unwanted discards of commercial fishing. I recall no concerns about the decline of the queen conch, the humpback wrasse, the Patagonian toothfish, the Chinese paddlefish or so many other marine species in decline worldwide.

I recall no indication of just how diverse speciation is: that there are, for example, hundreds of species of sharks, or nearly two hundred known congers or over two hundred and fifty sculpins, or so many thousands of fish species about which little or nothing is known. I saw no mention of deep sea marine life, below the level reached by light, and the subsequent use of bioluminescence. And while there were beautiful displays of jellyfish and a few invertebrates, a visitor gets no real hint of just how vast and diverse marine life is, from bryozoans to belugas (whales or sturgeon).

And that’s because aquariums are not really educational. They can’t be; it’s not their function. And while they, like any individual or organization, can contribute to conservation, they do not inherently do so. There is no need to breed fish and release them in order to prevent extinction, any more than there is a need to do that for polar bears, and yet the zoo and aquarium industry wants us to think otherwise.

Last stop upon exiting the aquarium is the gift shop, of course, sort of a filter designed to remove a bit more cash from your wallet. But all it offered was glitzy toys, key chains, bracelets, stuffed toys and cheap bric-a-brac designed for pre-teen tastes, with lots of sequins and sparkly bits. It was mostly fish-themed, yes, including the book section, but sadly nothing to interest an adult or teen with an interest in ichthyology, oceanography, marine biology or sea life conservation. I hope they look at the gift shop and book selection offered by places like the Monterey Aquarium or Smithsonian Institute, where those of us interested in such things can find worthwhile purchases.

I came away thinking claims to be educational or important to conservation were, at best, weakly supported. The aquarium could become a player in real, effective conservation efforts, like promoting protection for certain over-exploited commercial fish stocks. Meanwhile, it strikes me as being more a part of the problem of human hubris – the belief and actions that derive therefrom – that the world beyond our own exists for us, to amuse, entertain or be exploited by us for commercial gain. It may have been an attitude without negative consequences through most of our evolutionary history, but now works against our own ultimate survival and against the interests of all the vast majority of other creatures out there, suffering from our exploitation, ignorance and indifference.

I’m grateful there are no marine mammals or birds in the facility, it’s a start, but for now it is entertainment detached from anything that fairly could be called either conservation or education.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA
Zoocheck Inc.

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.

Sumatran Rhinos and Zoos

A Case History of Zoos and Wildlife Conservation

Fourteen years ago, I was among a group of conservationists sitting in the board room of Toronto Zoo, discussing the fate of proboscis monkeys in distant Borneo (the only country where they occur in the wild). Wildfires had destroyed much of the monkeys’ habitat and the zoo wanted to bring some to Toronto “to conserve the species.” But, when I asked if any of the captured monkeys or their offspring would ever be returned to the forests of Borneo, I was told no; being raised in captivity would effectively prevent them from ever being returned to the wild. When I pointed out that domesticating yet another animal species had nothing to do with “conservation,” I received an odd, honest reply from one of the zoo curators. “But,” he said, after some thought, “I’m a zoo man and I just naturally think of zoo-based solutions.”

In the end, the monkeys stayed in Borneo.

As I pointed out in my previous two blogs, yes, captive breeding can be an important conservation tool for a small number of endangered species—but it does not require traditional public zoo facilities in our towns and cities. Quite the contrary. And yet, zoos imply that, in some way, the act of breeding endangered species protects them. Just last week, a local Ontario zoo, African Lion Safari, announced the captive birth of an Asian elephant, naturally conceived to parents who were, themselves, captive born. But overall, elephants are dying in North American zoos faster than they are being born. The National Zoo says, “Within the next fifty years, there may not be elephants in zoos.” For there to be zoo elephants, wild imports will be required, and they are usually animals orphaned by culls in areas where encroachment has reduced land available to elephants, or orphaned by poaching. Ironic, then, that the very forces that are endangering elephants serve the zoo community’s ability to display elephants. That’s not “conservation.”

Currently, the most critically endangered large mammal in the world is the once widely distributed Sumatran rhinoceros: a small, hairy, and little known two-horned rhino which has been slaughtered for its horn, used in traditional medicine in Asia, and has had much of its habitat destroyed, especially by palm oil plantations. Although the Sumatran rhinoceros has been kept in zoos from as early as 1872, it doesn’t survive well away from its jungle home.

No matter; in the 1980s, the zoo community took 40 of these rare animals out of the wild and placed them into zoos around the world. That was a sizeable portion of the entire population. All were registered in a captive breeding program, and we were told that the zoo “experts’” research into the rhinos’ reproductive biology would assure their survival and propagation. This is called “ex situ” conservation: literally off-site conservation.

But, by the late 1990s, just prior to Toronto Zoo coveting proboscis monkeys, those of us who opposed the program knew that our fears had merit. Not a single Sumatran rhinoceros was born to any of those 40 animals. In fact, half of them had died! By 1997, the three animals remaining in U.S. zoos were united in Cincinnati, where, with special hormonal treatments, young calves were finally born and shipped to Sumatra, where it is possible to keep the animals “in situ” (meaning that they are captive, yes, but “on site” within their native habitat and thus able to develop necessary skills to survive in the wild).

There is still the issue of poaching and deforestation, neither issue requiring those of zoos to be solved. For some endangered species, it may well be that hosting countries will, in the end, lack the ability to protect in situ captive animals from poaching, local warfare, or natural disasters. But oh, if only all of those Sumatran rhinos had not been wasted, and if only the money spent on shipping them across the planet had been focused on where they belong, then maybe, just maybe, there would be more of them, and they’d have a better chance of survival.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA

Monkeys for sale, no questions asked

First take on the IKEA monkey trial

I am guessing that Yasmin Nakhuda has never heard of "acquisitive mimetic desire", even though she displayed it to an absurd degree, thus contributing to an odious form of animal abuse: the exotic pet trade. It's the desire to have something because someone else has it, and is often used by advertising agencies and marketers to push products that people don't really need.

I sat just behind Nakhuda last week, as she sobbed nearing the end of a trial she had instigated. She had gone to court seeking to reacquire "Darwin", the baby Japanese macaque whose image was flashed on You Tube and on TV screens and newspapers internationally when he appeared in a faux-shearling coat in an Ikea parking lot in Toronto, last winter. He was dubbed "the Ikea Monkey". Nakhuda was crying because lawyer Kevin Toyne, defending the Story Book Farm primate sanctuary, suggested she had known what she was doing in signing Darwin over. The primate sanctuary was where Darwin was taken after being rescued by Toronto Animal Services (TAS). TAS is designed to deal with dogs and cats, not monkeys. Once ownership had been transferred it cleared the way to place Darwin in the sanctuary.

I've not been to Story Book, but I know that it is in its early stages of development, heading toward the high standards we have set with our own primate sanctuary, in Texas. Story Book, now housing 25 primates, needs support, but instead all Nakhuda's followers have done, is criticize it, without actually seeing it for themselves. Sadly, the law prohibits sending these rescued primates into the U.S., but that does not prevent real humanitarians, like the good folks at Story Book, from doing their best. As is true with our, much larger, sanctuary, many of their animals are former exotic pets who became too much for their owners to handle.

Even though she is a lawyer specializing in real estate, thus property rights, Nakhuda claimed she was tricked or coerced into signing the animal over. David Behan, the gently-spoken TAS officer in charge on the Sunday that Darwin escaped from where he had been locked in a dog kennel, in Nakhuda's car in the Ikea parking lot, denied it. Given how often Nakhuda changed her story I would be inclined to believe Behan, a decent chap just trying to do his job. An unhealthy man nearing retirement, he didn't look to me like he could intimidate a chipmunk. Behan's supervisor, phoned at home, told the officer to try to get Nakhuda to sign Darwin over. He did, but no evidence was presented to show he forced her to do so.

There is a real question about the form itself, which is badly written. It, and the bylaw in question, are to be updated to prevent any such confusion in the future. But none of that prevented Nakhuda from just saying "no", although she still could not have legally kept Darwin in Toronto. She claims she now has an offer on a house in one community that allows keeping of non-human primates, conditional on her winning the case. That community, Kawartha Lakes, plans to pass its own legislation to prevent the keeping of primates.

Throughout this mess Nakhuda constantly has referred to Darwin as her son, her baby. But he had a real mother who has been forgotten in all this. There are two ways that baby primates enter the exotic pet trade: in the wild it is normally the result of the mother being killed and the baby stolen. Otherwise she fiercely holds on to her baby. In captivity the baby is simply forced from the mother, against her will. But her emotional trauma didn't seem to touch Nakhuda or her small but loyal band of supporters.

We know nothing of Darwin's origins before he showed up in a filthy diaper, harness and doll-sized coat at the Ikea parking lot. At first Nakhuda said she had been given Darwin on the street in Montreal. That was later changed to a dealer in Toronto she met while looking to buy a hyacinth macaw. After swearing an affidavit that Darwin was a "gift" she admitted that, well, no, the dealer wanted ten thousand dollars, in cash, but settled for five up front. Oh, but he said he'd give it back, making Darwin a "gift" to Nakhuda's weird way of thinking. He actually never has returned the money. Some gift.

And why, while looking for an endangered parrot to buy, did Nakhuda purchase a baby macaque? The dealer didn't have a hyacinth macaw handy, but he had a couple of monkey species, one a capuchin. They're cute. Ah, but no; Yasmin had seen a You-Tube video from showing a Japanese macaque in Japan, the only country where they naturally occur, taught to do simple waiting chores in a restaurant. Wow, a monkey acting like a waiter.that was all the reason she needed! Talk about an acquisitive mimetic desire and I thought guys who thought they could pick up sexy dates if they drank the right brand of beer were pushovers!

Within a couple of days, voila, from Vancouver or Montreal or who knows where, suddenly there is a baby Japanese macaque, no questions asked. No documentation, either. No health certificate. No receipt. No concerns. Any problems about Darwin being a species it is illegal to keep in Toronto and the dealer would wave his magic permit. But when the excrement hit the rotating blades he didn't, telling Yasmin to "walk away", according to her testimony, and he'd return the cash. Yeah, sure.

As I write, the judge is determining whether Darwin can stay at the sanctuary, or must be returned to Yasmin, no doubt to be dressed in silly clothes and, who knows...maybe wait on her table in her new home in Kawartha Lakes? The judge is constrained by the law. Because of the bizarre nature of the case, and its look into the sordid world of the exotic pet industry, I'll return to this issue in future blogs.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA
Zoocheck Inc.

Time to Rehome Springwater Park Animals

Along with Springwater Provincial Park’s status being changed to non-operational (meaning visitor services are no longer being offered), the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) announced that the animals in the Park’s wildlife zoo would be dispersed to more appropriate accommodation elsewhere. That move is supported by major animal welfare and wildlife protection groups and will almost certainly be applauded by animal loving Ontarians everywhere.

While Springwater’s animal display may have been considered acceptable years ago, that is not the case today. The facility is out of date, inadequate and does not provide many of the animals with an acceptable level of welfare.

The closure of Springwater’s antiquated wildlife zoo fits in with evolving public concerns and sensibilities about animals. In recent years, a series of professional polls have shown that 82% of Ontario citizens support better regulation of wildlife in captivity facilities and improved standards of care. A review of some of the ongoing wildlife captivity controversies in the province is clear evidence that public attitudes are rapidly changing.

Some Springwater visitors seem to have developed a sentimental attachment to the animal display and overlook or fail to recognize its deficiencies. Many have erroneously referred to it as an animal sanctuary. Unfortunately, the display does not satisfy the basic criteria that define true sanctuaries, including restricted public access. Even though it is in a park, the wildlife compound is a zoo.

Advocates of a new Springwater governance model have referred to the wildlife zoo as an attraction and part of the future “revenue stream.” However, to upgrade the facility to an acceptable standard that fully satisfies the animals’ needs would require a substantial influx of funds and result in escalated, ongoing operational costs for whomever is in charge. It’s highly unlikely the zoo could ever generate more than token revenue for the Park and it’s doubtful the capital costs of bringing the facility up to standard could ever be recouped. The reality is that many zoos and zoo-type displays require annual subsidies to survive and ongoing government funding for capital/infrastructure improvements.

As well, the Springwater animals are all common species in Ontario and well represented in zoological facilities throughout the province, including some in the region. There is nothing unique about the Park’s zoo that would make it an attraction and draw people through the gate. In fact, considering current public sentiment, it may keep them away.

While we question the need to increase attendance beyond that required for the simple maintenance of visitor amenities, there are many ways to increase attendance if that is a goal. They include, but are not limited to, interpretive pavilions focused on local nature and history, a native wildlife butterfly garden, a bird feeder trail, a series of self-guided walks focusing on botany, ecology, local history and other subjects, organized insect safaris for kids, nature festivals and other special events, to name just a few ideas. The suggestion that the Park needs a bunch of caged animals to attract people ignores the fact that so much more could be offered.

As a wildlife protection organization, our interest has been and will continue to be the welfare of the Springwater animals. That’s why we are encouraging the MNR to move forward with the closure of the Park’s wildlife zoo and the dispersal of the animals to more appropriate accommodation elsewhere. It shouldn’t be a difficult process. We hope that others who are also concerned about wildlife will contact David Orazietti, Minister of Natural Resources, and urge him to move forward with relocation of the animals. The Minister's email is dorazietti.mpp@liberal.ola.org.

The closure of Springwater's wildlife zoo will be applauded by Ontarians across the province and by wildlife advocates everywhere. But the best reason for moving ahead is that it’s the right thing to do for the animals and the right time to do it.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Inc.

No Diplomacy for Pandas

A great deal of excitement surrounded the recent arrival of two giant pandas to the Toronto Zoo. On loan from the Chinese government, the bears are meant to celebrate the new foreign investment agreement between Canada and China. This is a practice known as panda diplomacy, whereby an endangered animal species native to China is shipped across the world to symbolize a kinship between humans. Politics aside, the issue of putting live animals on display as a symbol of diplomatic relations between countries is surely an outmoded practice in this day and age, when animal rights and welfare are increasingly a matter of public debate and of growing importance in Canada's legal system. Given our knowledge of animal psychology and behaviour, it is no longer possible for us to ignore the ethical wrong of keeping animals captive in our country's zoos and aquariums.

There has been much controversy in Canada recently over the question of animal welfare in zoos and aquariums, and whether certain species should continue to be held in these facilities. Last April the Supreme Court rejected an appeal to the City of Edmonton’s decision to keep a single remaining elephant at the zoo, despite a widespread campaign to have her transferred to a larger habitat where she could socialize with other elephants. In Ontario the fate of the three remaining elephants at the Toronto Zoo has been an ongoing battle for over three years, while the OSPCA continues to investigate allegations of neglect and mistreatment at Niagara Falls’ MarineLand.

The main lesson to be culled from the problems surrounding our zoos and aquariums is that we need to rethink our practice of keeping animals in captivity for the purpose of exhibition. Proponents of zoos and aquariums often cite two reasons for upholding these institutions, education and conservation, but both arguments are flawed.

Given the rise in animal rights activism and research into the physical and psychological impact of captivity, the lessons we teach our children through zoos say more about our understanding of animals as objects -- or, more simply, our disregard for that impact. As an example we can look to Koshik, the elephant at South Korea’s Everland Zoo who learned to imitate human speech. While the media largely represented this phenomenon as a heartwarming story, the scientists who published their findings in Current Biology speculate that in fact Koshik learned human words out of social deprivation from other members of his species, having spent seven years as the sole elephant at the zoo. Koshik learned to mimic the language of his keepers because it was his only hope at communication. The authors of the study also speculate that social deprivation could be a factor in other cases of animals who “talk” in captivity.

Why then are we misunderstanding their attempts at communication? And how can we purport to use zoos and aquariums as resources to teach people about the lives of animals when we deprive them of their social groups and natural habitats?

The argument for conservation should also be disputed. Indeed many zoos breed animals with dwindling populations in the hopes of one day releasing them back into the wild; this is the stated intention of the Toronto Zoo regarding the incoming giant pandas. The problem, however, is that we can easily lose sight of the well-being of the animals themselves. There is little doubt that conservation can be a worthy cause, but what is often not discussed is the moral dilemma of imprisoning one animal for the potential future generations of animals that may or may not come to fruition. The issue is then whether our desire for conservation outweighs a captive animal's quality of life.

The intentions of most people who support or engage in conservation and zoo-keeping are generally well-meaning and compassionate, but the outcome for the animals involved is not always favourable. Countless studies in animal behavioural science have shown us how captive animals resort to stereotypic behaviours that are repetitive and obsessive in nature, as well as frequently self-destructive. While studies determining the stress impact on captive pandas have been few at this point, scientists have nonetheless reported a number of stereotypic behaviours in zoo pandas which include pacing, head-tossing, self-biting, and regurgitation (repeated vomiting and ingesting of the vomit). It could be argued that the frequency and intensity of such behaviours are augmented by poorer living conditions, but even the best zoos deprive animals like pandas of the space and natural stimulation they would get in the wild. No enrichment activities or increase in enclosure space can compare to the ability to roam free for kilometres on end.

To continue to sell zoos as entertainment is cruel. Moreover, the fact that the exhibits are often directed at young people poses a larger problem. What kind of lesson are we teaching when we encourage them to derive pleasure out of the deprivation of another living being? The time has come to end this practice and start exploring other ways to observe and interact with animals. Surely by the twenty-first century we can stop looking at them in cages.

Vanessa Robinson, PhD
Guest Blogger

How The Zoo Industry Shoots Itself In The Foot

THIS WILL NOT CONSERVE ELEPHANTS

There is a wave of apprehension at least, if not outright fear, permeating the internal communications of the zoo industry. They have created an enemy, and the enemy is us, the animal protection movement, which they have elevated to near-mythical proportions, a commanding force poised to destroy them.

I say created because instead of listening to concerns voiced by those of us who work to promote compassion for animals, they assure themselves we are villainous, ill-informed and disingenuous. That, with exceptions to be sure, is the thrust of their propaganda. They also create a narrative for themselves, to justify their own industry.

On both counts they misrepresent. If I were disposed to sell out the animal protection movement and help the zoo industry, I would urge them to do one thing above all else. But I’m willing to do that anyway because I am not the ideologue they have invented; I just care about animals. It is not zoos or keeping animals in captivity that concern me; I want to oppose the abuse of animals and work for the conservation of species. I am not saying that there isn’t a role for zoos to play in helping animals — there is, but too often it is not the one that they claim. And so I’ll call them on it, as will many of my colleagues.

The free advice? Be truthful. Put another way, don’t deceive yourself and if you do, well, don’t be disappointed, angry or resentful if we who care about animals, professionally or otherwise, expose you.

Take Bowmanville Zoo. Bowmanville is located east of Toronto, and claims to be the oldest private zoo In North America, starting in 1919 as the Cream of Barley Park, featuring recreational facilities and a small petting zoo. The late Keith Connell, who used to own it, was a classmate of my mother’s, was the importer of the first potbellied pigs into Canada, and used to keep so many camels that he laughingly called himself “the Camel King of Canada.” He and I were frequent guests on a children’s television show, 30-plus years ago, so I knew the zoo well.

It is now run by Michael Hackenberger, who claims it maintains “the largest stable of trained animals in North America” and “has become a leading supplier of animal talent to the television, movie and entertainment industry.”

“Life of Pi”? It contains scenes with a real, not computer-generated, tiger show Jonas, from Bowmanville Zoo, now dead. He had been shipped to Taiwan for the filming, but later was found to have a large hole in his diaphragm, that the liver passed through, pressing on the lungs. It was a serious congenital defect that had gone undetected until the tiger died on the operating table, well before Oscar night assured the movie’s fame. He had been taken from his mother when only about 8 grams (about 28 ounces).

Bowmanville Zoo has a single Asian elephant, who, in her fourth decade, is near the end of the lifespan for captive elephants in Canada. Hackenberger makes money renting that elephant out, but as we are increasingly aware, Canada is not kind to elephants. Too cold and damp. No matter. He would like another elephant.

So he has applied to import one from the United States. Here’s his problem. It is not legal to simply import elephants for commercial use. So the “leading supplier of animal talent to the television, movie and entertainment industry” wants the elephant for “conservation.”

Conservation? Well, the problem is that under international treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), you can’t import certain endangered species, including elephants, “for primarily commercial purposes.” A great many species of wild animal and plant species have become endangered precisely because of their great commercial value. Elephants are no exception. The enormous value of the ivory in their tusks has motivated widespread slaughter. Poaching for ivory is widely recognized as one of two leading causes in precipitous declines in both Asian and African elephants. The other problem is encroachment and subsequent destruction of their habitat.

Keeping an elephant in a private zoo east of Toronto does not address either issue. Therefore, in applying for permission to import Colonel, an Asian elephant from an Oklahoma circus, Hackenberger apparently must claim that the aim is conservation. So he is proposing using the elephant to raise money “to engage and motivate the Punjabi community in the greater Toronto area to commit time and money” to Asian elephant conservation, once those needs have been identified in northwestern India. But you don’t need an elephant to do that, nor is it explained how this will prevent poaching for ivory, or habitat destruction. Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund raise multi-millions without using captive animals (or, sadly, stemming the steady decline in either African or Asian elephants).

But wait, there’s more. Bowmanville Zoo also is proposing some sort of breeding, using the sperm of Colonel to inseminate a female elephant in the Calgary Zoo, through artificial insemination. But Calgary Zoo is wisely phasing out its elephants, has its own bull elephant, and Americans are as adept as Canadians at extracting and shipping elephant sperm, although why bother? An inability to breed is not the problem facing wild elephants!

Captive Asian elephants do poorly in our zoos, have high infant mortality, and the North American captive population is not self-sustaining. Data from 1962 to 2006 from North American and European studbooks show that of 349 elephant calves born in zoos, 142 died prematurely.

Zoos are desperately seeking to rationalize keeping wild animals by doing all kinds of research. For example, five elephants of two species from Bowmanville were used to determine “appropriate ibuprofen dosages for elephants.” This, it’s argued, will be useful in “pain management” when you translocate Asian elephants. Other research was into biochemical changes associated with breeding, although I repeat, wild elephants are much better at breeding than captive ones, and none of this research really has anything to do with reversing the decline in these species. It is the ivory trade that is primarily destroying them, coupled with human population growth and subsequent habitat loss.

Last May Dr. Peter Brewer, vice chair of the Zoological Association of America, endorsed moving Colonel to Bowmanville, saying, “Ongoing reproductive research planned with the University of Pretoria and Trent University will continue to elucidate captive and wild strategies for the enhancement of elephant populations.”

That’s the kind of things zoos love to say to justify what clearly appears to be simply a commercial transaction. We know, full well and with vast documentation contained in a plethora of reports and studies, exactly why elephants are endangered. It has nothing whatsoever to do with their ability to breed. Wild elephants are good at that, and when left alone, survive quite well. So when the zoo community seeks to fool us, seeks to suggest that anything new we learn as a result of some bit of enhanced understanding of elephant hormones will invariably enhance conservation, don’t blame us for pointing out just how ridiculous and self-serving that really is.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA

Children & Nature - A Healthy Combination

Guest blogger N. Glen Perrett suggests getting kids out into nature as an alternative to looking at animals in captivity.

You don't need studies to realize that children aren't receiving the same amount of exercise or wilderness experiences that past generations have benefited from. However, studies do confirm this. A Statistics Canada (in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada) survey in 2007 found that in recent decades the health of Canadian children has deteriorated while childhood obesity has risen and physical fitness has declined.

When it comes to nature experiences, many children have replaced outdoor play and exercise with electronics including video games, social networking, and text messages to friends. This disconnect with nature and its consequences is addressed by Richard Louv in his books Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder and The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder.

There are many health benefits associated with nature that we know of - and surely many others that haven't been discovered yet. Studies indicate that nature can help those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Nature is also attributed to reducing stress and depression as well as improving our ability to concentrate to name only a few mental health benefits. Our family certainly experienced the benefits of regular nature excursions as we spent the last two years hiking wilderness areas for my book Hikes & Outings of South-Central Ontario. No matter what state of mind we were in when we arrived at the natural area we were about to explore-and we were often tired or stressed-we were in a wonderful frame of mind shortly after hitting the scenic trails or exploring a wetland.

Nature also has benefits for our physical health. Studies have shown that patients with a view of nature spend less time in the hospital compared to patients who didn't have a view of nature during their hospital stay. In their recently published book Your Brain on Nature (Wiley) Eva M. Selhub, MD and Alan C. Logan, ND cited a study published in the journal Science. The study pertained to patients in a Pennsylvania hospital from 1972 to 1981 who had surgery to remove their gallbladder. One side of the hospital featured windows with a view of a small forest while the other looked at bricks. According to the authors, "...those who had an outdoor view to trees had significantly shorter hospital stays and fewer postsurgical complaints. They also used less-potent analgesic medications (aspirin instead of narcotics)."

Of course spending time in nature usually involves hiking and other forms of exercise which have many health benefits including preventing heart disease, lowering cholesterol levels, and controlling and preventing diabetes. The benefits of exercising, particularly exercising in nature, even has the medical community considering prescribing exercise as a way for their patients to get healthier. There is even a "Park Prescriptions" program in the United States where the National Park Service works with health care professionals. Working with the park to come up with appropriate activities and trails for the patient, health care providers write prescriptions for their patients to walk, bicycle, paddle, or do some other exercise. One of the places where these nature prescriptions occur is Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore which features 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline along with 15,000 acres of beach, woods, marshes, and prairies in Indiana.

With nature providing valuable environmental lessons and health benefits, school boards could incorporate more field trips to conservation areas and other wilderness spaces to ensure both their students' education and health mandates are attained. In fact I can see a time in the near future when parks, schools and health care providers work together to meet our children's health needs.

N. Glenn Perrett
Author Hikes & Outings of South-Central Ontario
Guest Blogger

This blog was originally published at: http://latornellblog.blogspot.ca/2012/09/children-nature-healthy-combination.html

The Challenges of Protecting Animals

During the past six months there’s been a great deal of media coverage about wild animal captivity issues in Ontario. Marineland in Niagara Falls, the Toronto Zoo elephants and Darwin the IKEA monkey have been three of the bigger stories, but a broad assortment of other captivity issues, both large and small, have also been featured in print, radio, television and internet media. There's also been a seemingly endless stream of other kinds of animal stories as well.

The extensive coverage of captivity issues has generated public profile and political interest both municipally and provincially. There are now more politicians than ever who take animal captivity issues (and other animal concerns) seriously or, who, at least, are not dismissive of them. It's a vastly different situation than it was 20 years ago.

That doesn’t mean things are fine today, because they’re not. We still have no comprehensive regulation of Ontario’s wildlife in captivity and our provincial animal protection legislation effectively excludes protection from most animals. However, if we’re smart, we have an opportunity to capitalize on what's happened so that we can move the animal protection agenda forward. But it won't be easy.

At the best of times, there are enormous challenges in making change happen, even when issues have a heightened profile, significant interest and momentum. There is always stiff competition for government attention from a broad spectrum of other issues. And there’s the inevitable, and often substantial, push-back from the individuals and businesses that exploit animals for personal amusement or profit.

One of the lesser known challenges is push-back from government bureaucrats themselves, some who fight tooth and nail to maintain the status quo. I’ve actually heard some bureaucrats say, “my job is to make sure nothing changes.” They employ all kinds of issue management strategies, the most common being to delay. An often used tactic is to initiate consultations so that issue discussions drag on for weeks, months or even years. By the time some consultations finish (and many don’t, they just fizzle out), the Ministers and other politicians that were in place when they started are long gone. Even the governing party may have changed. And the new regime may not be as committed as the previous one, so no action is forthcoming. It’s happened again and again and again.

Having said that, there are some amazingly proactive bureaucrats who really do want to move the animal protection agenda forward. And there’s also an ever increasing number of politicians at every level of government who want to do the same. To help them make change happen, we should understand the systems in which they work and the internal challenges they face.

Making change happen for animals is hard. It requires guts, brains, know how and organization. Eternal vigilance isn’t enough. We need to understand how the system works and do what we can to use it and to assist or complement those who are working in it. The first step to doing that is knowledge, so I’d like to recommend three excellent books that will help every Canadian animal protection activist become better at what they do.

The first is The Art of the Possible (a handbook for political activism) by Amanda Sussman. Every activist should read this book. It provides a good synopsis about how Canada’s federal government works, but much of the material also applies to other levels of government and to other jurisdictions.

The second book is Lesli Bisgould’s Animals and the Law. Her synopsis of Canadian laws affecting animals helps explain why things are the way they are and where they should go in the future. It should be on the bookshelf of every Canadian animal protection activist.

And last, but not least, is George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. If you’ve ever wondered why the other side is so successful at getting their message heard and why so many people seem to ignore the facts about issues, this book will help you understand why.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Inc.

All Trapped Whales Need A Miracle

It was disturbing to hear about the killer whale pod trapped in the Hudson Bay ice with little prospect for escape. Apparently, the frantic whales were taking turns surfacing at a small breathing hole. It was presumably their repeated surfacing that kept the hole open and free of ice preventing them from drowning.

Many people called for the Canadian government to send an icebreaker to create an ice free path that the whales could follow into open water. But there were no icebreakers anywhere in the area and it would have taken far too long for one to arrive. By the time an icebreaker could get there, the whales would be long dead.

Various other options were put forward, such as cutting a pathway of holes or even euthanizing the whales if there was no hope of escape and they were suffering.

A number of years ago, three gray whales were in much the same predicament. Trapped in the Arctic ice off the north shore of Alaska, the whale’s plight attracted global attention. Eventually, with the help of a Russian icebreaker, they were freed. The incident was the subject of a popular book and then a Hollywood movie called Big Miracle.

The latest news is there’s been a miracle in Hudson Bay. The ice has shifted and now it appears the killer whales are free. It was a close call and if things were even a little bit different those whales would probably be dead.

Just like the Alaskan grey whales, the plight of the latest trapped whales became international news. Word of the plight of the killer whales spread like wildfire, primarily due to the internet. It was great to see the level of concern expressed by people from all walks of life and all geographic regions of world. I have no doubt that if they understood what was happening, the whales would have been grateful.

It’s great that the killer whales are free. They can continue to enjoy their lives with their family, friends and acquaintances, traveling far distances and taking in everything the ocean has to offer. But that’s not the case for some whales.

Also in the news during past months has been the plight of whales at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario. While there is only one lone killer whale left at the facility, there are also several dolphins and approximately 40 belugas. Their lives bear no resemblance to the lives their wild counterparts live. They can do little of what they’ve evolved to do and are really like living museum pieces.

I encourage anyone who was concerned about the trapped wild killer whales to think about the plight of whales trapped in captivity. They deserve a miracle too.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Inc.

Lions, Eagles and Owls, , What are Zoos Teaching Us About Them?

Ash died suddenly and violently in front of many onlookers, including children. “It was over in seconds,” one woman reportedly stated. “People were horrified. Women and children were screaming. My little boy was in tears.”

Ash was 9 years old and her death seemed to amuse some other folks, according to letters to the editor in response to the news reports.

And what did we learn? The death did happen at a facility that, we are told, is educational.

Ash was a barn owl, and her death occurred on Jan. 28, 2012, at Colchester Zoo, in England, where she lived and brutally died. It happened as she was being flown as part of a falconry exhibit. According to subsequent reports, the hapless bird flew into a window, landed on a ledge in the African lion enclosure, where, dazed, she was subsequently batted down to the floor of the cage by one of the lions. The other proceeded to eat her.

It was not unlike a similar incident in June 2008 when a magnificent golden eagle was being flown as part of a zoo’s falconry display, this one at the Greater Vancouver Zoo in British Columbia. The 4-year-old eagle was harassed by a flock of crows. Crows often will “mob” large raptors. According to media reports, the golden eagle landed on the ground in the lion enclosure, about 100 meters from where the falconry display took place. Two lionesses snuck up on the eagle, but their attack missed. The eagle flew, but did so straight into the jaws of a lunging third lioness. As was true of the demise of Ash, the attack on the eagle, identified as a “star performer” in the zoo’s raptor show, was over in moments.

Zoos feel under attack from increasingly vocal critics of the idea of keeping animals who are wild by nature in captivity — often, as is the case with such species as African lions, barn owls and golden eagles, in quarters that are a tiny fraction of the space utilized by their wild counterparts. Studies of animal behavior increasingly show that animals are not merely instinctively induced automatons unthinkingly reacting to various stimuli. They can think, have emotions and display stress as a result of confinement and boredom inherent to many zoo situations.

As a result, zoos seek to provide increased benign stimuli, called “enrichment,” for captive animals, while claiming that there are solid reasons we can support the incarceration of wild animals. The dominate theme is that zoos serve two socially desirable functions: conservation and education.

The conservation function is supposedly twofold. One, the public learns to appreciate endangered species by virtue of seeing them in zoos, and as a result of such appreciation, takes steps to save them. And, two, captive breeding assures that the species won’t go extinct.

I would challenge both contentions, and certainly whatever risks faced by barn owls, golden eagles and African lions (of which only the later would, arguably, qualify as currently endangered), they are not resolved by putting them in zoos. The number of species whose slide into extinction has been reversed certainly include some who have benefitted from captive breeding and release programs, but those programs did not require zoo infrastructure, and indeed, often occurred outside of zoos and involved species that would be quite unfamiliar to most zoo visitors. Even those that did involve zoos, such as the Mauritius pink pigeon, involved one or only a few zoos. Ask 100 American zoo visitors what they know about the Mauritius pink pigeon and you will get at least 99.99 blank stares or shrugs of the shoulders. (But we’ll help educate you: go here.).

It is the contention that zoos educate that I’d especially challenge, and such incidents as Ash’s demise serve to illustrate my point.

An essential part of every animal’s life is feeding. The range of the African lion, greatly diminished since historical times (a point I make because zoos usually don’t — there’s no reason for this essay not to be a little educative) overlaps that of barn owls. Lions (the term “African” being misleading; lions are also found in India, the last of a once-extensive Eurasian distribution; they once even lived in southern Europe, although not in the past 2,000 years) are opportunistic carnivores, so their natural prey might include the odd owl, as well as other birds right up to the size of ostriches (the biggest of all living bird species), and mammals ranging in size from mice to elephants, and including reptiles and fish, and at times even large insects.

Let me quote the lion’s feeding technique from a recent source, “Handbook of Mammals of the World, Vol. 1,” chief editors Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier, Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, 2009: “Individual differences in prey selection and killing techniques are discernible in different prides in the same area, indicating that learning plays a strong role in the lion’s hunting behavior; i.e. hunting of the brown fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus) on the Namibian coast.”

Did you get that? Different prides (essentially family groupings) of lions will use different methods of killing prey, depending on what is available where they live, and an example that is given is the way in which lions on the desert coast of Namibia have learned to eat fur seals. Some zoos may say that in signs, although I don’t recall ever seeing it, but most zoo visitors don’t read signs. Researchers have tracked the amount of time that visitors spend reading signs, and it’s very brief, with most zoo visitors pretty well avoiding reading more than the name of the animal, at most, and that is pretty well all that many zoos will tell you about many species.

And zoos don’t educate their human visitors about how lions obtain food, and no wonder: The handbook continues, “Lions do not take account of wind direction when stalking prey; however, they will often try to cut prey off by running ahead of it. Speeds of 46 to 60 kilometers per hour may be achieved in a rush for up to a few hundred meters (usually not more than 100 to 200 meters). The attack is delivered to the rump or shoulders, with the weight of the lions often bringing the prey to the ground. Sometimes the prey’s neck is broken in falling. As soon as the prey is down it is seized by the throat or muzzle to effect strangulation. The lions feed at the site of the kill or drag it to the nearest cover. The belly is ripped open and the stomach and intestines pulled out.”

That is, emphatically, not what people go to zoos to see, nor could they, since by definition the zoo confines the lion, thus would confine the prey and create an artificial circumstance, which, of course, already pertains to zoo-kept lions. In the wild, attempts by lions to capture prey are only successful perhaps one time out of three, and sometimes the lions are injured in the process, such injury potentially being fatal as there is no way for them to be medically treated.

What, within a herd of ungulates, is captured by lions is a function of a multiplicity of interrelated factors that are the stuff of evolution, with predators and prey co-evolving through time. Too successful and the prey would be wiped out, to the detriment of the predator, but not successful enough and the predator becomes extinct, anyway. The resulting dynamic is what makes species evolve in the first instance, and it is missing from zoos. Not only does it not happen, it cannot. It requires all the diverse elements of the real world, in which predator and prey also interact with other species, diseases, parasites, weather, accidents, topography and events from cosmic to minutia that form a diversity that compares to a zoo enclosure as the number of sand grains in the Kalahari Desert compares to those in a child’s sandbox.

“Disgusting!!!” wrote one person, using the name “wearebeingwatched,” responding to the news story about Ash’s abrupt demise. “What did that owl ever do poor thing. What I want to know is why did the keepers not step in and stop the lions?”

Clearly, whatever number of lions “wearebeingwatched” has seen in whatever number of zoos, she or he is hopelessly uneducated as to lions’ feeding behavior to think keepers could “step in and stop the lions.” And of course, while the barn owl had done nothing to “deserve” death, neither had the animals who are routinely fed to the lions, or, for that matter, those who had been fed to the barn owl herself, before her death. Barn owls are also predators, although zoos are more likely to feed them mice or culled baby chicks than the horses or cows that normally are fed to the big cats.

There was the usual bantering among the e-mails responding to the story before the delightfully named “Squidward Tenticals” said, “Well done to Colchester Zoo for showing the reality of life to the crying women and children. How did they you (sic) think they hunt in the wild?”

That is the question. The answer might well be that they didn’t know by virtue of seeing lions, or owls, fed in zoos. Lions in the wild may eat carrion at times, but that’s all they eat in zoos, but for the odd wild animal entering their pens, or accidents such as those that terminated the lives of the barn owl in England or the golden eagle in Vancouver.

Or for that matter there was the baby binturong — big-eyed, super-cute whiskered little creatures — who was torn apart by two lions at the Chessington World of Adventure, a zoo in Surrey, England, a year earlier. For the children looking on in horror I don’t know what the lesson was — binturongs don’t live where lions live the wild, so aren’t “natural” prey. Presumably one does not have to see one animal tear up a baby binturong to know that the former is a predator.

Some quick questions: Lots of zoos have binturongs. Name two countries of the many where they might be found in the wild. We don’t know as much about their habits as we should, but we have a good idea of what they eat in the wild. What would that be? They belong to the family of animals known technically as Viverridae, or Viverrids; name one other species of Viverid.

If you are a naturalist, or a mammalogist, you may have had little difficulty with these very simple questions. It’s not as if I asked complex questions about breeding biology or anatomy or what have you — just basic stuff. But if you stumbled over one or another answer, and have visited any zoo in which there was a binturong on display, clearly you learned very little, if anything, about binturongs. I’d be willing to guess that many who have seen these animals in zoos don’t even remember specifically what they look like.

It’s not that zoos can’t educate. Those, myself included, who are fascinated by animals will certainly enrich our thirst for knowledge by virtue of at least some of what we’ve seen in zoos, although I must admit that precisely because of my interest in animals, I tend to get depressed by many aspects of my zoo visits. That’s because I can recognize certain conditions of stress.

Last winter I visited the Toronto Zoo with an educator who wanted to get my impressions of zoo animals. We paused at the exhibit of the Sumatran tigers. The Sumatran tiger is a subspecies of tiger native, as its name implies, to the island of Sumatra, where it is considered to be critically endangered, with maybe a few hundred wild animals left. To again quote the “Handbook of Mammals of the World, Vol. 1,” “Tiger populations have declined over many parts of Asia because of illegal hunting, commercial trade in tiger bone and derivatives, a declining prey base, and loss and degradation of habitat. ...The problem is being attacked on many fronts, including threats of sanctions against countries that do not control trade in tiger parts, establishing protected reserves, training and deployment of anti-poaching teams, identification of critical conservation units, working with traditional Chinese medical practitioners to find alternatives to tiger parts, public education campaigns deploring the use of tiger parts, habitat restoration projects, economic incentives to locals, development of suitable survey and monitoring methods, and initiation of baseline ecological research projects.”

It was hard to see how these animals were contributing to any of that, or how any zoo visitors were. We knew that this was an endangered species, but we weren’t involved in any effective conservation initiative. The city that owns the zoo was complaining about the cost to the public coffers, and looking to sell it. As for the tigers, “That’s stereotypic behavior, isn’t it?” asked my companion, as the Sumatran tiger paced up and down. I was embarrassed. I was supposed to be pointing out my concerns, but the fact is, I had seen that tiger so often, even pointed my camera exactly where it would step into focus as it steadily paced, so predictable was this stress-induced behavior that I was inured. I was taking it for granted.

A week later the younger, male Sumatran tiger lunged at the throat of the older female and crushed her trachea, killing her. Editorials exonerated the zoo on the grounds that such things happen, but that’s the point — they happen because the zoo is not the wild, it is not a place where animals choose their own mates, or have room to avoid those who might endanger them. Yes, the mortality of all animals, captive or wild, is 100 percent, but I don’t think the attack was the educational moment claimed by zoo apologists. We learn nothing of value from it, if we at least don’t learn that zoos are not the solution to endangerment they so vociferously claim to be.

It was also at the Toronto Zoo where, a few months earlier, a female polar bear killed one of three prematurely born cubs. The two were quickly removed, one died, the other survived. But at the time it was reported that polar bear males are known to kill their young in the wild. Yes, they are, but not the moms. That’s what I mean by mis-teaching. In fact, it is rare for a male to kill a young bear, and usually happens when food is scare. Food is increasingly scarce for polar bears as a result of global warming, but I don’t see how zoos are stopping that!

Zoos entertain. They rarely teach much, and much of what they teach is simply wrong or misleading. They have options, but I think it requires a revolution in thinking, a move away from putting animals in cages with signs they hope folks will read, and using technological advances to create interactive, truly educational scenarios that may or may not involve live animals. We have moved some distance from the old menagerie style of 19th and early 20th century zoos where animals were simply stockpiled, behind bars, to be gawked at, but that paradigm still dictates the underlying premise that somehow, by putting a live animal in front of a zoo visitor, education and conservation occur.

Ash’s death in the lion’s den was not a good teaching moment for anyone. She deserved better. So did the lions. They still do.

Barry Kent MacKay
BornFree USA
Zoocheck Canada

An End to a Storybook Chapter

Soon there will be no more wild animals at Storybook Gardens, a children’s amusement park in London, Ontario. Once the last four harbour seals, 2 beaver, 2 lynx, 1 otter and several birds of prey are relocated to more appropriate accommodation in other facilities, a chapter in Storybook’s history will come to an end.

The relocation of the remaining Storybook Gardens animals is a cooperative initiative of Zoocheck and the City of London, with Zoocheck helping to identify suitable recipient facilities and covering the costs of transport.

There have been a mulitude of animals at Storybook Gardens over the years. I remember seeing bears, crocodiles, monkeys and a range of other animal species in the park. Apparently, there was even a baby elephant for a time.

But Storybook Gardens was probably most famous for Slippery the sea lion. Slippery, wild caught in California, was shipped to the park in 1958. Just one day into his captivity he escaped into the Thames River. He swan downriver and out into Lake St. Clair, then down the Detroit River and out into Lake Erie. Slippery’s escape and subsequent sightings created a media frenzy and generated interest around the world.

Eventually Slippery was captured near Sandusky, Ohio and sent to the Toledo Zoo. Negotiations led to Slippery being sent back to Canada. 50,000 people atttended a special Welcome Back Slippery parade and 5,000 more crowded around the entrance to Storybook Gardens. Slippery survived for approximately 10 years at the park.

The entire Slippery saga has been told and retold as a quirky, happy story, but the reality is that it wasn’t a happy story for Slippery at all. Today, we know better.

Once the last of Storybook’s wild animals are relocated, the park can be reinvented into something more vibrant and modern. That’s great news for the animals, for Storybook Gardens and for the City of London.

Thank you to everyone who voiced their opinion, to the London-based Friends of Captive Animals who helped generate awareness and to the city officials who took action to do what was best for the animals.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Canada

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

Learning from Wisconsin Bears

Just a short while ago I paid a visit to the Wisconsin Black Bear Education Center (WBBEC), a private facility run by Wausau, Wisconsin resident Jeff Traska. I've known Jeff through email and telephone communications for about 7 years. He first contacted me for information about how to keep bears, because he was the custodian of three American black bears and he wanted to make sure he was doing the best he could to provide for their needs.

There are loads of people, organizations and zoos in the US and Canada who keep bears in captivity and I've seen more than my fair share of them. In my experience, it's quite rare to see an impressive bear enclosure, meaning one sufficiently large and complex enough for the bears they confine to actually act like bears. Most enclosures tend to be small, boring, often old-style concrete grottos, where the bears can do little more than sit, lie or sleep their lives away.

Remarkably, even though the biology and behaviour of bears is well known, there are still many horrendously bad bear enclosures, many of them expensive new enclosures in big budget zoos. Some zoos have spent millions of dollars on bear exhibits and have ended up with little more than modified versions of the inadequate exhbiits they had in the past.

The WBBEC was a refreshing change from the norm. Traska tried to figure out what the bears would need and set out to construct an enclosure that would satisfy those needs. The result is one of the largest and most natural bear enclosures in the US. It puts to shame most of the bear exhibits in traditional zoos and shows just how wasteful and deficient they are. Remarkably, the WBBEC enclosure was constructed at a cost of about $100,000.

A visit to the WBBEC raises an obvious question. If a lone individual in rural Wisconsin can build an impressive, spacious enclosure that satisfies a good portion of the bear's needs, then why can't zoos, with their expert staff, committees, architects, and millions of dollars do the same. It's time the zoo industry looked outside the traditional zoo box to see what else is there. They could learn a lot and save vast sums of money in the process. Best of all, it would be good for the bears.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Canada