Saving Lives and Changing Hearts

New Kid's Book is About Animal Sanctuaries

OK, first the requisite disclaimer. The author of “Saving Lives & Changing Hearts: Animal Sanctuaries and Rescue Centres,” Rob Laidlaw, is a close friend and colleague, and the back cover has a blurb by another close friend and colleague, Adam Roberts. The book mentions Born Free USA’s own primate sanctuary, in Texas. That said, the fact is that this is a book I’d praise even if I had no connection to it in any way, because it is something I have longed wished to see, well done. I just wish there were a version for adults.

But this is for kids, one of a series of such books by Laidlaw that introduces young readers to the pluses and minuses of animals, particularly wildlife, in captivity. His two earlier volumes, both recommended, deal with animals in zoos (“Wild Animals in Captivity”) and animals used in entertainment (“On Parade: The Hidden World of Animals in Entertainment”). “Saving Lives & Changing Hearts” takes the reader on a tour of animal sanctuaries and rescue facilities around the world.

Laidlaw defines an animal sanctuary as “a place of refuge for unwanted, neglected, abused, injured or abandoned animals,” and breaks them down into three types: those that take in domestic farm animals; equine sanctuaries for horses, donkeys and mules; and wildlife sanctuaries that accommodate any of a wide range of animals wild by nature.

If there is something close to a common denominator linking the animals who wind up in such sanctuaries, it might be called “good luck.” But also, as a rule, the animals have survived some level, sometimes horrific, of abuse before finally winding up in a sanctuary. Domestic animals have fallen off trucks on their tortuous way to slaughterhouses; wild animals have lived for years in tiny cages or made to perform stupid tricks on some stage, or horribly abused in laboratories. Many come from situations where they were in the control of inept, or uncaring, people, to sanctuaries where there is specialized knowledge and adequate homes.

The common theme linking the incredibly diverse assortment of animal sanctuaries featured is that they provide, as well as is possible, what is needed by each species, or group of species. Here is a sanctuary for turtles and tortoises, another for lions, and another for parrots, and one for chimpanzees, and another for pigs and other livestock.

The line between sanctuary and rehabilitation center is a little blurred in places, although the latter, such as International Bird Rescue Research Center, tend to involve rescue, as well as rehabilitation, and Laidlaw tells me he is thinking of a book focused on wildlife rehab. I hope so, because the overall format works so well. It’s not merely an iteration of various sanctuaries, but also kid-friendly descriptions of what is involved in establishing and maintaining an effective sanctuary.

Some may be very small, back-yard operations, while others, like the wonderful Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), co-founded by the recently deceased and much beloved Pat Derby, are huge.
Often Laidlaw focuses on an individual animal, such as Maggie, the elephant who languished in an Alaskan zoo until, in 2008, she was sent to PAWS, where she has flourished, or an old friend of my own, Audrey, the turtle who stayed with me for several weeks after being rescued from a bucket where she had languished for 20 years on a diet of egg whites (see: http://www.bornfreeusa.org/weblog_canada.php?p=2790&more=1>), now in a turtle haven, Lil Res Q, with proper food and proper diet and space to roam and do turtle things.

I don’t want to sound all preachy and sentimental, but to me this is the kind of book for which there is a pressing social need. Its greatest value, I think, is in introducing children to the concept of simple caring in the form of interspecific altruism, and to show them people whose humanity bursts through the species barrier to accommodate at least some of the innocent and voiceless victims we humans produce in such staggering numbers. For billions of thinking, feeling creatures, we are the villain. But within our midst there are heroes and good guys, and good deeds worth knowing about.

I warmly recommend “Saving Lives & Changing Hearts: Animal Sanctuaries and Rescue Centres.” (Here’s a link to buy the book in Canada and here's one for the United States.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA

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

Guzoo gets yet another chance!

As you probably already know by now, on April 1, 2011, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) issued a provisional 60 day permit to Guzoo Animal Farm in Three Hills, Alberta. The issuance of a conditional permit came after thousands of private citizens, including thousands of Alberta residents, saw pictures of the Guzoo facility posted on Facebook and flooded SRD and the Alberta SPCA with calls and emails just prior to the zoo’s annual permit renewal date.

A media release issued by SRD on April 1st says an “independent third party verification process for assessing zoo animal health to give all parties the confidence that health standards are being met" will be conducted. Of course, this should have been done years ago, but better late than never, although SRD's wording is a bit concerning (more about that later).

The release also quotes the Alberta SPCA Executive Director, "There are a number of different complex issues that need to be looked at carefully." I agree that any facility housing wild animals has complex issues, but there have been many issues identified at Guzoo, some that have seemingly persisted for years, that are not complex, such as providing nutritive food, clean water, species-appropriate shelters, heat, etc.

Since it first opened approximately two decades ago, Guzoo Animal Farm has generated controversy and a steady flow of complaints. In a 1993 Calgary Herald article, reporter Vicki Barnett describes animals “on the windswept prairie, locked in cages offering little shelter.” Former SPCA President Joy Ripley was quoted as saying, “the wellbeing of the animals is being seriously compromised by problems with lack of disease control, dirty conditions, inadequate caging and inappropriate winter shelters. There is also a real concern for public safety.”

Since that time, Zoocheck Canada, in association with local and national animal welfare groups, have sent a steady stream of experts (e.g., veterinarians, zoo professionals, wildlife rehabilitation specialists) to evaluate conditions at Guzoo and have pushed for the relevant agencies to take action.

For years, SRD responded by sending staff out to inspect Guzoo, but they always seemed incapable of identifying anything beyond the most superficial of problems. The Alberta SPCA has also been sending inspectors out to Guzoo for years and, at times, they’ve taken some action, but their efforts don't seemed to have produced substantive results.

So, eighteen years after that Calgary Herald article appeared, the complaints are still rolling in and they're pretty much the same. Inadequate caging, filthy conditions, frozen water bowls, lack of shelter, illness, injury, the list goes on.

The Alberta Government and the SPCA have not identified who exactly will be doing the new investigation or what they will be examining, but if history is any indication, one could be forgiven for thinking that critical husbandry and care considerations, like cage design, substrates, structural enhancements, furnishings, enrichment, privacy, species-appropriate shelters, bedding, the provision of appropriate environmental conditions (particularly heat, light, humidity, ventilation for birds and reptiles), diet, food presentation, food storage, the provision of potable water, social context, and the behavioural indicators of stress and suffering, to name just a few, may not receive the attention they deserve. I hope I’m wrong, but looking at the past, cynicism is warranted.

Perhaps the most astounding fact in this whole situation is that in 2006, Alberta brought in its own zoo regulations to govern the keeping of wild animals in captivity, the result of a multi-year effort by Zoocheck Canada to obtain regulations that would address zoo problems across Alberta, including at Guzoo. Ensuring compliance with the standards is the responsbility of SRD and the Alberta SPCA. The regulations require that permitees satisfy a broad array of conditions. From what we can tell, compliance is poor.

So, getting back to the SRD claim that the 60 day conditional permit was issued so that an “independent third party verification process” for animal health assessment can take place. In my view, their wording is cause for concern.

There is so much more to wild animal housing and care than “animal health,” however that is defined. Will the authorities look only for obvious illness and injury? Will they consider all of the other housing and husbandry factors that must be met to make life bearable for captive animals? Will this be a transparent, comprehensive review conducted by a team of experts who actually know a thing or two about evaluating wildlife in captivity conditions?

One question that surfaces again and again is why has this situation been allowed to fester for years and years? Why didn't anyone in the Alberta government simply say no? Why didn't they just say to Guzoo, come up to a professinal standard within a certain period of time or no permit? As someone who has looked at zoos around the world for more than two and a half decades and who is familiar with Guzoo, I'm suprised its been allowed to go on for so long.

It's sad that it's taken thousands of regular people clogging phone lines and email boxes to bring the Guzoo issue into the public spotlight again. I hope everyone who expressed outrage monitors this inspection process very closely and, if it results in nothing more than a slap on Guzoo’s wrist, that they continue to work vigorously to bring this very sad story to an end.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Canada

Exotic Animals Killed After Sanctuary Denial in Thorold, Ontario

On Nov. 26, the Toronto Sun started an article with: “An Ontario family that had three lions and six monkeys euthanized is blaming a city council decision that denied their request for an exotic pet sanctuary.”

A lion and her cub — not killed in Ontario.The animals were killed, slaughtered, butchered or even executed, but not euthanized. Euthanasia is the last gift you can provide the terminally suffering of any species (including human) where there is no hope for survival or comforting palliative care, and that clearly does not apply to this situation. And since these animals were killed, the term “sanctuary” also is inappropriate.

This “sanctuary” was set up within the jurisdiction of Thorold, a city of fewer than 20,000 citizens not far from Niagara Falls, Ontario. Local bylaw(called “ordinances” in the United States) did not allow the keeping of these animals. My colleagues and I work hard to see such bylaws put in place, because at the moment, Ontario is the single remaining province without any kind of zoo licensing. There currently is a bill before provincial parliament that, if passed, will at least provide some level of licensing, but there is no guarantee it will pass. Anyone can own any kind of exotic animal so long as it was acquired legally and no local bylaws prohibit it. No one knows how many lions, cobras, bears, apes and alligators are in how many barns, garages and basements in Ontario.

The animals killed (three lions and six “monkeys”) were allegedly, at least some of them, former “pets.” The animals were — according to the people charged under the Ontario Planning Act, Chris and Sharon Morabito — “unwanted” animals turned over by former owners. It reportedly was claimed that no zoo would take them because the sanctuary was not accredited. But there is no such thing in Ontario as sanctuary accreditation. There is a zoo accreditation program run by the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA), although it hardly is rigorous in enforcing what relatively minimal standards it sets for zoos (but not sanctuaries).

However, according to the news story, the Thorold “sanctuary” was not given rezoning at least in part because it was not “accredited.” The Thorold City Council is being blamed by the people charged for not OK’ing the sanctuary after the fact. But if the place was not zoned to allow the keeping of exotic animals, what did they expect? The Sun article states: “The Morabitos said the family has received conflicting opinions and orders from the city’s planning department.” But the city is claiming that it already had issued a “stop order” and that it was ignored. If there is conflict, first get it resolved!

Surely the Morabitos’ credibility was compromised a year earlier when Niagara police found marijuana growing on the property. Also present at the time were lions, a three-legged jaguar, parrots and monkeys in various cages and enclosures. The Lincoln County Humane Society was satisfied that there were no cruelty violations, but that does not placate my annoyance at the situation that led to the deaths of these “unwanted” animals in late November. The Morabitos also claim that having been to court four times, they are bankrupt.

I am no stickler who would put rules and regulations over what I would believe to be the morally correct thing to do for anyone, human or animal, although with the understanding that there can be consequences when one ignores the law. But there are too many of these “sanctuaries” claiming to be for “educational” or “rehabilitation” purposes, and which too often manage to attract devoted followers but don’t really serve the interests of animals. Just recently one of the sleazier private zoos in Ontario, also claiming to hold “unwanted” animals, finally closed, and yet it had the staunch support of a Toronto Sun columnist who seemed to think that because the animals were “unwanted” the owner was some sort of saint. Admittedly when I was young I once supported a similar enterprise, until I learned that when I found a better home for the “unwanted” animals, the guy I had trusted would not turn them over. He was simply using the animals to justify endless donations from well-intentioned people as naïve as I had been.

There are solutions. Most of all I would like to see very strict bans on the import, sale, breeding and ownership of these “exotic” animals, but that isn’t going to happen. Right-wing politicians put the “right” of people to do as they please, and to make money, way ahead of any interest in protecting the animals, or the
environment, or people at risk from inherently dangerous animal species. In the United States, Congress — having already banned the interstate movement of big cats as pets — is now considering adding primates to the list of prohibited species.)

Born Free USA runs a genuine animal sanctuary in Texas, but done properly, with no contempt for local laws and regulations and under solid management. Such sanctuaries are essential; there is a desperate need for them as more and more animals not suitable as pets are being sold by the exotic pet industry. But to work they must meet certain qualifications. That is why the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries was formed. The GFAS needs to have a global presence, to assure that sanctuaries really do serve the interest of those animals nobody wants, and that there are very specific, identifiably effectual standards to be met for meaningful accreditation for vitally required animal rescue and long-term care. Our own Adam Roberts, one of the busiest animal protectionists I know, takes the time to be the current president of GFAS.

Animal sanctuaries are essential, but in order to avoid the kind of fiasco that led to the deaths of innocent animals in Thorold last month they must be properly constituted, funded and managed. GFAS is the best bet we have for that to happen.

Barry Kent MacKay
Born Free USA
Zoocheck Canada

Ueno Zoo in Cherry Blossom Time

Last week I visited Tokyo's Ueno Zoo. It was a warm sunny day, the cherry blossoms were out in full force and throngs of people filled every corner of the zoo grounds.

Ueno Zoo is one of Japan's premier facilities and is comparable to almost any major North American zoo. Its wide pathways, tall trees, well-tended gardens, refreshment outlets around every corner and multitude of shady rest areas make Ueno Zoo a wonderful place for visitors. And that's the problem.

Like so many other zoos throughout the world, the Ueno Zoo is a people place. One would think that with a large collection of animals from the four corners of the globe the zoo would be a place for animals, but it's not. It's a place for people.

Unlike the wonderful facilities for visitors, the animal enclosures were small, bland and most of the animals were just sitting or lying around. Those that were active were often engaged in stereotypic pacing or some other abnormal behaviour.

It was obvious the zoo had made some attempt to spruce up some of the cages by adding bark chip substrates, furnishings and objects to manipulate, and I expect those things made the staff feel better, but they didn't seem to do much for the animals. The space and complexity the animals need just wasn't there.

Like most other zoos in the world, visitors noisily filed past one exhibit after another, registering one animal in their mind before moving on to the next. If the animals were inactive, many visitors didn't even stop, they just glanced toward the animals as they walked by.

As I moved through the zoo I tried to imagine what the animals felt with so many hundreds of eyes watching their every move. At a bear cage, the visitor pathway wound around the top of the exhibit allowing people to surround the animals. And there were multiple glass viewing stations at ground level as well. There was no where for the bears to get away from public view. Many other animals had it the same and some had it worse.

Studies show that many animals, ranging from lizards to gorillas, can be very stressed by being watched. That seems obvious to me. But it doesn't seem obvious to the people who build the cages and care for the animals.

Zoos have a totem pole of priorities that place the needs of visitors first, staff second and animals third. That totem pole should be flipped on its head so the needs of the animals come first, the staff second and the public third. Zoos claim they are devoted to animal wellbeing but the reality says otherwise. There needs to be a new zoo paradigm.

As I exited Ueno Zoo I couldn't help but think that a zoo is no place for animals.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Canada

Win One, Lose One: When will they listen to us?

Six years ago, in court, Norman Buwalda emerged victorious against a challenge to his interests. Earlier this month, that victory caused Buwalda, age 66, his life.

Buwalda, who lived in the southwestern Ontario community of Southwold, was Chairperson of the Canadian Exotic Animal Owner’s Association (CEAO). He loved to keep exotic pets his neighbors recognized as being very dangerous.Such fears were amplified six years ago when a 10-year-old boy was seriously mauled by one of Buwalda’s Siberian tigers. The child survived, apparently minus his esophagus. According to reports at the time, the boy, now sixteen, will probably have to be tube-fed for the rest of his life. We’re not sure exactly what happened to the youngster because soon after the boy virtually vanished, presumably his mother having been paid off to avoid a lawsuit, but we just don’t know for sure. The boy apparently was attacked when the tiger, on a leash, was brought out of its cage for photographs to be taken.

There is nothing unprecedented in any of this. For example in 1994, in another small Ontario town, Wiarton, a 16-year-old boy was attacked by a tiger at a private animal display and died of his injuries. In 2003 another 16-year-old, a girl working at a small private zoo in Grey County, was injured by a lion attack. And three years later lions attacked visitors, twice, in another small zoo near another small Ontario town, Leamington.

So after Buwalda’s tiger attacked the 10-year-old, the township finally listened to Buwalda’s neighbors and enacted a bylaw (which is the Canadian term for what Americans call an “ordinance”) to prohibit privately keeping dangerous exotic animals. My friend and colleague, Julie Woodyer, advised the council on how to effectively word the bylaw, but her advice was ignored. The text was badly written, and sure enough, Buwalda successfully defeated it in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Buwalda is still listed as Chairperson of CEAO on its website where it ever so grandly describes itself as “... individuals with varied backgrounds in animal husbandry, agriculture, biology, research, tracking and rescue work, education and awareness programs, zoology, endangered animal breeding successes, conservation’s [sic], rehabilitation and release programs, who [sic] efforts, experience and information have combined to develop and implement minimum standards.” Minimum standards for what is not made clear, but presumably they refer to how exotic animals are kept.

After that the grammar becomes too tormented to quote, except to say that, ironically, CEAO’s second goal is: “To assist municipalities and keepers with the safe and humane housing of exotic animals a. by keeping animals safely, this in turn protects the public and the animal keepers.” There is no plan “b”. In fact these and other goals listed for CEAO seem never to have been met, although it’s hard to say since the only contact person listed is Buwalda, now both dead and, surely, discredited as an authority on keeping people safe from potentially dangerous exotic animals.

I am disappointed with the town council of Southwold, six years ago, for ignoring the sound advice it was presented. When are people going to understand that we in the animal protection business really do know what we’re talking about?

And my concerns now are for both Buwalda’s animals and for Buwalda’s neighbors.The latter still very understandably feel that they are at risk. With Buwalda gone no one seems to know who is taking care of the animals, or how competent they are at preventing the big cats — two lions, two tigers, and a puma — from getting loose. This is an upscale community of established professionals who deserve better than to have to suffer the fears they now have for their children, their pets, and themselves. No one is blaming the tiger for being a tiger and doing what tigers can be expected to do, but they quite understandably want to be safer.

Now the council will try again. Will it listen to us?

Certainly the government of Ontario never has. Every province except Manitoba, where it so far has not been an issue, and Ontario, which has approximately a third of the country’s population, has at least some level of legislation banning or controlling the keeping of dangerous exotic “pets.” There is no such legislation in the far north, but neither is it an issue in such regions. So more than the late Mr. Buwalda, or the Southwold town council of six years ago, I am most angry at the provincial government of Ontario for constantly ducking the issue. Outside of communities that have passed the kind of bylaw the Southwold council will again try to achieve, throughout Ontario you can buy, own, or sell tigers, lions, pumas, crocodiles, spitting cobras, boa constrictors, or any other kind of dangerous animal without having to demonstrate any ability to do so safely.

It’s time for Ontario to do the right thing, and we stand ready to assist.

Barry Kent MacKay
Senior Program Associate
Born Free USA
http://www.bornfreeusa.org/weblog.php?p=2284&more=1