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.

Funds should go to conservation, not cages

Ever since I first learned about Google Alerts, I’ve been receiving dozens of links to articles about zoos on an almost daily basis. Over the past few years I’ve gotten in the habit of printing out articles about new zoo exhibits and the refurbishment of old zoo exhibits, especially if they indicate their cost.

I expect that anyone reading those articles in isolation say to themselves, “Wow, that’s a lot of money” and leave it at that. I suppose it’s a natural reaction since a great many new zoo exhibits range in price from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars, certainly a lot of money to most of us. But most people don’t think about the fact that zoos all over North America and around the world are engaged in the same kinds of expensive projects as their local or regional zoos are. And when you start to add up the costs, it’s mind blowing.

Here’s just a small sample of what I’ve come across in the past week or so. The National Zoo recently opened a new elephant exhibit that cost a whopping $56 million. The Oregon Zoo plans to exceed that with their own $58 million elephant exhibit. Meanwhile the Houston Zoo will open a $28 million gorilla exhibit in 2015, while this summer the Dakota Zoo will open a small primate exhibit that, by comparison, is dirt cheap at only $750,000. As I sat down to write this blog, another one came in. The Indianapolis Zoo is planning a $30 million orangutan exhibit. Those few projects come in at a staggering $172.75 million and that’s just the tip of the proverbial “new exhibit” iceberg.

About three years ago I added up all the zoo capital projects that were featured in articles in a 1 month period. I’m sure I didn’t see them all, but what I did see added up to $1.213 billion dollars. They’d house at most a few hundred individuals representing a motley assortment of species. All in the name of conservation.

Most of the zoo promotional material that’s used to rationalize these obscenely expensive exhibits feature vague claims about how important they are to public education, conservation and how they’ll produce a positive conservation outcome that will benefit animals and their wild habitats. Of course, most of that commentary is unsubstantiated, meaningless and self-serving. The reality is that most zoos talk the talk, but when it comes down to putting their money where their mouth is, they don’t do much to help. Instead, they construct monuments to waste and pat themselves on the back for doing it.

There are thousands of conservation projects around the world that are starving for funds. They’re aimed at preserving habitat, conducting anti-poaching patrols, mitigating human-wildlife conflict, fighting the wild animal parts trade and addressing a plethora of other concerns. Pick a handful of these projects at random, look at their cost and at what they can accomplish and it becomes abundantly clear why they should be funded and not the new zoo exhibits.

Rob Laidlaw
Zoocheck Inc.

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

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

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