Do Zoos Train Animals to Live in the Wild

Animals should not spend their unabridged lives in captivity simply to fulfil our desire to see them. Here are our meridian ten facts virtually zoos that you need to know...

1. Zoos are miserable places for animals

This dead wallaby was left to rot past staff at Tweddle Farm Zoo for ii weeks and
the zoo refused to carry out a post-mortem to establish why the animal died

In 2010, a Freedom for Animals undercover investigator filmed sick animals left untreated and dead animals to rot on floors atTweddle Farm Zoo. Freedom for Animalshad to have rabbits to a vet to take infections treated and after our expose local police confiscated a monkey who had been kept alone and given cake and other junk food to consume.

Think safari parks are better than 'traditional' zoos? Woburn Safari Park was keeping its lions locked into small enclosures for 18 hours a day . A authorities zoo inspection report in 2010 said: "The animals were very crowded and at that place was no provision for individual feeding or sleeping areas. There was no visible environmental enrichment. Some of the lions exhibited skin wounds and multiple scars of diverse age, some fresh, some healed."

In late 2012, another safari park was shamed as West Midland Safari Park was exposed for providing white lion cubs to a notorious circus fauna trainer , who sent them to a traveling circus in Japan. The Lions remain in the circus today.

A regime-funded report of elephants in UK zoos found "there was a welfare concern for every elephant in the United kingdom." 75% of elephants were overweight and only 16% could walk normally, the balance having various degrees of lameness. Less than 20% were totally free of foot problems[1].

two. Zoos tin't provide sufficient infinite

Zoos cannot provide the amount of space animals take in the wild. This is particularly the case for those species who roam larger distances in their natural habitat. Tigers and lions have around xviii,000 times less infinite in zoos than they would in the wild. Polar bears take ane million times less space[2].

3. Animals suffer in zoos

A government-funded study of elephants in UK zoos constitute that 54% of the elephants showed stereotypies (behavioural problems) during the daytime. One elephant observed during solar day and nighttime stereotyped for 61% of a 24-hour menstruum[iii].

Lions in zoos spend 48% of their time pacing, a recognised sign of behavioural problems[4].

four. Animals die prematurely in zoos

African elephants in the wild live more than three times as long as those kept in zoos. Fifty-fifty Asian elephants working in timber camps live longer than those born in zoos[5].

40% of lion cubs die earlier 1 month of age. In the wild, only 30% of cubs are thought to die earlier they are six months old and at least a third of those deaths are due to factors which are absent in zoos, like predation[6].

5. Surplus an imals are killed

A Freedom for Animalswritten report plant that at least seven,500 animals – and possibly as many equally 200,000 – in European zoos are 'surplus' at whatever i fourth dimension.

Animals are regularly 'culled' in UK zoos. In 2006 the whole pack of wolves at Highland Wild fauna Park were killed later on the social construction of the pack had broken down. In 2005 two wolf cubs and an developed female were shot dead at Dartmoor Wildlife Park. The vet reported: "Selective choose due to overcrowding and fighting in the pack" and "Further choose of cubs needed". In 2001 a DEFRA zoo inspection of Dartmoor Wildlife Park in Oct 2001 establish that "several significant dead animals" were stored in a food freezer "for taxidermy in the future".

The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) said in 2007 that member zoos were being actively encouraged to kill unwanted animals, including tigers, if other zoos did not want them and if they were hybrids. It said that such animals take upward space and keeper time[7].

In 2010, zoo trade bodies rallied to the defence of a German zoo which was prosecuted for breaching animal welfare laws later on it killed three tiger cubs because they were not pure-blooded (hybrid)[8].

In 2011, an exposé of Knowsley Safari Park led by Freedom for Animalsfollowing information provided by a whistleblower showed the safari park to be in contravention of legislation on disposal of carcasses also as raising queries over treatment of firearms. A quondam employee of the safari park alleged: "culling was being used as a means of training instead of existence carried out in the kindest and most humane way."

In early on 2014, there was global outrage when Copenhagen Zoo killed a good for you young giraffe called Marius. The event triggered a worldwide debate on culling in zoos and it was admitted by zoo spokespeople that thousands of healthy animals are deliberately killed in European zoos alone each year.

half dozen. Great britain zoos are connected to beast circuses

These lions were sent as cubs from Due west Midland Safari Park to a circus trainer

Freedom for Animalsexposed a UK zoo in 2009 that was a member of the trade body BIAZA (which supposedly upholds the highest standards) as having abreeding connexion with a controversial brute circus. Noah's Ark Zoo Subcontract had been breeding camels from the Groovy British Circus for several years and in 2009 obtained three tigers from the circus.

A female tiger at the zoo had three stillborn cubs and some other who died at three weeks former. The female parent as well died.

The same zoo was found to doing business withsome other circus animate being trainerin 2013. This was the same trainer who had been sold panthera leo cubs byWest Midland Safari Parkand sent them to a traveling circus in Japan .

seven. Animals are trained to perform tricks

Many zoos train animals to perform tricks as if they were in a circus. Performing sea lions, birds and elephants can be seen at many Great britain zoos.

Some grooming of elephants has been done using electric goads. Liberty for Animals infiltrated a training session held at Blackpool Zoo in 1998 and filmed elephants being trained to elevator their feet and caput, concord sticks in their mouths and jabbed with elephant hooks in the shoulder and head.

In 2010 it was revealed that an elephant at Woburn Safari Park had previously been trained using an electrical goad [9].

Blackpool Zoo proudly publicised its training of a baby sea lion for shows in mid 2013 [ten]. This is in spite of the fact that the Uk Regime has agreed to ban like shows in circuses on the footing that: "we should feel dut y-bound to recognise that wild animals accept intrinsic value, and respect their inherent wildness and its implications for their treatment".

viii. Animals are still taken from the wild

In 2003 the United kingdom government gave permission for the capture of 146 penguins from a British territory in the Due south Atlantic (Tristan da Cunha). Those who survived the seven-24-hour interval boat journeying from Tristan to a wild fauna dealer in South Africa were sold to zoos in Asia [11].

In 2010, Zimbabwe planned to capture two of every mammal species found in Hwange National Park and send them to Northward Korean zoos. This included rhinos, lions, cheetahs, zebras and giraffes equally well as 2 xviii-calendar month-former elephants. The programme was only stopped after international pressure by a coalition of organisations including Freedom for Animals.

70% of elephants in European zoos were taken from the wild [12].

A Freedom for Animals study plant that 79% of all animals in U.k. aquariums were caught in the wild. Sea Life aquariumsadmitted to taking animals from the wild as recently as 2013, but refused to provide information on how many of the animals held by them were wild-caught.

9. Zoos don't serve conservation

Zoos merits to brood animals for eventual release to the wild but breeding programmes are primarily to ensure a captive population, not for reintroduction.

Lions are popular in zoos, but the vast majority "are 'generic' animals of hybrid or unknown subspecific status, and therefore of lilliputian or no value in conservation terms [13].

Keeping an intelligent, complex and social fauna like a chimp in a United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland zoo
does nothing to protect his relatives threatened in the wild

Zoo director David Hancocks said: "In that location is a commonly held misconception that zoos are not just saving wildlife from extinction but also reintroducing them to their wild habitats. The confusion stems from many sources, all of them zoo-based… In reality, most zoos have had no contact of whatever kind with any reintroduction program."[14]

Captive convenance is considered by some conservation scientists to be a diversion from the reasons for a species' turn down, giving "a false impression that a species is condom so that destruction of habitat and wild populations can proceed"[xv].

Zoos spend millions on keeping animals confined, while natural habitats are destroyed and animals killed every bit there is bereft funding for protection. When London Zoo spent £5.3 million on a new gorilla enclosure, the principal consultant to the Un Swell Ape Survival Project said he was uneasy at the mismatch between lavish spending at zoos and the scarcity of resources bachelor for conserving threatened species in the wild.

"Five million pounds for three gorillas when national parks are seeing that number killed every day for want of some Country Rovers and trained men and anti-poaching patrols. It must be very frustrating for the warden of a national park to see".

Measures to protect giant pandas' habitat also supports hundreds of species of mammals, at least 200 birds, dozens of reptiles and over half of the plants known to be in China [sixteen].

In 2013, Freedom for Animals revealed that the Uk'southward largest aquarium operator, Sea Life, could traceless than 3 pence per visitor to in situ conservation projects.

10. Zoos fail education

A Freedom for Animals study of UK aquariums institute that 41% of the animals on display had no signs identifying their species – the virtually basic of information.

A Us study found no compelling show for the claim that zoos and aquariums promote attitude change, instruction, or interest in conservation in visitors. The study authors urged zoos to cease citing a zoo-funded written report which claimed an educational benefit from visits "as this conclusion is unwarranted and potentially misleading to consumers."[17]

In 2010, a Regime-commissioned study found that "Concerns remain, nevertheless, with regard to the lack of available bear witness about the effectiveness" of conservation and education projects in zoos.

Animals in zoos are suffering. You tin can help end that by joining us as a Freedom Champion today!

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[1]M Harris et al. The welfare, housing and husbandry of elephants in UK zoos. University of Bristol, 2008

[2]Broad roaming animals fare worst in zoo enclosures. Guardian, two.x.03

[3]K Harris et al. The welfare, housing and husbandry of elephants in UK zoos. Academy of Bristol, 2008

[4]G Mason & R Clubb. Guest Editorial, International Zoo News, Vol 51, No 1 (2004))

[5]R Clubb et al. Compromised survivorship in zoo elephants. Science, Vol 322, 12.12.08

[6]G Mason & R Clubb. Invitee Editorial. International Zoo News, Vol 51, No 1 (2004))

[vii]Zoos kill salubrious tigers for the skin trade. Sun Times, 22.seven.07l

[viii]Lawmaking of Ethics & Animal Welfare. World Clan of Zoos and Aquariums, June 2010

[ix]Woburn admits it gave bull elephant electrical shocks. Sun Times, 27.6.10

[10]http://www.lep.co.u.k./news/local/blackpool-zoo-due south-baby-sealion-follows-in-her-mother-southward-footsteps-1-5750458

[11]Taken past force. BBC Wildlife, February 2004

[12]R Clubb and G Mason. 'A Review of the Welfare of Zoo Elephants in Europe', RSPCA, 2002

[13]Nicholas Gould, Editorial, International Zoo News, Vol 49, No 5 (2002)).

[14]Quoted in 'Who Cares for Planet Earth?' B Jordan, 2001

[15]Snyder et al. Limitations of Captive Breeding in Endangered Species Recovery. Conservation Biology, Pages 338-348. Volume 10, No. 2, April 1996

[16]Panda mating frenzy hits zoo. BBC News, 4 May 2007 )

[17]50 Morino et al. Do Zoos and Aquariums Promote Attitude Change in Visitors? A Critical Evaluation of the American Zoo and Aquarium Study. Club and Animals 18 (2010) 126-138