The Animal Manifesto (19 page)

In fact, so much has been written about the serious ethical concerns surrounding these venues that the short answer is simple: No. There simply are no data that show that there is much, if anything, good for the animals who are kept for human amusement and entertainment. Like humans, some animals show evidence that they are natural “performers,” but the business of animal entertainment is synonymous with abuse. Circuses deprive animals of any chance to have their emotional needs met; they’re an insult to both animals and humans and rob us all of our dignity. It will be a great day when all circus animals are allowed to live out their lives with respect and dignity in appropriate animal sanctuaries. Circuses also set a bad example for children, as the underlying lesson they teach is that it’s okay for animals to be treated as objects for entertainment and amusement.

Concerning circuses, Boulder, Colorado, animal activist Donna Marino sums up the dire situation by asking, “Would you knowingly pay to watch an elephant jabbed with an electric prod until his body collapsed in pain? How about watching a lion prodded by a trainer with a steel hook until blood spurts from one of his legs?” Marino notes that if you pay to see the circus, that’s exactly where your money goes. She goes on to write:

For years, circuses have abused animals to get them to perform tricks for the ‘entertainment’ of humans. Since animals do not naturally or voluntarily ride bicycles or jump through rings of fire, their trainers must force them to perform these tricks. The methods are generally barbaric and involve the use of whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bull hooks, and other brutal tools of the trade. Some animals are kept muzzled to subdue them and discourage them from defending themselves if they feel threatened. Others are drugged to make them manageable and some even have their teeth removed to prevent biting. Because circus animals travel long distances on a grueling schedule in order to earn the most profit for their owners, these creatures are often confined for 20 hours or more a day in small cages. During that time, they cannot satisfy their natural needs and may not even see the light of day until they’re unloaded for a performance.

As I noted above, one study revealed that large circus animals like elephants, big cats, and horses spend virtually all their time chained and confined in cages. Furthermore, captive
bears engage in stereotyped back-and-forth pacing about 30 percent of the time. Many animals display repetitive stereotyped movements in captivity that are not seen in the wild, and Israeli scientists are using the behavior of disturbed animals in zoos to help them understand obsessive-compulsive disorder in humans. Let’s hope the animals also benefit from these studies.

Rodeos and bull riding are also insults to the animals who are abused and objectified solely for our own entertainment. Despite the assurances of rodeo advocates that great care is taken to provide for the animals’ welfare, injuries in rodeos are very common, including paralysis from spinal cord injuries, severed tracheas, as well as broken backs and legs. A common activity, calf roping, is incredibly inhumane. Even Bud Kerby, owner and operator of Bar T Rodeos, agrees; he was quoted as saying he “wouldn’t mind seeing calf roping phased out.” Stock shows around the country allow young kids to engage in “mutton busting,” in which children are placed on scared, bucking sheep. This endangers the sheep and the children, and it most assuredly doesn’t promote kindness and respect for animals. Indeed, despite claims by advocates otherwise, rodeos are dangerous for people; for instance, in June 2009 in Longmont, Colorado, a twelve-year-old boy was killed when a bull he was trying to ride stomped on his stomach.

Zoos and aquariums are meant to be entertaining, but many also operate with a “higher calling.” They are first and foremost supposed to be educational institutions that aim to teach people about our fellow animals, and they also hope to aid the conservation of
species. While education and conservation are admirable goals, the evidence is so far lacking that zoos achieve either one very well; nor is there evidence that zoos are the
best
way to accomplish them. Despite being founded explicitly to care for animals, zoos have a disturbing record of failing the very animals they hold.

Let me begin by saying that most people who work in zoos care about the animals with whom they work, and they do the very best they can for them. Many zoo and aquarium employees are deeply committed to education, conservation, and animal protection, and it’s imperative to keep them in the discussion about the best means for achieving these goals.

Nonetheless, I’ve been told from time to time that zoos are good for animals because they get free meals, a safe place to live and to sleep, and health insurance (veterinary care). These luxuries keep them content and happy. But are animals really happy in zoos? Do zoos adequately provide for them? The answer can vary depending on the zoo and the animal, but the record is extremely mixed, and it gets worse with the larger, most complex species — typically, the zoo’s moneymaking “star attractions.” Yet all by itself, providing comfortable quarters is not reason enough to justify keeping animals in captivity, at which point it becomes a lame excuse.

For instance, in January 2007, Ralph, an adolescent, twenty-two-foot-long whale shark, died mysteriously at the Georgia Aquarium, despite being as well cared for as perhaps any whale shark in captivity. This raised questions about whether whale sharks, a species about which little is known, should ever be taken from the wild. Despite a zoo’s or aquarium’s best efforts, captivity can never replicate a healthy natural environment; for some species, it’s so inadequate as to be fatal. Only a month
earlier, a beluga whale at the Georgia Aquarium became seriously ill and died.

In December 2007, in another high-profile example, Tatiana, a female Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo, got out of her aging, inadequate enclosure and attacked three men, killing one of them. Tatiana’s story illustrates a number of problems with zoo care, and it attracted worldwide press because not only was it a terribly sad event but it also could have been avoided. First of all, in this case, the zoo wasn’t properly protecting either the animal or the public; the enclosure’s walls were very old and four feet lower than the current recommended standard. If tigers can’t get out, they can’t hurt anyone.

But also, a year before, Tatiana had attacked a keeper and chewed his arm. Large carnivores simply do not belong in zoos, but Tatiana may have been particularly agitated. Tatiana had lived at the Denver Zoo and was shipped to San Francisco because Denver wanted to redecorate their facility. Animals are sentient and emotional beings, and it affects them when they are shipped here and there as if they were couches. During her two years in the San Francisco Zoo, between the time she was transferred and when she was shot by San Francisco police, she’d lost 50 pounds. Her weight dropped from 292 pounds to 242 pounds. At the Denver Zoo, she was fed 42 pounds of food a week. At the San Francisco Zoo, she was fed between 32 and 36 pounds of food a week. Her keeper’s notes show a pattern: “Tatiana frantic for food.” Given her history, an essay in
Time
magazine even speculated whether Tatiana held a grudge against people.

In addition, the men Tatiana attacked had been taunting her, an activity that is rather common at zoos. In the mid-1990s
my students and I discovered that 20 to 25 percent of visitors at the Denver Zoo taunted animals by mimicking, yelling, and throwing things at them and that carnivorous predators were the most likely targets. It’s quite possible Tatiana had been taunted many times, and in this case, it made her so mad she found a way to fight back. However, at the time, Stephen Zawistowski, science adviser for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said that taunting probably was not the sole reason for Tatiana’s attack, though it likely played a role. Indeed, the likelihood that lions, tigers, bears, gorillas, and so on will be taunted should be taken into account when building enclosures. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) must build taunt-proof cages, and zoos should be vigilant about removing people who taunt animals.

Robert Jenkins, director of animal care at the San Francisco Zoo, claimed that, “We don’t know how[the tiger] was able to get out.” Then the zoo and the AZA traded blame, with the AZA saying they had told the zoo the enclosure wasn’t high enough for Siberian tigers, and the zoo saying they didn’t know this. Lost in the debate was Tatiana herself, an animal with a point of view who did not like being treated as if she were an inanimate object. She was a highly evolved predator who didn’t like being imprisoned. When will zoos learn this lesson? How many more people and animals will have to be injured or killed? Isn’t it about time that the AZA start investigating how to remove certain animals from zoos and send them off to sanctuaries so they can live out their lives with dignity?

In many ways the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and some zoo advocates are their own worst enemies. The AZA has a history of lax enforcement of their stated standards and of reaccrediting zoos with extremely poor records. Take, for
instance, the prestigious National Zoo in Washington, DC, which some consider the flagship institution in the United States. Major problems were documented at the National Zoo in the late 1990s through the early 2000s that seriously compromised the well-being of its residents, but which didn’t compromise its AZA accreditation.

When you look into the eyes of animals in zoos, you immediately know when something isn’t right. I confirmed this when I was a reader for the “Review of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological Park,” a zoo report resulting from a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources. The purpose of the study was to “identify strengths, weaknesses, needs and gaps in the current infrastructure” at the National Zoo because of suspicions of mismanagement and inadequate animal treatment. The report documented a long history of problems, with numerous infractions of federal statutes, laws, and other guidelines (as well as common sense) that were serious and inexcusable.

One of the most egregious violations was the alteration of veterinary records. It was disquieting that infractions and abuses occurred even though the zoo’s veterinarians are board-certified by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Questions from the public finally surfaced when two red pandas died after being exposed to rat poison. Safety managers, who could have prevented these unnecessary deaths, were nowhere to be found. Overall, there was a shameful lack of concern for animal welfare by some of the administrators responsible for overseeing the zoo’s operation.

Other concerns included the lack of documentation for the preventative medicine program, the lack of compliance with
standard veterinary medicine, and the shortcomings of the animal nutrition program (despite supposed world-class research) that led to animal fatalities. Further worries included the disregard for requirements for research given by the Public Health Service, the Animal Welfare Act, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees, in addition to the zoo’s own policies and procedures for animal health and welfare. Poor record-keeping — such as the failure to keep adequate animal husbandry and management records — and poor compliance with the zoo’s own policies were commonplace.

Unfortunately, the AZA didn’t hesitate to reaccredit the zoo in the spring of 2004, apparently turning a blind eye to the zoo’s appalling state and no doubt yielding to political pressure. Even though a previous AZA accreditation report had asked the National Zoo to develop a strategic plan, they still hadn’t done so, and this in and of itself justified withholding accreditation until the zoo made major adjustments. While the report was meant to foster significant changes, many problems were blatantly ignored.

I found myself wondering how things could have gotten so bad at such a high-profile zoo. How and why did conditions deteriorate despite close scrutiny by organizations and individuals who are supposed to be responsible for overseeing zoos and despite repeated and deep expressions of concern by the public that appeared in regional and national media? If these things weren’t enough to keep the National Zoo from providing substandard care, then what could possibly ensure adequate care for animals at all the other smaller, lower-profile zoos around the country and the world? In how many other places is the same story unfolding, and how easy will it be for it to keep happening?

Currently five major zoos in the United States — the Bronx Zoo and those in Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia — are phasing out their elephant exhibits, despite the fact that they’re moneymakers. They are doing this because zoos cannot meet the social, emotional, and physical needs of these awesome mammoths, and also because of the high cost of keeping captive elephants. Elephants are highly intelligent, extremely emotional, very social, and like to roam. By definition, zoos are antithetical to these needs.

In contrast, in Colorado, a debate has arisen over the Denver Zoo’s plan to spend$52 million to increase the size of its Asian elephant habitat and to boost the number of captive elephants from two to as many as eight. But the Denver Zoo’s proposed ten-acre elephant park — which would include a “hot tub” — would merely be a bigger but still thoroughly inadequate cage.

The Denver Zoo justifies its intentions by claiming that its park will help to conserve this endangered species. In an interview I did on Colorado Public Radio with Craig Piper, vice-president of the Denver Zoo, Piper called the Denver Zoo elephants an “insurance population.” But, insurance for what? For the day all wild Asian elephants are gone? The AZA has developed what it calls the Species Survival Plan (SSP), which attempts to ensure the survival of certain wildlife species using managed breeding programs and reintroducing captive-bred wildlife into proper habitat. Yet the Denver Zoo puts less than 10 percent of its annual budget into conservation efforts (and about the same into education); by comparison, that’s one-quarter of what the Bronx Zoo devotes to conservation. Piper
admitted that it’s extremely unlikely — really impossible — that any of these “insurance” elephants would ever be reintroduced to the wild. Every conservation biologist knows that retaining suitable habitat for animals is enormously difficult, and there’s no hope that habitat into which elephants could be released would be saved for them in their absence. If wild Asian elephants don’t have habitat and protections enough to maintain themselves in the wild, then neither will reintroduced captive elephants. Captive elephants merely insure a zoo’s income.