I first learned
about the CBS 60 Minutes piece set to air March 15th, 2015 through the zoo
directors’ list serve. The hard-hitting, TV news show was working on a story
about zoos and they were working with Damian Aspinall – a well-known opponent
of zoos. Great, that’s all we need. It was just 2 weeks earlier that a 60
Minutes piece on Lumber Liquidators claimed high levels of cancer-causing
formaldehyde in some of their flooring products, sending their stock plummeting
the very next day. And who can forget the effect of the documentary Blackfish
on the fortunes of SeaWorld? In a society that is fed a steady diet of “reality
TV”, I expected Monday morning pundits to be singing the praises of Aspinall’s
heroic efforts to save animals and a damning indictment of the cruelty of zoos.
But, as one of my favorite Saturday morning sports commentators likes to say – not so fast my friends.
DamianAspinall was born to a life of wealth and privilege on the 500 acre
Wildlife Park that is part of his country estate in the English countryside.
The operation was started in the 1970’s by his wealthy father, who was
passionate about keeping his animals in
enclosures as close to their natural habitat as possible and keeping them in social
groups that would replicate their behavior in the wild. The 54 year old Damian
clearly has an affinity for these animals, as the videos of him playing tug-of-war
with a tiger, patting down a black rhino, and wrestling with gorillas clearly
show. He says the animals are part of his family – his equal.
The 60 Minutes story
begins by asking whether endangered animals born and bred in captivity should
ever be released into the wild. A conservation group called the Aspinall Foundation,
the narrator says, is trying to find out. CBS Journalist, Lesley Stahl, began
her interview with Aspinall by noting that zoos see their mission as not just
displaying animals but also saving endangered species.
Zoo Gorillas Return to the Wild
“Zoos,” he responds,
“are jails that lock up animals for life. If I could extinguish all zoos over
the next 30 years, including my own, I would.”
Stahl makes the
case for zoo animals as ambassadors and zoo education might encourage
preservation, but he is shaking his head before she is finished speaking.
“Please show me
the statistical evidence that zoos educate and that the education that they
claim they are doing has helped animals in the wild. There is no evidence
because it is a lie,” he claims.
This exchange
sets the tone of this story. Zoos, Aspinall claims, are bad and he is
determined to return his animals to the wild – beginning with his gorillas.
As they talk
about the plan to send his gorillas to Africa, Stahl notes they are fragile and
questions whether it is too dangerous for zoo raised animals to go to the wild.
But he brushes the question aside, suggesting that man underestimates animals.
Aspinall crates-up
10 gorillas, a male, 5 females and 4 young, and ships them to Gabon in West
Africa, where he has purchased 1 million acres and turned it into a park. The
gorillas are released onto an island to acclimate. One year later, as the 60
Minutes cameras roll, they tentatively step across a bridge from their island
to the mainland in what appears to be a triumphant release from captivity to a
life of freedom. But the joy is short-lived. One month after the gorillas
crossed the bridge to freedom, the team found all five females and one of the
babies dead. The others probably suffered the same fate, but crawled off into
the jungle to die. Aspinall had earlier acknowledged the possibility of failure
but brushed it aside. Those who wanted to prove him wrong can take no joy in
being right.
Can zoos be animal sanctuaries?
In one of my
very first blogs, in August 2013, I recalled a 1989 trip to Africa where my
wife and I observed “biodiversity in its natural state”. As we sat at a
waterhole in central Africa, we watched a female sitatunga antelope cautiously
step out into the open and make her way to the water for a drink. It was not a
remarkable scene until someone pointed out two female lions lurking at the
forest edge nearby. We watched as they split up and were mesmerized as one lion
chased the antelope into the waiting jaws of her companion in a remarkable bit
of teamwork. The antelope never had a chance. We didn’t know whether to feel
sorry for the sitatunga as she was suffocated by the lion’s strangle hold on
her throat or cheer for the lions and their remarkable bit of hunting. You
could argue that these lions are better off in the wild because they get to
hunt antelope for dinner, but I am not so sure about the sitatunga.
In December of
2014, I wrote a two-part blog entitled Amnesty for Animals that looked at the
concept of the
repatriation of captive animals back to the wild. If we are going to repatriate
wild animals and move them out of zoos, aquariums, and marine parks, I
wondered, to what wild will they be humanely returned? Accredited zoo and aquarium facilities are getting better and more humane while enlightened
and loving caretakers learn new techniques to ensure that animal welfare is a
top priority. A large, diverse zoo habitat might be a perfectly good, permanent
home for some wild animals.
It
is a sad fact that zoos have allowed the perception (not entirely undeserved,
unfortunately) that some captive situations can be traumatic. Zoos also stand
accused of wantonly breeding animals to produce the cute babies which make them
money at the gate. When the babies grow up they become surplus to the zoo’s needs.
Sanctuaries have been rescuing these “unwanted” and “surplus” zoo animals for
decades. If zoos are going to survive, I believe they need to step up their
game and become the sanctuaries to which people refer.
Contrary to Aspinall's claim, people are positively influenced by the collective conservation message of zoos
and the animals that live in them. The University of Warwick, in England has just provided evidence evidence that zoos and aquariums do more than just entertain
us. The largest study of its kind suggests they also raise awareness of
biodiversity and how to protect animals and their habitats. Would these zoo animals better-off in the
wild? They might be if humans had not evolved to dominate every corner of the
planet – but here we are. And how do you define better-off, anyway?
Aspinall’s gorillas are certainly not better off.
