Tainted Blood by A. P, Wolf. FeedARead Publishing 2020
This is a book that stirred up a lot of strong opinion among zoochatters just from the advertising blurb, and I was encouraged to read this book from the lively responses it stimulated. I have now read the book, which aroused many mixed emotions. Tinted Blood is primarily about the history of some ungulates in zoos and the people who trapped them and dealt in them. The book is mainly about Grevy’s Zebra, Scimitar-Horned Oryx and Bongo, with some discussion about Roan Antelope and Przewalski’s Horse, and other ungulates have walk on parts. The book discusses the role and functioning of zoos and especially Marwell Zoo, in UK. It is written by A. P. Wolf, a pseudonym (?) for an ex-keeper from Marwell Zoo. It is an interesting and informative car-crash of a book. The author comes across as having an axe to grind, even though chapter twelve starts with “It is important to stress that this is not intended as a diatribe specifically against Marwell Zoo, but rather as a robust critique of the past and present management techniques employed by the majority of zoos……”. A robust critique it may be, but not in any scientific sense. However the author raises many of the issues that plague modern zoos, lack of room, inability to keep large numbers of many species, turnover of species, and a lack of a long-term vision for the species’ conservation. These are the realities of the industry that we need to work to improve; it is not helpful to do a hatchet job.
Open and objective debates about zoos are needed and we must not hide from failures but understand and learn not to repeat them. Most would agree that zoos are not perfect and must always strive for improvement. The book is full of fascinating facts and figures, explosive claims, accusations and speculation. The author is clearly knowledgeable and done a lot of research. While the book provides a great deal of information it is difficult to know how reliable it is. There is no preface, no background to the author and her/his experiences, no footnotes to explain the source of the claims, no index, no appendices and no page numbers. The author does refer to studbooks, books, talks and correspondence although these are infrequently and inadequately quoted for a critical work of this sort. This makes it of limited value; how are we to judge what the claims are based upon?
In the opening chapter we are told that Lord Morton’s efforts to hybridise a Quagga stallion and a horse was the first ever captive breeding programme; the story is garbled and it is implied Quagga’s came from East Africa. How many more stories are misleading?
The book is mostly clearly written, passionate and sometimes lyrical, although it also contains cringe-worthy, emotive language that undermines objective credibility.
Much of the text is about the trapping and trade of ungulates from Africa. The zoo world has always been associated with the animal trade, although with the development of cooperative breeding programmes the reliance of many zoos upon dealers of wild animals is now much diminished. The apparent collapse of many ungulate populations in East Africa in the 1970’s is attributed, by the author, to the excessive harvesting of animals for zoos. High mortality during capture, quarantine and transport are recorded for several species and these figures, some from a century ago, are extrapolated unrealistically to more recent times. It is suggested that the high take for zoos may have affected both the genetic diversity and population biology of the source populations of Grevy’s Zebra and Bongo and driven the wild Scimitar-horned Oryx to extinction. However these claims cannot reliably be made with the quality of the data given. There is the suggestion that Western Bongo may have been traded as the very much rarer Eastern Bongo resulting in the current captive population that is possibly a mix of races and that Bongos have also been hybridized with Sitatunga.
The open hostility to zoos, and Marwell in particular, made me feel uncomfortable. The author is not describing the people and zoos I know. Zoos are described as “Misplaced follies of madness, insanity and confusion with no real intent, meaning or purpose.” The complex politics of zoo driven conservation initiatives appall the author, although in my experience these complexities are common to many of our efforts to look after biodiversity world-wide. Of course this does not mean that we cannot improve how we save species and habitats. The conservation initiatives for the managed Scimitar-horned Oryx populations in Tunisia, and Przewalski’s Horse in Mongolia and elsewhere, are criticized although in a rapidly changing world we are increasingly going to have to learn how to manage populations if we want to keep them, and there will be mistakes made along the way.
This is a cynical, angry book which could have done with a good editor going through it and taking out the vitriol, repetition and bias, and ensuring that the claims were substantiated. The author promises a sequel and I hope we can have more transparent scholarship and optimism. This could have been an important text, since there are lessons to be learnt, giving the history of trade out of East Africa, of some species in captivity and of conservation initiatives. Instead we have a rant that will irritate, or is more likely to be ignored.
.
*pun intended*
