Although I loved living in Japan, animal welfare is, I think it’s not unfair to say, not a big priority. There are many zoos which are gradually improving but also places like bear parks which are dreadful with huge numbers of bears in concrete pits.
Bears in general don’t get a particularly good deal in Japan’s zoos and I wouldn’t argue with Zoocheck’s report one bit. It also notes that banging on windows is quite common, something I noticed too. I don’t always agree with campaigners but there’s no doubt from my experience that Japanese zoos have an awful lot of concrete and not much enrichment or imagination (a bit like their high schools…).
The Japanese love of aquariums is also reflected in this report which shows totally inappropriate polar bear enclosures – aquariums in Japan like to have everything from dolphins to whale sharks to sea otters to sun fish and are huge attractions, unusual species make them stand out even more and welfare doesn’t seem to be a major concern at all.
The small town where I lived had an incredibly depressing free zoo with Japanese macaques on a typical ‘monkey rock’ enclosure, emus in a tiny pen, wild boar in a sty, birds of prey in tiny aviaries, tanuki/racooon dogs and other small animals.
