But Dan, those regulations won't apply to a zoo that opened before they came out, only to ones after. So it might sound good on paper, but are you telling me that every single zoo in Sweden obeys those laws to a tee and none are excused because they built their enclosures before the law came out?
Thanks for asking Taun! The law applies to ALL zoo enclosures and must be enforced by 2014. The law was passed in 2004 and gave the zoos 10 years to comply. As I have written before, I don´t know of any enclosure that is not already up to date with the legislation, at least not as far as the big mammals are concerned - cats, rhinos, elephants, bears etc. There may be some, of course, and if so the zoos have another 5 years to get the job done.
Many great enclosures far exceeds the minimum requirements, such as the brand new polar bear enclosure at Orsa Bear Park (the only polar bear enclosure in Sweden) and its massive size of 41 000 square meters or 10 acres. Borås Zoo is building a new brown bear enclosure: size 12 000 square meters or 3 acres. The relatively new tiger enclosure at Kiolamården Zoo is 5800 square meters (the old one from the mid-sixties was OK too, at 3000 square meters or 0,75 acre). One of the first enclosures I praised when I was new to ZooBeat/Chat was the snow leopard enclosure at Kolmården with its size of 3000 square meters or 0,75 acre.
With the grey walls and rocky backdrop this photo seems as if it was taken at Guantanamo Bay. Maybe Obama should head over to the U.K. and shut this enclosure down as well as the infamous Cuban prison.
