American zoos now have major transport problem
- Thread starter Daktari JG
- Start date
So why are the restrictions being considered?
Sounds like the zoo industry isn't much income, so the airlines are cutting them according to the article. Bad news, and sounds rather selfish on the part of the airlines... the zoo shipments aren't a real money maker so they'd rather cut them and fill the space with something that'll make them more money... I'd imagine AZA will fight this as best it can... if transport is limited to truck and boat, SSP's, breeding transfers, reintroductions, imports, all in serious trouble...
I wonder if this will hurt the pet trade and agriculture industries as well.
Hopefully the agriculture companies will take notice and lobby to change this.
Taking that into consideration, how likely do you think it is that they'll back down from those new policies?
The article did say they may have to take this to Washington, maybe taking advantage of the annual zoo meeting on Capitol Hill for this.
I think it's more to do with all the issues they had recently over 'assistance animals'. People were trying to have their pets with them on flights by passing them off as support animals when they were nothing of the sort, as a result I believe the two airlines in question decided to prohibit any animals being brought on board. I'm sure I read somewhere about a woman flushing her hamster down the toilet after being told it could not be brought on board as an assistance animal and she didn't want to miss her flight because of it.
I wouldn't blame them for that. The stories along that side are getting ridiculous. Remember seeing one about a woman who tried to pass off a full-grown male peacock as a "emotional support animal" to take it on the plane with her. IMO, "emotional support animals" have gotten a little out of hand... people seem to often just call it that so their pet will get through/in whatever. I've encountered more than one instance where they were definitely just saying that to get the animal through or were trying to hide it. True service animals I have no problems with, they help their owner out and have been trained to be calm and well behaved in chaos. I also agree there are some people who do have true emotional support animals, and those too tend to be trained and well behaved. However the term has been taken advantage of I feel. I have a hard time seeing a hamster or peacock as a "emotional support animal."
Back to the zoo side of things, I don't feel like that plays in so much. 99.9% of zoo transport will be by cargo plane/cargo hold or potentially special plane. Very very seldom have zoo animals ever flown in the passenger quarters. I.E, the first tuatara to leave NZ. Generally most zoo transports are too big or dangerous to travel anywhere in the passenger area.