Les Terres de Nataé Animal rights group buying Zoo de Pont-Scorff

This entrepreneur isn’t are friend Mr Damian Aspinall is it sound like to kind of idiotic thing he would be involved in ?
The template for what they propose to do at this French Zoo does sound very much along the lines of DA's stated plans for Howletts- 'relocation and rescue' but no idea what that really means- at either place...
 
This entrepreneur isn’t are friend Mr Damian Aspinall is it sound like to kind of idiotic thing he would be involved in ?

No, it's someone called Marc Simoncini, "one of the most successful web entrepreneurs in France" with no history of animal welfare.

To be honest if someone told me that Simoncini was an elaborately-constructed fake identity for Damien I would be a little tempted to believe them!
 
I also think that not enough is being done about this extreme movement and its views and activities. There is so much they are currently able to do with impunity or with extremely mild legal consequences. As such animal-related industries and businesses should I think remain hyper vigilant and should pay attention to their defense.

Perhaps there is no reason to be overly anxious or gloomy about the animal rights narrative, but I believe this is no time to be complacent or totally comfortable either.

I concede that animal rights extremism isn't limited to the far-left, but at least in Western countries most of these people would be considered to be on the far left. Also most of the politicians influenced by the lobbying of the animal rights extremism in Western countries are on the left or the far left.

Yes , I agree with those first two points you make and I share your concern both about how dominant this idiotic myopic narrative of "Animal rights activists" is on social media and society in general and how intoxicating and persuasive it is to the masses.

As I've mentioned many times in this forum like you I also worry that these sorts of situations have the potential to become unmanageable and will in the near future begin to even more severely impede and disrupt important ex-situ conservation work from being carried out by zoos. At such a critical juncture of the anthropocene where we stand to lose biodiversity at alarming rates this is deeply worrying and frustrating for me as a conservationist.

But as I've said many of these groups and individuals simply don't conform to a single political ideology or particular pole of the political spectrum. Often individuals who are obsessed with "animal rights" (Actually it isn't even limited to animal rights and you can find many of these unpleasant personality types in conservation and even zoos too) for many reasons have a severe and frequently pathological and or neurological deficit when it comes to empathy or concern for human beings which leads many of them to be adherents (or at least to harbour sympathies) of far right and even crypto or outright fascist ideologies.
 
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From internet news, it looks that the association plans looking for more donations, this time to run the zoo. Which for me looks like those guys in Asia who get wild animals from God-knows-where and show them on the street collecting gifts, only on the large scale and using internet.

They also now claim they want to use the zoo to rehabilitate native animals and hold animals seized by customs. IMO, only an idiot would give custody of any animals to a place without secure funding.
 
From internet news, it looks that the association plans looking for more donations, this time to run the zoo. Which for me looks like those guys in Asia who get wild animals from God-knows-where and show them on the street collecting gifts, only on the large scale and using internet.

They also now claim they want to use the zoo to rehabilitate native animals and hold animals seized by customs. IMO, only an idiot would give custody of any animals to a place without secure funding.

Well it seems that they have tripped themselves up at the starting line and are now showing just how incompetent they truly are. Not very suprising really and actually I find it quite satisfying how they are showcasing to the world the ineptitude of this rather idiotic Mickey mouse approach to "animal rights".

That said , I'm pretty cynicalal about whether it will really change the minds of all their suport base on social media who are largely not interested in thinking critically about such issues or examining their biases or dogmatic beliefs anyway.
 
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From internet news, it looks that the association plans looking for more donations, this time to run the zoo. Which for me looks like those guys in Asia who get wild animals from God-knows-where and show them on the street collecting gifts, only on the large scale and using internet.

They also now claim they want to use the zoo to rehabilitate native animals and hold animals seized by customs. IMO, only an idiot would give custody of any animals to a place without secure funding.
So first they get the public to believe them that they are to free the animals back to the wild and put an end to the zoo game, get the money buy the zoo now they own the zoo, ask the same people a week later to give more money to actually run the zoo rather than close it down. Amazing ! If they pull this of and the public actually give them money to run the zoo, could any of you let me know if there are any more zoos up for sale and I will give it a go, we could all own a zoo in a few weeks publicly funded of course.
 
Amazing ! If they pull this of and the public actually give them money to run the zoo, could any of you let me know if there are any more zoos up for sale and I will give it a go, we could all own a zoo in a few weeks publicly funded of course.

Actually, zoos should watch and analyze their campaign. If they could get 800,000 EUR from the naive public for a crazy project, there is a potential for zoos to finance real conservation this way. I can only guess, but they probably targeted people with interest in animals, but little knowledge about wildlife: dog owners etc.

800,000EUR might finance Waldrapp ibis reintroduction program for a year, or be a big part of the cost of releasing European bison in a new place in the Carpathians, or finance protecting a reserve in Africa from poachers for several years...
 
A rhino at the zoo has died. From what I've seen, the new "owners" blame the death on a lifetime in captivity... But others are saying that it's due to a sudden diet change implemented under the new ownership.
 
A rhino at the zoo has died. From what I've seen, the new "owners" blame the death on a lifetime in captivity... But others are saying that it's due to a sudden diet change implemented under the new ownership.
A load of balloney what the new owners claim, it is dereliction of duty and (potentially) culpability in an avoidable death of a wild animal due to husbandry\animal mismagement by the current operators.
 
Has anyone been able to get some sort of update on whats going on over there? I must admit I still find it quite a worrying development, especially since they apparently managed to secure considerable funding from the public... They seemed to have shut down any and all means of communication, which makes me worry their poorly thought through changes are taking more lifes. That they haven't been kicked out of EAZA and/or had their EEP/ESB animals recovered still baffles me...
 
Last results after the take over by the animal welfare organisation:
- not one qualified person employed to take care of non domesticated animals available since the 4 months the zoo was taken over. So officially no one is allowed to take care of the non domesticated animals
- 2428kg of dead animals
- no veterinaire records
- no post mortems
- expired medications
- animals escaped
- flooding with sewer water
- refusal to have a licenced person to use firearms in case of an emergency after a dangerous animal escapes. This is mandatory by law.
 
Last results after the take over by the animal welfare organisation:
- not one qualified person employed to take care of non domesticated animals available since the 4 months the zoo was taken over. So officially no one is allowed to take care of the non domesticated animals
- 2428kg of dead animals
- no veterinaire records
- no post mortems
- expired medications
- animals escaped
- flooding with sewer water
- refusal to have a licenced person to use firearms in case of an emergency after a dangerous animal escapes. This is mandatory by law.
Bloody hell this is no good, these people are blinded by their ideology truly, I hope action is taken and the zoo is seized from them.
 
Last results after the take over by the animal welfare organisation:
- not one qualified person employed to take care of non domesticated animals available since the 4 months the zoo was taken over. So officially no one is allowed to take care of the non domesticated animals
- 2428kg of dead animals
- no veterinaire records
- no post mortems
- expired medications
- animals escaped
- flooding with sewer water
- refusal to have a licenced person to use firearms in case of an emergency after a dangerous animal escapes. This is mandatory by law.

Ughhh ... holy s*** ... :mad: so much for "animal rights" eh ?

I think this offers really a very pertinent and alarming lesson on what actually happens when these self proclaimed "animal welfare warriors" get their hands on a zoo.
 
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