AZA opinion?

How do you all feel about the AZA?

  • Positive

    Votes: 33 58.9%

  • Negative

    Votes: 1 1.8%

  • It's complicated

    Votes: 22 39.3%
  • Total voters
    56
  • Poll closed .
Chet1999

Chet1999

Member
I'm relatively new to the world of Zoos (this is my first post)! I'm trying to learn about the broader Zoo industry in the US and have a few questions for the community here.

1) How do you all feel about the AZA?

2) Does the function of the AZA benefit some species more than others?

Thanks for your thoughts!


I'll post a poll as well for those who don't wish to type.
 
Hello and welcome to the forum.

Now to answer your questions, when it comes to zoos, there are both good and bad zoos when it comes to the animal welfare aspect. Zoos do a lot for conservation, but the care for the animals within the facilities is the most important aspect.

What an AZA accreditation does is basically tell people that the animals are well cared for at a particular zoo or aquarium. This, however, does not mean all non-AZA-accredited zoos are bad. Take the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, for example, they lost their accreditation not because of poor animal care, but due to management issues.

That said, the vast majority of zoos without AZA accreditation are places to think twice before visiting because these places called roadside zoos don't care for their animals very well and have some very questionable practices.

In short, I personally feel that the AZA is the best way to know if a zoo is worth visiting or not.

As for your second question, in my opinion, one could make that argument. For any species, there are many factors such as how difficult they are to breed and care for in captivity and how common some animals are in captivity than others.

I hope this helps.
 
Pantheraman said:
That said, the vast majority of zoos without AZA accreditation are places to think twice before visiting because these places called roadside zoos don't care for their animals very well and have some very questionable practices.
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"The vast majority" of non-AZA zoos are not roadside zoos. It's a decent chunk, sure, but by no means the "vas majority".
 
birdsandbats said:
"The vast majority" of non-AZA zoos are not roadside zoos. It's a decent chunk, sure, but by no means the "vas majority".
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It's important to note, however, that roadside zoo is a term that's not easily defined, and what different people consider a roadside zoo may vary. That's a topic that's been discussed to death on this site, and there's no point in re-hashing out debates over what is or isn't a roadside zoo, but one could define roadside zoo in a way that the majority of non-AZA zoos would be considered roadside zoos. It's certainly not all, as I don't think anyone would consider Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Alaska to be roadside zoos, but I for one would argue that yes, the majority of non-AZA zoos would fall under the umbrella of "roadside zoos", with many of the exceptions being either zoos who recently left the AZA for various reasons (such as the ones named above) or specialist facilities that don't share the same need for AZA accreditation that traditional zoos sometimes face (e.g. Sylvan Heights).
 
I have positive feelings towards the association. I admire their commitment to species sustainability and their high welfare standards. Species that can be held sustainability will benefit the most of course, and sustainability demands that many species be phased-out so there can be as many holders as possible for species that can be sustained comfortably.

I have heard there are many great facilities outside the association but I have not had the pleasure to visit a facility meeting that description yet.

There are some members with a neutral or negative opinion and I hope some of them will share their thoughts.
 
I have worked in AZA-accredited facilities for most of my career, but have also worked for ZAA and unaffiliated institutions. My take is that, while not perfect and not always making decisions I 100% agree with, AZA is the best force for good in the zoo community. For one thing, it's the only *real* collaborative effort for zoo animal welfare and conservation in the US. When I worked at a ZAA institution, I felt like it meant nothing - there was no shared sense of purpose or mission, it was just a process we went through every once in a while. I don't think I could have with any certainty named five other ZAA facilities at the time if you offered me money to do.

In AZA, you have the SSPs (in their constantly changing forms), SAFE, the listservs, the committees, the accreditation process, lobbying at the state and federal and international levels on conservation and animal welfare issues - it really feels much more like a cohesive body. We're constantly working together and supporting each other to a degree I never experienced in ZAA. And the result is a constant drive to do better. When I worked at a ZAA facility, the question was always, is this good enough for USDA inspection? If so, great, it's fine. When I switched over to AZA, I ironically noticed that I became a lot more critically of the facility, even though it was better than the ZAA one - and that's because the drive there was on constant improvement, not being "good enough."

Again, there are sometimes I wish AZA would take a more restrained approach in some aspects - and others in which I wish it would be more vocal and outspoken. There are some facilities (especially smaller ones) which I feel like have lost accreditation when maybe they really just needed more support and outreach from the rest of the community. I've posted several times on here trying to correct the misapprehension that AZA is "forcing" some zoos to phase out species that we are all fond of, so I won't repeat that here. So yes, I'm overall supportive of AZA. Do I wish some things were better, yes, and I will continue to advocate for those. But right now, I still think it's the best thing we've got going as a zoo community in this country, and I'd love to see more facilities joining.
 
Wow! Thank you all for your posts and/or poll responses. I stumbled on a YouTube vid today featuring some of the conflict between the PAWS elephant sanctuary, and the Toronto zoo/AZA Looks like it can get really messy. Thanks for keeping it respectful on this thread. I look forward to learning more from you all.

So far 30 have participated in the poll:

19 [63.3 %]. Positives
0 Negatives
11 [36.7 %] It’s complicated
 
By and large the AZA is a force for "good". However, they can also be too stringent with little recourse. Many (myself included) feel the issues at Columbus and the continued denial of accreditation were punitive, the issues could have been worked out without the accreditation being pulled for so long.

The AZA has caused a homogenization of collections due to policies purposely enacted as well as ones that snowballed for other reasons, for better or worse.

Broadly, an AZA zoo will be on good financial footing and the animals will be well cared for. But not being AZA does not necessarily mean the opposite. There are some facilities that choose to not seek AZA accreditation for various reasons, often due to their desire to breed and sell their animals to a wider range of places and people (for better or worse).

I don't make AZA accreditation a standard for visiting a place, and I voted that it is complicated.
 
SwampDonkey said:
Many (myself included) feel the issues at Columbus and the continued denial of accreditation were punitive, the issues could have been worked out without the accreditation being pulled for so long.
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Columbus deserved to lose accreditation, as they were in direct violation of AZA policies surrounding acquisition of animals. Furthermore, lack of transparency is a big deal, and the zoo had serious money problems due to this lack of transparency. If anything, Columbus losing accreditation increased my respect for the institution, as it showed that it was willing to revoke the accreditation of a large mega-zoo, if it was in violation of standards, instead of turning a blind eye to mega-zoos while every cycle denying the accreditation of one or two much smaller zoos for issues that are nowhere near as severe as Columbus'. I'm not sure what the issue is with the length of time Columbus has been unaccredited, as the AZA is only holding Columbus to the same standard they hold every other zoo to, which is important in not creating a double standard between big and small zoos.

SwampDonkey said:
The AZA has caused a homogenization of collections due to policies purposely enacted as well as ones that snowballed for other reasons, for better or worse.
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I wouldn't say with such certainty that the AZA has caused the homogenization of collections. Rather, I would argue this homogenization is due to the philosophies of zoo management when it comes to collection planning. Even if the AZA did not have the TAGs, SSPs, or any other input in collection planning, we would still be seeing homogenization due to the fact so many zoo directors are simply interested in keeping the same popular species that everyone else has. If anything, the AZA is the leading force against zoo collection homogenization by coordinating breeding programs that ensure the sustainability of populations for generations to come. A future with dozens of antelope species in US zoos simply isn't realistic, and I for one would much rather see large, demographically healthy populations of the 10-20 species managed by the AZA than see no antelopes in zoos because the lack of committed, regional management meant the species weren't managed sustainably. While it'd be impossible to know for certain, I'm willing to bet that we would be seeing more diversity in collections if the AZA had more influence than they do on what species facilities keep.

SwampDonkey said:
But not being AZA does not necessarily mean the opposite. There are some facilities that choose to not seek AZA accreditation for various reasons, often due to their desire to breed and sell their animals to a wider range of places and people (for better or worse).
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You're absolutely correct on this point. I don't think anyone in this thread was saying that there aren't any good unaccredited zoos, and having a positive opinion of the AZA does not mean that one can't also have a positive opinion of some unaccredited zoos. Personally I think that good, unaccredited zoos are few and far between, but there is certainly a select list of good zoos that, for whatever reason, are unaccredited- with many of them being either specialized facilities without a need for accreditation or facilities that were recently AZA but left for various reasons.
 
Neil chace said:
Columbus deserved to lose accreditation, as they were in direct violation of AZA policies surrounding acquisition of animals. Furthermore, lack of transparency is a big deal, and the zoo had serious money problems due to this lack of transparency. If anything, Columbus losing accreditation increased my respect for the institution, as it showed that it was willing to revoke the accreditation of a large mega-zoo, if it was in violation of standards, instead of turning a blind eye to mega-zoos while every cycle denying the accreditation of one or two much smaller zoos for issues that are nowhere near as severe as Columbus'. I'm not sure what the issue is with the length of time Columbus has been unaccredited, as the AZA is only holding Columbus to the same standard they hold every other zoo to, which is important in not creating a double standard between big and small zoos.
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I totally agree that the reasons for loosing accreditation were valid and accurate. I disagree on the time it has taken to get back. The previous declining of accreditation seemed punitive. That said, I of course am not at all on the "inside" so I could be absolutely wrong.

I wouldn't say with such certainty that the AZA has caused the homogenization of collections. Rather, I would argue this homogenization is due to the philosophies of zoo management when it comes to collection planning. Even if the AZA did not have the TAGs, SSPs, or any other input in collection planning, we would still be seeing homogenization due to the fact so many zoo directors are simply interested in keeping the same popular species that everyone else has. If anything, the AZA is the leading force against zoo collection homogenization by coordinating breeding programs that ensure the sustainability of populations for generations to come. A future with dozens of antelope species in US zoos simply isn't realistic, and I for one would much rather see large, demographically healthy populations of the 10-20 species managed by the AZA than see no antelopes in zoos because the lack of committed, regional management meant the species weren't managed sustainably. While it'd be impossible to know for certain, I'm willing to bet that we would be seeing more diversity in collections if the AZA had more influence than they do on what species facilities keep.
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I think both of our views have merit. I disagree, but I can see what you mean and how you come to these conclusions.

I don't think anyone in this thread was saying that there aren't any good unaccredited zoos, and having a positive opinion of the AZA does not mean that one can't also have a positive opinion of some unaccredited zoos.
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I don't think I implied that anyone is saying otherwise, but if my post read that way then that was not what I intended.
Personally I think that good, unaccredited zoos are few and far between,
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There are probably more "OK' unaccredited zoos than "bad" or "good" unaccredited zoos, but I also think there are more "good" facilities than many people realize.

But the idea of "good" and "bad" certainly varies from person to person and we all have our reasons to rate something as bad or not. There are definitely a number of objectively bad places out there, but those are few less than the "OK" places, IMO.
but there is certainly a select list of good zoos that, for whatever reason, are unaccredited- with many of them being either specialized facilities without a need for accreditation or facilities that were recently AZA but left for various reasons.
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Yeah, it seems the specialist places are more likely to fall on the line of "good" and unaccredited. Many of the herp places in that category are unaccredited because they also sell to private buyers.
 
SwampDonkey said:
here are probably more "OK' unaccredited zoos than "bad" or "good" unaccredited zoos, but I also think there are more "good" facilities than many people realize.

But the idea of "good" and "bad" certainly varies from person to person and we all have our reasons to rate something as bad or not. There are definitely a number of objectively bad places out there, but those are few less than the "OK" places, IMO.
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I can see where you are coming from. Personally, I don't have an "OK" category, and was using good vs. bad as merely a designation of "Facilities I'd be willing to support" and "Facilities I would not be willing to support". I agree that the idea of good vs. bad varies person to person, and I acknowledge that I likely hold zoos to a higher standard than you do, but based on the standards I hold zoos to, I would say less than 10% of the unaccredited zoos I am aware of would constitute as "good zoos", however if your standards are less stringent than mine, I can see where you'd come to the conclusion that more unaccredited zoos would count as "good" or "okay".
 
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