Baby Zoo Animal Debuts

[snowleopard]

When I finished writing my ZooChat thread Snowleopard's 2019 Road Trip, I summarized my summer experience of visiting 95 zoos and aquariums in western Europe with my years of touring hundreds of North American zoos. One startling aspect of European zoos is that whenever a baby animal is born then quite often within a few days or weeks the youngster is on display to the public. Most European zoos have full visitor access to indoor facilities and so it's easy enough for visitors to go into barns and animal holding areas to see everything on display (the good and the bad!).

When I was visiting all of those European zoos, there were many instances when I saw baby animals that were extremely young and already visible to the public. It's a massive contrast with North American zoos, specifically in regards to mammals. Hundreds of North American zoos do not display baby mammals within a few days or weeks, but instead many months go by before a type of animal such as a carnivore is available to be seen by zoo visitors. I've been to zoos where baby tigers or lions are many months old and they are finally out on view. Just this week, Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle announced that their two red panda cubs are able to be seen by visitors, 5 months after they were born. Those cubs are already halfway to being full-sized adults and they've been behind the scenes for almost half a year with zero public access.

There are literally hundreds of examples over the years and for whatever reason many European zoos have baby animals making their public debut in a far speedier fashion than zoos throughout North America. Why is that? Is it just a more laissez faire attitude towards maintaining captive animals in Europe? Are North American zoos extra cautious? Why the big difference between continents?

 

[CheeseChameleon1945]

At the Cincinnati zoo they let you see week-old tiger cubs a couple years ago. I saw them!

 

[TinoPup]

I imagine part of it is Americans as a whole are less understanding of the circle of life. If a baby animal were to die while viewable by the public, peta and the like would have a fit. Many places don't even mention births until they're out of the "danger zone".

 

[Julio C Castro]

I agree with what @TinoPup said and wanted to add on. Here in the states, most of the modern day zoo visitors, meaning families and/or couples, live in much more catered world. I’ve also seen through various postings on social media of infant animals from European zoos having baby animals out in exhibit within day or two of having been born. There could be a greater sense of danger or mistakes with having infant animals out on exhibit: other herd or pack members posing a danger, exposure to the elements, mother undertaking stress with having to care for the baby while watching out or feeding, and “acts of God” accidents. But I feel that if done properly, it can be very beneficial for the zoo visitors to see how many species raise their young. Going back to my catered world theory we have here in the US, we are shielded from unfortunate events that can happen at zoos such as the loss of an animal. They want to make sure they do all they possibly can to protect the new infants especially if they are endangered ergo meaning a potential devastating loss. Many parents would be upset that their child could see an infant die and make it hard discussion to be had with their children, although an important one. It certainly feels cultural and they do seem to be more “relaxed” in the European counties for certain topics or issues. By having the infants be a couple to few months old, zoo staff may feel safer to display the infant to the guests and see that they could fend for themselves better in their exhibit. It doesn’t make one place better than the other, just completely different state of minds from their techniques/practices.