Hallo alex1
I hope that you have managed to find some information for your assignment.
I have mixed views on the international movement and trade in exotic species. I have seen photographs of tortoises piled in cardboard boxes, with the tortoises at the bottom dying during transit. There are many other animals kept in cramped conditions, such as small parrots kept in small tubes. Animals should be only moved internationally as a last resort and the animals should be given enough space, food and water to make their journey as comfortable as possible. I can understand Gerald Durrell rescuing animals from habitats about to be destroyed and then bringing them to Jersey to save the animals from extinction. I can't condone baby apes and other animals being taken from their parents and then taken to another part of the world, especially where this involves killing the parents. Many animals in zoos are self-sustaining or can obtain fresh stock from nearby zoos, so there is often little need for international movement and trade in exotic species. Perhaps zoos should rely more on artificial insemination and similar reproductive methods, rather than stressing animals by transporting them to other zoos and hoping there will be no problems with breeding.
I don't agree with people keeping exotic as pets, unless the person has the required training and knowledge. I answer questions on a website and many of these are from people who find a baby rabbit or another wild animal and assumes that they have the right to keep it as a pet and that I should provide free veterinary advice; my knowledge of veterinary care is restricted to a few weeks helping a local vet as a teenager and a few visits to the London Zoo animal hospital. I lack the qualifications and feel that the person shouldn't have taken the animal out of the wild in the first place, especially if the parents may have risked their lives looking for their young. Pets can be expensive to keep and pet owners should realise that they have a responsibility to provide the right conditions for their pets and to pay for any veterinary care, as well as finding a local person who can provide it.
I must admit that my views of conservation have changed over the pst few years. I believe that local people should be involved wherever possible and that conservation units should show respect for the local people. A few years ago, a brown bear crossed the Austrian border and entered Germany, where it was shot a few days later. Norwegians have been trying to kill off the wolf for years. Meanwhile, people in the third world are expected to conserve big cats, elephants and other dangerous animals that may kill people and their livestock. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems that many people in North America and Europe don't mind if a wild animal kills a person in the third world, but will get uptight if there is a dangerous animal in their neighbourhood. A local newspaper is being advertised by the story of an adder killing a dog. Conservationists need to take local people into account and governments should compensate people for land used for reserves. A few years ago, WWF complained that local people didn't stop poachers entering a tiger reserve. The people had grown crops on the land before it was taken from them. Eventually, WWF allowed the people to grow crops on the reserve and to watch for poachers.
Another problem is that there is a hierarchy in conservation, with some species being considered much more important than others. Several years ago, London Zoo volunteers took part in an annual fundraising event for conservation projects. Over 7 years, there were individual projects to help lion tamarins, Madagascar and chelonians, but four years for tigers. Why are tigers considered to be more important than all the other species on the planet put together. If they had been endemic to North America or western Europe, they would have become extinct long ago. Now, millions of pounds are spent on tiger enclosures, which will replace several enclosures currently occupied by many more species. London Zoo is fundraising for a new tiger enclosure - £3 million for the enclosure and £300,000 for work to conserve tigers in the wild (e.g. wildlife corridors and anti-poaching initiatives). The figures should be the other way round. Suitable habitats for tigers and other animals in Sumatra are disappearing rapidly. You can breed hundreds of tigers in zoos, but the chances are that none of these will be taken to the wild, as there will be no natural habitats and the animals will lack the necessary behavioural traits to survive in the wild and will associate people with food (leading to them being a threat to people and livestock). There are over 1,600 captive tigers listd in ISIS. Tigers are at risk in the wild, but are not at risk of extinction unless zoos are closed down worldwide. Meanwhile, several species of small cat are not kept in captivity at all and there is little interest in conserving them.
Wild habitats should be conserved and enable tribal people to stay and live in harmony with nature. Organsiations like WWF should liase with Survival International and other organisations and zoos should try and conserve as many species as possible. Despite the fact that many species of amphibians are critically endangered, many zoos seem just keep a few arrow poison frogs, some axolotls and a few other species, rather than a wider range of species. I'm afraid that the average zoo visitor expects to see the ABC species, rather than obscure species of animals. There should be more effort to educate people - TV programmes and books have improved a lot recently and show a greater variety of animals. ISIS listed about 4,000 greater flamingos in zoos. I understand that many vistors like seeing flamingos, but I would prefer it if zoos held 80 individuals of 50 species of large birds, rather than 4,000 individuals of one species, which is not endangered.
Zoos should follow suit and should concentrate more on small animals that can be kept in fairly natural enclosures, so their offspring can be returned to the wild. London Zoo has successfully reintroduced field crickets to the wild for a far smaller cost than that spent on larger, more popular animals that will never be returned to the wild.
Zoos should act as a back-up to saving wild animals in situ, so that a species will still exist if they become extinct in the wild. Unfortunately, too many seem to want to pretend they are conserving popular animals, when they are really keeping them for financial reasons.
I hope this helps. If you have Channel 4OD, I suggest watching the 'Dispatches' programme 'Conservation's Dirty Secrets', which mentions some of the issues listed above and also states that charismatic animals, like African elephants, are given priority over amphibians, where 40% of species are in danger of extinction.
