Public monetary support for UK zoos

[ZooNews2024]

Its not so much that I am exaggerating the impact of these groups, but I feel that because of them generally British people are more anti zoo when compared to other countries, and underestimate the positive impacts that a Zoo may have.

You have missed the point that the majority of the British public are not really interested in anything, being apathetic and having desperately short attention spans limited usually to a 15 second video on their mobile phone.
Why should zoos be any different?

 

[SHAVINGTONZOO]

One thing I have come to somewhat loathe about London in recent decades is what I can only describe as favouritism in the eyes of the authorities toward certain attractions. The Zoo really isn't advertised anywhere, whereas everywhere you go there's posters, billboards and bus adverts for the Tower, the museums and bloody Madame Tussauds - all paid for at least in part by the local government. There's a definite artificial list of accepted tourist destinations that consists of everything remotely tangential to the Monarch, the Eye, Parliament and for whatever reason a load of wax. I don't think advertising is the main reason London lags behind the other zoos mentioned but it's certainly undeniable it has an impact - even the IWM has struggled in recent years due to it being eclipsed, and that's a 10 minute walk from Waterloo.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this comment. Surely posters, billboards and bus adverts are bought on a commercial basis?

 

[cerperal]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this comment. Surely posters, billboards and bus adverts are bought on a commercial basis?

Generally yes, but not the TFL and more broad "Mayor of London" ones. The logic was both the local authority and the involved attractions would benefit from lower overall cost with the city generating more from the tourism. With how expensive advertising space is in London it is fairly logical to me but the authority is very selective with the attractions used.

Eg.: TFL advertise their tap in-tap out payment using getting from x attraction to y attraction as the example. A new one I saw recently was them advertising the night buses with a museum's night event. I would imagine that would suit London's Zoo Nights quite well but for whatever reason the zoo has never been part of that campaign.

 

[GeeZee]

Generally yes, but not the TFL and more broad "Mayor of London" ones. The logic was both the local authority and the involved attractions would benefit from lower overall cost with the city generating more from the tourism. With how expensive advertising space is in London it is fairly logical to me but the authority is very selective with the attractions used.

Eg.: TFL advertise their tap in-tap out payment using getting from x attraction to y attraction as the example. A new one I saw recently was them advertising the night buses with a museum's night event. I would imagine that would suit London's Zoo Nights quite well but for whatever reason the zoo has never been part of that campaign.

Thats a good point, I’ve never seen any advertising for London Zoo in the city anywhere, in contrast Edinburgh did quite a good job with advertising its zoo on the buses around Edinburgh, with each bus having a different themed based on an animal at the zoo which was nice to see.

London (and Edinburgh for that matter) do miss a trick as unlike, for example, Longleat & Chester Zoos they did not really capitalise on having much media coverage either, for example the latter both have long running tv shows spanning several seasons, which is in part due to their success, despite not being in capital cities.

 

[GeeZee]

Found this rather interesting Animal welfare rules in British zoos set for major overhaul

This is all generally good (on top of Britain’s already very strict laws and regulations) but I hope it doesn’t put any good zoos out of business if they haven’t got the space / money to meet these new requirements, which will negate all the good things regarding conservation / education that has been achieved.

While this is not really indicative of the British public, I do note that in the media articles that have been released today about this, the comments are mostly negative towards zoos in general which sort of ties in to what we have been saying on this thread.

 

[ZooNews2024]

Found this rather interesting Animal welfare rules in British zoos set for major overhaul

This is all generally good (on top of Britain’s already very strict laws and regulations) but I hope it doesn’t put any good zoos out of business if they haven’t got the space / money to meet these new requirements, which will negate all the good things regarding conservation / education that has been achieved.

While this is not really indicative of the British public, I do note that in the media articles that have been released today about this, the comments are mostly negative towards zoos in general which sort of ties in to what we have been saying on this thread.

Yes, the historic UK media opposition to zoos which was led by the BBC, evaporated post-Covid when the they (the media) because very supportive and positively (and without criticism) covered all the 'if you dont give us money, we'll have to kill all our animals' pleas, which were very common at the time.
It does now seem to be swinging back. Perhaps we need another pandemic..?

 

[Lafone]

Found this rather interesting Animal welfare rules in British zoos set for major overhaul

This is all generally good (on top of Britain’s already very strict laws and regulations) but I hope it doesn’t put any good zoos out of business if they haven’t got the space / money to meet these new requirements, which will negate all the good things regarding conservation / education that has been achieved.

While this is not really indicative of the British public, I do note that in the media articles that have been released today about this, the comments are mostly negative towards zoos in general which sort of ties in to what we have been saying on this thread.

Why would it put any zoos out of business? Which zoos are under threat?

As for the public comments, if you really make a habit of reading comments on any social media I think you will always find things not to like. I am not sure any of that sort of drama oriented stuff supports your assertions about the British public not liking zoos in general which you still haven't evidenced in this thread.

 

[ZooNews2024]

Why would it put any zoos out of business? Which zoos are under threat?
.

This is very difficult to pre-judge and zoos have 2 years to comply with some of it, so presumably by their next interim or 'full' inspection? - unless it is 15 years for elephants. The impact of the hugely increased legislative burden and staff required to deal with this, and the cost of the inspections themselves will have an impact on EVERY zoo, diverting funds from conservation, development and and animal care budgets - but it it is pretty much impossible to answer such simplistic questions.

 

[GeeZee]

Why would it put any zoos out of business? Which zoos are under threat?

As for the public comments, if you really make a habit of reading comments on any social media I think you will always find things not to like. I am not sure any of that sort of drama oriented stuff supports your assertions about the British public not liking zoos in general which you still haven't evidenced in this thread.

Well I don’t actually use social media personally and partly it’s for that reason, I was referring to comments made on the news sites themselves that featured articles covering this story, as with anything like that I always take those with a pinch of salt, but they can still have relevance.

But yes as the previous comment has said, the financial implications in complying with the new regulations/bureaucracy could potentially be high and presumably Zoos won’t be getting any government help, which will place a strain certainly on smaller zoos & what if they don’t have the space to expand or it if an exhibit is deemed to be unsuitable what happens to the animals then?

 

[Lafone]

Well I don’t actually use social media personally and partly it’s for that reason, I was referring to comments made on the news sites themselves that featured articles covering this story, as with anything like that I always take those with a pinch of salt, but they can still have relevance.

But yes as the previous comment has said, the financial implications in complying with the new regulations/bureaucracy could potentially be high and presumably Zoos won’t be getting any government help, which will place a strain certainly on smaller zoos & what if they don’t have the space to expand or it if an exhibit is deemed to be unsuitable what happens to the animals then?

Comments on news sections are the same as any open social media.

It’s great to have a load of what if. But until one comes up it’s just a lot of anything might happen in the next half hour. What happens if all zoos just comply and can. Less drama I guess.

 

[dillotest0]

I recall reading the debate about whether anti-zoos in the UK have much effect on zoos' success... and whether the anti-zoo movement is sustainable.
And so I thought before giving my two pennies into this... what makes a mass movement sustainable, exactly?
And what I came up with - is that successful mass movements don't only tend to have a following - they tend to generate a following too. If you can think about any cause which has been for years and protests have been for years - think climate change, Israel-Palestine, LGBT+ rights... if you look at the protests over the years there always tends to be a young demographic - a sign that new people are being recruited into the cause. And often it is that the movements these days that gain the most traction are those with a significant youth following.

But looking at some zoo demonstrations in the United Kingdom I see a rather different trend. Most - nay, all of the people at the demonstrations - with the placards etc - are adults. And a good fraction of them look to be older adults at that. There isn't much of a sign of a youth movement - not much of a sign of sustenance. This is not an issue that appears to be on the minds of the youth of today... at least not loudly and publicly. It appears generational.

And this would be curious then if we are to equate the veganism cause to the anti-zoo cause - because the veganism cause, in the UK including, has a substantial following - with many people of the younger generations taking up veganism for ethical or environmental reasons. And whilst many vegans in other parts of the world follow the 'whole nine yards' ideology of refusing anything animal related, this seems illogical in the UK with an apparent active, youth-led vegan movement but not so much of a youth-led anti-zoo one. [And if I recall correctly many zoos offer vegan options for dining? Wouldn't make sense to offer them if the vegans aren't coming to the zoo]

And so in summary I do not think that the anti-zoo movement in the UK could be called 'substantial' in the same vain as other movements - because it does have something of a following, yes... but it doesn't have a sustained following that successful movements do.

For what it's worth, we now have a political survey of sorts conducted by YouGov.
Or rather, we have two.
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Internal_Zoos_250327.pdf
This survey in particular looks at different types of animal-groups and surveys people as to how acceptable they are to keep in zoos. The people are classed on the following categories; the party they voted for in the 2024 general election [Conservative, Labour, Lib-Dem, Reform], the option they voted for in the 2016 Brexit referendum [Remain, Leave], their gender [Male, Female], their age [18-24, 25-49, 50-64, 65+] their social grade [this refers to their rank on the 'economic ladder', ABC1, C2DE], their resident constituent country [England, Wales, Scotland], and region of England [North, Midlands, London, Rest of South].

The animal-groups used in the survey were as follows; Great Apes, Big Cats, Elephants, Giraffes, Bats, Small Primates, Meerkats, Crocodiles, Snakes, Zebras, Penguins, Parrots, Lizards, Insects, Wolves, Goats, Bears, and Frogs. A bit of a strange selection, as you could make the points that these animals do not make up most of any given zoo's collection, but it is what it is. As far as goes political parties, I did observe often that the left-leaning parties [Labour, Lib-Dems] were more skeptical or negative than were the right-leaning parties [Conservatives, Reform] who were generally skewed more positive. That is to say that the skew present was not a very obvious one, and there were some instances where the trend was bucked, and a right-leaning party was more disapproving of one thing or another than a left-leaning one.

And so to look at everything as it was cumulatively; of the eighteen groups of animals inquired about, only five seemed to show a decisive 'unacceptable' ranking - big cats, elephants, great apes, bears and wolves. Which is perhaps to be expected as these animals, which are usually large in size, have historically been the ones that anti-zoo groups were most attracted to, and chances are in the context of the word 'zoo' the idea is one of a rather closed in environment [although London is the only surviving inner city zoo in the UK] ... where of course the public is somewhat aware of the different ideas about large animals in captivity. Three of the groups - giraffes [-], zebras [+], and crocodiles [+] were more indecisive - in the case of these animals, the acceptable or unacceptable margin was only defined by up to three points - and in the case of giraffes, it was a 45:46 ratio as to acceptable vs unacceptable. As for the ten other groups, there is a decisive 'acceptable' ranking - so, if this study is to be believed, the public has rather little problem of the keeping of most smaller animals. And I do think it's more that the public is more wary about an animal's size than its cognitive abilities - as parrots are very intelligent but they get 61:32 for acceptable and unacceptable.

And the age also seems to all-but prove my hypothesis about older people being more critical towards the keeping of large animals than younger people ... looking at total acceptable and total unacceptable for the youngest age demographic, big cats in fact have an overall acceptable ranking although it's what I'd call indecisive - in the same way this age group has an indecisive unacceptable ranking for elephants and great apes - and if we look at 25-49, which you could make the point is the age group most likely to visit a zoo with children, elephants are the only group with an unacceptable ranking - and a very indecisive one [by 1 point!] at that! And even with the decisive negative rankings by the 18-24 group for bears and wolves, we do see that the 'unacceptable' percentages for all groups, and the more decisive unacceptable rankings, are within the two oldest age categories!

And so we look at the second poll: https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Internal_Zoos_250310.pdf

This poll is more about questions about zoos; namely the following:
"How often, if at all, would you say that you visit zoos or wildlife sanctuaries?"; "When visiting a zoo, which animals do you most look forward to seeing? Please name up to three."; "Overall, do you think that zoos play a positive or negative role in the following? [animal welfare; animal conservation; human understanding of animals; relationship between humans and animals]"; "Would you support or oppose each of the following? [Phasing out the keeping of large animals in captivity; Banning zoos entirely]" All of the qualifiers are the same... but this time the Green Party has its own category. And so we have three left-leaning parties to work with.

For the first question... politically it does look like those of left-leaning parties are more likely to visit zoos regularly than are those of right-leaning ones... but the percentages are close so I don't think it's much of a decisive thing. And age wise it does seem like the two younger age groups visit zoos more frequently than do the two older ones.
With the second question it seems constructed better than the animal related question of the first poll... because it asks the one being interviewed as to what they particularly like to see. And as far as I can see there isn't really a political bias here. If anything two of the left-leaning parties seem more inclined towards elephants than the two right-leaning ones. Age wise there are animals that seem to be 'overall favourites' - elephants ranking consistently high, though somehow amongst the 25-49 group giraffes and lions rank higher in popularity than elephants. Whilst giraffes aren't too popular with younger people. Capybara does seem to have a dominating presence in the youngest category however - where in three of the categories it scores 1% or less in the youngest category it scores 4%.

And now for the proper questionaire... the question about animal welfare, overall, got 60% positive responses - that zoos play a positive role. Age wise... our idea that older people seem to be against zoos more seems a bit questionable... the 3 older age groups have a clear majority that zoos are good for animal welfare - whereas for the younger age group there is a majority but an indecisive one - 31:29 - and even more 13% of respondents in this age group responded with 'don't know', and 26% - not as much as 29 or 31 but not small enough to be snubbed either - responded that they have neither a positive or negative effect. Politically there seems to be a majority positive also, though again with left leaning parties typically having lower score than right-leaning ones - though Green seems a bit indecisive - with 50% positive, 25% negative, and 20% neither.

And now for the conservation of animals... 78% positive overall, 5% negative, and 12% Neither. Politically again right-leaning more positive but all parties fall in about the same range. And age wise the trend seems to be that older groups have more favourable view in regards to this. The 'understanding of animals' question has 76% positive... with all of the political parties being about on the same page, and this time there's a slight skew towards the younger groups with regards to positive responses. And the last response in this questionnaire... the one two do with 'the relationship between humans and animals'.... 64% positive responses, political parties are mostly in the same region as each other except for Green which is rather more skeptical... and age wise it is seen as more positive by older groups.

And so now we have the last two questions... the one about 'phasing out the keeping of large animals in captivity' seems to have a narrow margin of majority support with 51%... with the left leaning parties more supportive of this than the right leaning ones. The youngest age group seems most in support of this, with 56%... and the older age groups are a bit less decisive with values closer to 50%. And so we get to the last question... that of "Banning zoos entirely". And this was probably the one with the strongest opposition - only 22% supported it and 69% opposed it. The trend of left more negatively [that is, against zoos] skewed, right more positively skewed, Green even more negatively skewed can be seen again - But even then there is not strong support for banning zoos entirely politically anyways - and in addition to having the highest support for banning zoos, Green Party also had the highest ranking in the 'don't know' category, And even then had a majority [57%] of opposition. Age-wise, strangely, 18-24 and 50-64 seem quite close to each other; though as ever 25-49 seems most opposed to such a thing as expected... but so is 65+, although they outperform the 25-49 category twice - both in regards to their support of banning zoos entirely, and again for their opposition to this. Geographically there is a bit more clarity, with London having a clear majority of those in favour. But... however you splice it... the majority is fine with zoos existing.

I think it's a very 'take what you will' study... where one implies that older people are more against large animals in captivity but the other implies that younger people are more against it... who knows why. But if anything is constant between these papers, the 25-49 category, which seems the most likely to visit zoos with some regularity, does seem the most in favour of their operation and existence.

 

[Fallax]

For what it's worth, we now have a political survey of sorts conducted by YouGov.
Or rather, we have two.
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Internal_Zoos_250327.pdf
This survey in particular looks at different types of animal-groups and surveys people as to how acceptable they are to keep in zoos. The people are classed on the following categories; the party they voted for in the 2024 general election [Conservative, Labour, Lib-Dem, Reform], the option they voted for in the 2016 Brexit referendum [Remain, Leave], their gender [Male, Female], their age [18-24, 25-49, 50-64, 65+] their social grade [this refers to their rank on the 'economic ladder', ABC1, C2DE], their resident constituent country [England, Wales, Scotland], and region of England [North, Midlands, London, Rest of South].

The animal-groups used in the survey were as follows; Great Apes, Big Cats, Elephants, Giraffes, Bats, Small Primates, Meerkats, Crocodiles, Snakes, Zebras, Penguins, Parrots, Lizards, Insects, Wolves, Goats, Bears, and Frogs. A bit of a strange selection, as you could make the points that these animals do not make up most of any given zoo's collection, but it is what it is. As far as goes political parties, I did observe often that the left-leaning parties [Labour, Lib-Dems] were more skeptical or negative than were the right-leaning parties [Conservatives, Reform] who were generally skewed more positive. That is to say that the skew present was not a very obvious one, and there were some instances where the trend was bucked, and a right-leaning party was more disapproving of one thing or another than a left-leaning one.

And so to look at everything as it was cumulatively; of the eighteen groups of animals inquired about, only five seemed to show a decisive 'unacceptable' ranking - big cats, elephants, great apes, bears and wolves. Which is perhaps to be expected as these animals, which are usually large in size, have historically been the ones that anti-zoo groups were most attracted to, and chances are in the context of the word 'zoo' the idea is one of a rather closed in environment [although London is the only surviving inner city zoo in the UK] ... where of course the public is somewhat aware of the different ideas about large animals in captivity. Three of the groups - giraffes [-], zebras [+], and crocodiles [+] were more indecisive - in the case of these animals, the acceptable or unacceptable margin was only defined by up to three points - and in the case of giraffes, it was a 45:46 ratio as to acceptable vs unacceptable. As for the ten other groups, there is a decisive 'acceptable' ranking - so, if this study is to be believed, the public has rather little problem of the keeping of most smaller animals. And I do think it's more that the public is more wary about an animal's size than its cognitive abilities - as parrots are very intelligent but they get 61:32 for acceptable and unacceptable.

And the age also seems to all-but prove my hypothesis about older people being more critical towards the keeping of large animals than younger people ... looking at total acceptable and total unacceptable for the youngest age demographic, big cats in fact have an overall acceptable ranking although it's what I'd call indecisive - in the same way this age group has an indecisive unacceptable ranking for elephants and great apes - and if we look at 25-49, which you could make the point is the age group most likely to visit a zoo with children, elephants are the only group with an unacceptable ranking - and a very indecisive one [by 1 point!] at that! And even with the decisive negative rankings by the 18-24 group for bears and wolves, we do see that the 'unacceptable' percentages for all groups, and the more decisive unacceptable rankings, are within the two oldest age categories!

And so we look at the second poll: https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Internal_Zoos_250310.pdf

This poll is more about questions about zoos; namely the following:
"How often, if at all, would you say that you visit zoos or wildlife sanctuaries?"; "When visiting a zoo, which animals do you most look forward to seeing? Please name up to three."; "Overall, do you think that zoos play a positive or negative role in the following? [animal welfare; animal conservation; human understanding of animals; relationship between humans and animals]"; "Would you support or oppose each of the following? [Phasing out the keeping of large animals in captivity; Banning zoos entirely]" All of the qualifiers are the same... but this time the Green Party has its own category. And so we have three left-leaning parties to work with.

For the first question... politically it does look like those of left-leaning parties are more likely to visit zoos regularly than are those of right-leaning ones... but the percentages are close so I don't think it's much of a decisive thing. And age wise it does seem like the two younger age groups visit zoos more frequently than do the two older ones.
With the second question it seems constructed better than the animal related question of the first poll... because it asks the one being interviewed as to what they particularly like to see. And as far as I can see there isn't really a political bias here. If anything two of the left-leaning parties seem more inclined towards elephants than the two right-leaning ones. Age wise there are animals that seem to be 'overall favourites' - elephants ranking consistently high, though somehow amongst the 25-49 group giraffes and lions rank higher in popularity than elephants. Whilst giraffes aren't too popular with younger people. Capybara does seem to have a dominating presence in the youngest category however - where in three of the categories it scores 1% or less in the youngest category it scores 4%.

And now for the proper questionaire... the question about animal welfare, overall, got 60% positive responses - that zoos play a positive role. Age wise... our idea that older people seem to be against zoos more seems a bit questionable... the 3 older age groups have a clear majority that zoos are good for animal welfare - whereas for the younger age group there is a majority but an indecisive one - 31:29 - and even more 13% of respondents in this age group responded with 'don't know', and 26% - not as much as 29 or 31 but not small enough to be snubbed either - responded that they have neither a positive or negative effect. Politically there seems to be a majority positive also, though again with left leaning parties typically having lower score than right-leaning ones - though Green seems a bit indecisive - with 50% positive, 25% negative, and 20% neither.

And now for the conservation of animals... 78% positive overall, 5% negative, and 12% Neither. Politically again right-leaning more positive but all parties fall in about the same range. And age wise the trend seems to be that older groups have more favourable view in regards to this. The 'understanding of animals' question has 76% positive... with all of the political parties being about on the same page, and this time there's a slight skew towards the younger groups with regards to positive responses. And the last response in this questionnaire... the one two do with 'the relationship between humans and animals'.... 64% positive responses, political parties are mostly in the same region as each other except for Green which is rather more skeptical... and age wise it is seen as more positive by older groups.

And so now we have the last two questions... the one about 'phasing out the keeping of large animals in captivity' seems to have a narrow margin of majority support with 51%... with the left leaning parties more supportive of this than the right leaning ones. The youngest age group seems most in support of this, with 56%... and the older age groups are a bit less decisive with values closer to 50%. And so we get to the last question... that of "Banning zoos entirely". And this was probably the one with the strongest opposition - only 22% supported it and 69% opposed it. The trend of left more negatively [that is, against zoos] skewed, right more positively skewed, Green even more negatively skewed can be seen again - But even then there is not strong support for banning zoos entirely politically anyways - and in addition to having the highest support for banning zoos, Green Party also had the highest ranking in the 'don't know' category, And even then had a majority [57%] of opposition. Age-wise, strangely, 18-24 and 50-64 seem quite close to each other; though as ever 25-49 seems most opposed to such a thing as expected... but so is 65+, although they outperform the 25-49 category twice - both in regards to their support of banning zoos entirely, and again for their opposition to this. Geographically there is a bit more clarity, with London having a clear majority of those in favour. But... however you splice it... the majority is fine with zoos existing.

I think it's a very 'take what you will' study... where one implies that older people are more against large animals in captivity but the other implies that younger people are more against it... who knows why. But if anything is constant between these papers, the 25-49 category, which seems the most likely to visit zoos with some regularity, does seem the most in favour of their operation and existence.

I really struggle to believe that the majority of the population believe zoos should phase out elephants, apes, and large carnivores. I saw these polls a few weeks ago and I just can't believe this represents the public consensus at all.

 

[NMM]

I am not surprised by that at all.

From my own experience of talking to people about zoos, I am surprised by the number who don't agree with the concept of keeping animals in captivity, but regard zoos as an overall net positive because of the conservation work they do.

I also wonder if older people being more against zoos is because they would likely have visited before the drive to improve conditions started.

*Edit - Noticed the social grade has an interesting split. Higher social grades are more accepting of larger animals than lower social grades. Lower social grades are more accepting of smaller animals than higher ones.