Zoocheck Canada

snowleopard

snowleopard

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
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I thought that I'd mention a particularly intriguing website: zoocheck.com that analyzes animal conditions within Canadian and international zoos. There is a ton of information on the website, with news and views from various zoological organizations.

Under the heading of "resources" at the top of the page are several interesting pieces that are national or international reports. There is an enormous, 205 page report on captive polar bears in Japanese zoos that has numerous shocking photos of terrible cages for the bears. Also, there are long write-ups of each Japanese zoo and the poor living conditions for polar bears.

There is another lengthy report on elephants in Canadian zoos, plus a ton of recommended books, publications and websites for animal lovers. The website is definitely worth checking out for zoo fans.
 
The latest on Zoocheck Canada's website is a 9 page report on the horrific conditions inside 8 different Chinese zoos. A nation that has almost zero regard for the rights of animals (including most humans) contains some shocking zoos. If interested then go to Zoocheck Canada's website, click on resources, and then on international reports. It is directly above the 205 page report on polar bears in horrible Japanese zoos.

There is a photo of tortoises in a tiny cage that have elastic bands wrapped around their heads so that they cannot withdraw them...and then zoo visitors are encouraged to throw coins at the animals to strike the heads for "good luck". Animal Olympics are shown to thousands who cheer on the chained creatures, a hippo has an enclosure only twice the size of its entire body, and many big cats have barren, concrete cells that they pace in until their death. Appalling.
 
I have seen my share of Chinese zoos and I can say: yes, there are husbandries which are absolutely horrible from the point of view of the Western visitor. What made me wonder though is that I saw quite a few animals, among argalis and Mongolian gazelles, that appeared to be healthy even though the circumstances they were living in were not comparable to Western standards. Instead of merely criticising, I would suggest a closer collaboration between modern western zoos and Asian zoos. This would not just help the animals currently in the Chinese/Asian zoos in general, but also benefit the western zoos in several ways: especially the Chinese zoos have species almost never presented in western zoos or if presented, in need of unrelated specimen to boost the genetic diversity of the western zoo population. Additionally, if Chinese/Asian zoos (besides Singapur, that is already "there") in general improved up to modern standards, surplus animals from Western zoos could find a new good accommodation in an Asian zoo.
 
Zoocheck Canada says that it's ultimate goal is closing all zoos. So ZooCheck apparently does nothing to actually help animals in China, rather uses them to conveniently bash all zoos.

About Chinese zoos - I was in Peking and Chengdu zoo and seen mix of really good enclosures (gorillas, breeding golden and Bieti snub-nosed monkeys) and some very horrific ones (night house, takins).

Still, about China it is huge improvement. Westerners cannot imagine extreme poverty, lack of resources and time for even elementary interest in animals and nature. When I first visited China 10 years ago, animal was still seen as food or any monetary gain it can provide. People couldn't understand the point of birdwatching.

From this perspective, it is huge improvement that general Chinese public is interested in wild animals in any way, be it patting turtle on head. I can only hope zoos will improve, people start care more about animal welfare and wildlife conservation. Chinese environment definitely needs it.

BTW - Zoocheck's motto: wild animals are happy in the wild and should be conserved in nature - is idiotic lie in lowland China. Chinese alligator survives only in breeding farms. Few "wild" gators live singly or few in small pools scattered between farms and villages. South Chinese tiger reserves are too small for tigers and lack wild prey. Pere David's deer live in two small reserves almost like deer parks. Almost 100% of lowlands is turned to farmland and cities.
 
I believe the notion of closing all zoos and conserving all animals in the wild is idealistic and not based in reality at the moment (doesn't mean we shouldn't try conserve)...

Why..?

There is a growing human population with too few who care about animals (and of those who do act upon it)... I greatly admire people on this thread such as Chilidonias (in situ) and Sebbe (ex situ) who contribute their time and resources to make a difference... Part of the point of zoos is to encourage this...

Zoocheck does make some good points however, i.e. the money spent on zoos would be of exponentially better use in in situ conservation... Taronga has spent 130 million (?) on Wild Asia and GSO, considering another user stated on the "opening a private zoo" thread that a frog species can be significant protected for as little as $10,000, 130 million = one heck of a lot of frogs...

But zoos will always be needed in case some of these plans fail (which they inevitably will)...

The human race is a bit like an alcoholic in some ways, we don't change till we hit rock bottom and the enviroment is in a downward spiral...
 
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NZ Jeremy said:
the money spent on zoos would be of exponentially better use in in situ conservation
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Not - money spent on zoos would be used on museums, amusement parks, video games etc.

I wonder if ZooCheck imagined that Canadian family going to a zoo for a weekend will otherwise go to Africa? :confused:
 
Jurek7 said:
Not - money spent on zoos would be used on museums, amusement parks, video games etc.
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Exactly my point... Its unrealistic to believe the majority of people will send huge amounts of money to far away locales with nothing tangible in their neighbourhood, thats why I believe it would be foolhardy to close zoos...

The fact that it is unrealistic doesn't make it any less valid or poignant...
 
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I don't agree with the broad outlook of Zoocheck Canada, but I have been really impressed with the amount of material on the site. The various national and international reports are excellent reading material, and there are a number of books suggested that could interest animal lovers. I emailed the contact address that they provide on their site a couple of months ago, and was surprised when the director of Zoocheck emailed me back himself. We kept in contact over about 4 different emails, just basically discussing animals in captivity and what can be done to improve the situations at poorly managed facilities. His name is Rob Laidlaw and he came across as quite approachable, even agreeing with me in that the open-range zoo concept is perhaps the future of zoological parks. He basically figures that the urban zoo should not be in existence, but admits that some of the more spacious enclosures at larger safari-style parks offer much better breeding success. Places like Werribee, Monarto and San Diego Wild Animal Park were examples that were cited.
 
Jurek7 and I correctly stated why open-range zoos are NOT the ultimate, all-round option for the future of zoos. Equally, I don't share the generalising attitude of putting urban zoos out of existence; it's especially the urban human population becoming more and more estranged from nature. Btw: "space" isn't verything (oh man, I really start to become a parrot...)
Can only agree with Jurek7's and NZ Jeremy's posts here, though I wrote in another thread about the questionable contribution to eco-system conservation by
saving a single frog species in let's say Costa Rica (which nevertheless doesn't mean that it shouldn't be tried). The problem of the entertainment character of zoos and thus the need for new & audience-drawing exhibits and other attractions isn't however that new...
 
One thing about spacious enclosures is that it allows for a more dynamic group of animals by incorporating a herd into an exhibit. For example, the Adelaide Zoo has something like 2-3 giraffes, while its sister counterpart at Monarto has probably 15, at least five times the number of the urban zoo. The socialization of such ungulates generally means happier animals roaming massive paddocks, and of course much better results in terms of animal births.

Breeding success usually (but naturally not 100% of the time) comes down to space issues. The San Diego Wild Animal Park has had amazing breeding success with many species of antelope, rhino, etc. It has only been in existence since 1972 and blows the majority of zoos in the world out of the water in terms of breeding. The enormous enclosures allow animals to live a little closer to how they would in the wild. The Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Washington State and many other so-called "open-range" zoos for the most part have a higher level of births than the majority of urban zoos. Open range zoos are not the future of zoological collections, but perhaps they should be.
 
Do most people on these boards believe as I do that breeding success is the best indicator of an animals positive state of mind..?

If so it is hard to agree with the breeding results Snow Leopard talks about...
 
Breeding success is not always the best indicator of the suitability of animal husbandry; take the already mentioned example of the lions in the Tower of London or that of mice and rats in overcrowded enclosures. In some species like primates, bad & stressful husbandry conditions might result in hypersexuality; think of the older "Monkey/Baboon Mountains" exhibits...
More important than the mere breeding (although at least that would be something in the case of shoebills or Bulwer's Pheasants) is the successful rearing of and the health of the offspring as an indicator of the suitability of the husbandry.
 
snowleopard said:
Breeding success usually (but naturally not 100% of the time) comes down to space issues. The San Diego Wild Animal Park has had amazing breeding success with many species of antelope, rhino, etc. It has only been in existence since 1972 and blows the majority of zoos in the world out of the water in terms of breeding.
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Dear me that's a bold statement and a half. There are quite a few things to consider when saying things like this... First of all, i allready mentioned before that say, 1 female white rhino in 5 has calves. That would mean, that statistically every zoo with at least 5 females will be "succesfull in breeding them" and only 1 out of 5 city zoo's (with 1.1) would be succesfull. As far as i can tell, the dutch safariparks that house a large herd do not do very much better then 5 random city-zoos put together, since some city zoo's also breed.

Then, San Diego WAP could have started with a large young herd, and a few do well. They can then "dump" the non-breeding females at other parks, and keep the young females born there and breed with them again. This would skew the statistical numbers, since "city-zoos" could end up with non-breeders. The San Diego society is also one of the richest zoo's in the world, so comparing them to a smaller, private-funded zoo is also not very fair.

As for ungulates, as far as i know the WAP does not do a lot better with say 50 females then 5 city-zoos put together with groups of 10 females. I'd say the city-zoo option would even be preferable since they can keep 5 males and so keep the genetic diversity higher then a safari-park.

Then there's breeding vs animal wellfare. You can't even remotely generalise on this, since there are so many species that you can count out of this idea. Most ungulates and felines do well regardless where you put them, and raise their young fine. A gorilla that does not raise her youngster well can be in the greatest exhibit ever, but just never learned how to.

So I would like to get examples of animal parks (and species) that produce a higher baby/females ratio then city zoo's because else you don't really have a point. You can't just point at the rhino's because San Diego could be getting in a lot of potential breeders and dumping all non-breeders and so mess up the numbers. Your point has to be strong enough to withstand some criticism...

The only animals I would see that profit from a safari-park situation are animals that are really skittish and prone to stress like Gerenuk or Douc langurs and animals that have proven to breed better in large herds/flocks like flamingo's and pelicans.

Just my 2 cents...
 
The amount of space allocated to an animal species in a zoo is something that is consistently a contentious point, but one that I believe to be critical to the well-being of the caged creatures. Even excellent enclosures like Melbourne Zoo's elephant exhibit are never quite large enough. All of the enrichment in the world cannot compensate for another acre of land to roam around in.

The San Diego Wild Animal Park has a birth a week (just subscribe to their weekly email), and their track record is impressive. I don't have exact numbers, but with large herds of giraffe, rhino, antelope, elephant, etc then of course there are bound to be a large percentage of births when compared to urban zoos. I never mentioned carnivores or primates in my original thread (jwer has added them in for discussion) but I am not focusing on such animals. And with all of the large mammals that I've mentioned, there is a direct link between the size of the enclosures in zoos and the number of babies that are produced. Herd animals can actually exist as they do in the wild, rather than in pairs in urban zoos. If that skews the statistics towards a greater number of offspring, then what's the problem? The success of the San Diego WAP is an example for all zoological organizations to follow around the world.
 
Another acre of an exhibit doesn't contribute much to the well-being of the animals kept within if it's just bare, empty and not suited for the particular animal held within; this is also true for flighty creatures such as Saiga antelopes...Btw: WAP isn't the only institution around; other countries' zoos are equally "successful" without imitating WAP (also see Hancocks' thoughts on that particular zoo...)-f.e. Dvur Kralove.

Very well written, jwer-total agreement from my side.
 
snowleopard said:
The amount of space allocated to an animal species in a zoo is something that is consistently a contentious point, but one that I believe to be critical to the well-being of the caged creatures. Even excellent enclosures like Melbourne Zoo's elephant exhibit are never quite large enough. All of the enrichment in the world cannot compensate for another acre of land to roam around in.
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I cannot claim that that is not a humanisation of the whole thing. Things like "lonely" and "being bored" are human feelings. I wouldn't point these directly towards animal species unless there's scientific proof. In the case of Elephants, primates and perhaps cetaceans there seems to be such evidence, for other animals i doubt it. More space ain't "per definition" happier animals.

snowleopard said:
The San Diego Wild Animal Park has a birth a week (just subscribe to their weekly email), and their track record is impressive. I don't have exact numbers, but with large herds of giraffe, rhino, antelope, elephant, etc then of course there are bound to be a large percentage of births when compared to urban zoos. I never mentioned carnivores or primates in my original thread (jwer has added them in for discussion) but I am not focusing on such animals. And with all of the large mammals that I've mentioned, there is a direct link between the size of the enclosures in zoos and the number of babies that are produced. Herd animals can actually exist as they do in the wild, rather than in pairs in urban zoos. If that skews the statistics towards a greater number of offspring, then what's the problem? The success of the San Diego WAP is an example for all zoological organizations to follow around the world.
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Fine, let's point towards larger animals. Emmen Zoo in the Netherlands would easily fit the bill of "urban zoo" yet their track record with elephants is probably a lot more impressive then San Diego, with over 15 births in the last 25 years. Many urban zoo's also breed fine with giraffes, so what exactly is the accomplishment?

San Diego seems to do well with indian rhino's but so does Stuttgart, Basel and Rotterdam. Like i pointed out, even IF San Diego WAP has a birth a week that is only due to pure numbers of animals! Why is a zoo that has 10 calves with 10 females so much better then a zoo that has 1 calf with 1 female?

Off course there's more baby's with more space due to sheer numbers, but if the offspring/females ratio isn't higher then what is your point?
 
A lot of zoo fans don't give much credence to the allotment of space, and are content to see large mammals housed in tiny enclosures as long as there is appropriate enrichment. My point with the San Diego WAP and others of its ilk, is that large herds can be kept much like in the wild. The breeding success of course illustrates that fact simply because of the larger numbers being kept...but that is exactly my point. Surely giraffes, elephants, antelope, etc are better off existing in herds like they do in the wild? It is tragic to read signage in urban zoos that clearly states "this animal lives in herds of 20 or more in the wild"...and the zoo visitor is standing there gazing at a pair of elephants in their single acre. Larger zoo enclosures = more opportunities for herds, which is obviously a great thing.

@Jwer: even though you don't agree with me on the space issue, you do have some great zoo photos on your site.
 
Strong, yet a biased article. However, I agree with the writing simply because I love zoos, even though I consistently argue that every single zoo worldwide should attempt to improve its current situation. How many truly great zoos are there? The answer is subjective, as every zoo visitor has different opinions, but really there aren't too many great zoos. Lots of good ones, and far too many terrible ones.
 
One of the things that kind of irks me about ZooCheck Canada is the selectivity of their campaigns. One of the biggest campaigns ZooCheck has had in recent years is that against the Calgary Zoo's Arctic Shores exhibit and their planned exhibit of polar bears and whales (either beluga or narwhal).
Currently Toronto Zoo is renovating their polar bear exhibits and the Edmonton Valley Zoo is starting to prepare for the addition of polar bears. Once Toronto Zoo's exhibit is completed they will be committed to keeping polar bears, even if the individuals they currently have die. To my knowledge, Zoocheck Canada has no campaign against either the Toronto or Edmonton Zoo.
The Vancouver Aquarium has plans to renovate their beluga whale and dolphin exhibits. Part of Vancouver Aquarium's plans are also to add additional specimens of both of these species. Acquisition of animals would be very similiar to those that the Calgary Zoo was considering. Once again ZooCheck Canada has no information on their website about this development.

The big difference as I see it is that the Calgary Zoo's exhibits would have been considerably bigger and contained more built in enrichment features than any of these other Canadian displays. Arctic Shores and Antarctic Landing were supposed to set a global precedent for exhibit design for these animals. They even could have caused changes in exhibit standards for other large mammals.

ZooCheck Canada may be targeting the Calgary Zoo because if they can raise public outcry about the Arctic Shores than inferior facilities at other Zoos are easier to attack. If this is the case then why have the plans for other Canadian facilities, especially those in nearby Edmonton, arisen or gained momentum since ZooChecks Calgary Zoo campaign?
 
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