As someone who is studying conservation, I found the news about the
killing of the giraffe in Copenhagen and the lions in Longleat quite a
depressing story. Just like any member of the public, I felt saddened by
these deaths, and as a scientist I wanted to know why there was the need to
cull these creatures.
It was said that the giraffe was culled as
he had reached 18 months old, and the zoo under guidance from the European
Association of Zoo’s and Aquaria (EAZA) decided that culling was the only
option as they wanted to avoid interbreeding at all costs. This I can
completely understand. One doesn’t want to set out to conserve a species,
and only serve to ensure the deleterious genes are represented by irresponsible
breeding. However, I would question why the animal was allowed to come
into being in the first place. If his genes are so well represented then
why was the mating allowed, surely even if they want to avoid contraception to
allow for as natural a setting as possible as the zoo states, then these
animals must be separated, or in the next two years we could see this situation
repeated. I also have a problem rationalising with myself as to why the
animal was not neutered and given to another institution if genetics was the
overriding factor in his demise. Then there is the question of his being
dissected and fed to the lions. This I don’t have a problem with as such,
better that his carcass did not go to waste and that another animal benefitted
from it, and you could argue better a giraffe that had a good life than an
intensively farmed cow or sheep. However this was a public dissection,
and it seemed to attract a fair number of people, some of whom were young
children; as a scientist I see the value of dissection, it is invaluable for
teaching us the physiology of an animal and yes children do need to learn this
in my humble opinion. The way this was done however, seemed more a of a
public spectacle of just dismembering the body to feed to the lions rather than
a decent scientific look at the animal. In this respect, I find myself
questioning was this done really for the public good and education, or as a
poorly thought out PR stunt to attract attention to the zoo. What’s the
old saying? There’s no such thing as bad press. Let’s face it, even
the least cynical amongst us can see that Copenhagen is now going to be known
all around the world as the zoo that killed a giraffe, and fed it in the most
public way possible to a pride of lions.
Marius
was culled because his genes were over represented. Copyright of the BBC.
As for the lions of Longleat, this seems to
have attracted even more rage amongst the general public. One neutered
male, a lioness and her cubs were euthanised. This was done during the
closed season of the park, it is reported that the keepers from the park were
angry, upset and confused as to why this happened. 21 lions is a big
number of large cats to be held in captivity in a relatively small space compared
to what a group like that would need in the wild. It is also reported the
male had to be put to sleep as he had been attacked and that they were
concerned for the safety of the lioness and her cubs; so much so they put them
to sleep too. This again seems to be a problem with the breeding
policies. There were too many and they became violent is the reason that
is given for this euthanasia of healthy animals. The reports for this,
unlike Copenhagen seem quite clandestine for the time being, and this makes it harder
to really judge what is going on. However, it still begs the question,
why were so many allowed to breed to begin with and why was contraception not
used to control it?
With both these cases one may look at it
with what could be considered ‘rose tinted glasses’ where we want to have
animals behaving as naturally as they possibly can be, going from well studied
wild animals. But these are not in the wild and we do have a
responsibility to ensure that they are bred responsibly and with great care.
When they who make the decision to euthanise are worried about the safety
of the sedation used as they might die, or that you take away the prospect of
the gene pool having potential genes taken away or that the animal loses the
will to procreate and therefore makes for a less happy animal, I feel I have to
question these ideals. If you are worried it will die from the sedation,
you surely wouldn’t decide to euthanise it. If you are worried
about losing potential genes, you would not euthanise the animal. The
only acceptable argument I can see is that castration/contraception may make
the animal less natural and less happy. But surely we have to look at
other alternatives and not allowing over breeding. If the EAZA has such
strict laws then maybe they should be revisited and made more robust to stop
animals from being bred surplus to requirements, so that other zoo’s that may
not be part of the same breeding club can take on unwanted animals.
It is said that the EAZA and Copenhagen zoo
have expressed some surprise that people are outraged, and likened the killing
to farm animals being slaughtered for the table. Here is where I feel
that scientists working in conservation have got it wrong. Yes most
people will not really think about a cute pig when they are tucking into their
bacon sarnie, or the doe eyed expression of a cow when they eat their steak, or
the poor little male calves being slaughtered so that one may have that bit of
dairy. No they just won’t, because we like to block images out like that,
we like meat, we don’t necessarily want to think about what it was when it was
alive. That’s part of human nature. But when we sit down to enjoy
our sunday roast, that animal was in all likely hood bred just for it’s meat
and not as part of a conservation programme. Yes, there are rare breeds
that are bred to keep those breeds alive for the purpose of becoming food, but
lets be clear when you put your hand in your pocket to go to the zoo, that is
not what you think you are paying for. When we as scientists become so
blaze about genetics in saying a space should have been left for an
animal ‘genetically more important’, and that animals had to euthanised because
they became too big a group. It annoys the general public. The very
people that put much of the funding into conservation efforts in the first
place. In the couple of days since the killing episodes, there is now on
line evidence to show that Copenhagen euthanises 20 to 30 animals per year, and
that the EAZA have records of all recent euthanised animals from zoos because
of breeding but they don’t like to publicise it. This very notion of
expendable animals because of their genetics is causing a backlash. If
for example a dog breeder or cat breeder euthanised various animals because it
wasn’t good for their breeding regime there would be outrage. Does a zoo
really expect to be treated differently because they are housing exotic animals
from around the world? Of course culling will happen, of course breeding
that you don’t want to occur could happen but it should be controlled as much
as possible. As should the PR around these issues. Zoo’s need to
show empathy and sadness if they are to be liked at all by their general
public, and rather than belittling the sentimentality they should be wanting to
soothe it as it’s exactly that sentimentality that puts the money into the
zoo’s conservation coffers. Even without the issue of money, as someone
who wants to work in conservation, this PR nightmare has tarnished all people
who work in conservation with a nasty brush and damages all the good work that
zoo’s do do for those animals that rely on the help of zoos to continue to have
a presence in the world. One can only hope that zoo’s and the EAZA take
on board the massive outcry these killings have caused and start to work
together more cohesively and with much more empathy.
