Tag: Animals in captivity

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animal welfare Captivity Cruelty-free News/Blog Promoted wildlife zoo

Give your views on bird welfare at the Bloedel Conservatory

The City of Vancouver is asking for public comment on the future of the Bloedel Conservatory, which houses more than 120 exotic birds. The Talk Vancouver survey (for which you need to register) provides an opportunity to ask the conservatory to ensure that the birds’ welfare is a priority in future plans. (The Vancouver Park Board and the Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association are collaborating to develop a joint strategic plan for VanDusen Garden and Bloedel Conservatory.) The survey closes February 10.

Specifically, you can ask that when birds are caged (as some birds are when introduced to the conservatory) they are provided with an enriched environment that meets their species-specific needs (e.g toys, puzzles, novel items, opportunity to bathe) to enhance their psychological welfare during this stressful transition time. Your views can help make sure exotic bird welfare is not forgotten in the Bloedel Conservatory’s strategic plan.

It’s important to note that the Conservatory’s website states that all the birds there “have either been directly donated to the Conservatory from homes that can no longer keep them or have been adopted from the GreyHaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary.”

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animal welfare Captivity compassion cruelty ethics News/Blog Promoted wildlife zoo

Challenging captivity

VHS has a long history of opposition to animal captivity. Most recently, we published a report, commissioned from Zoocheck, that drew attention to a number of issues at the Greater Vancouver Zoo.

The report found that animals at the zoo were suffering from boredom and frustration caused by the lack of activity and stimulation that comes with captivity.

In addition, the report identified animal enclosures that were too small, including cages for raptors (owls, hawks, kestrels) that provided no opportunity for flight. Tanks in the zoo’s reptile house were also found to be under-sized, preventing animals from engaging in natural behaviours.

A key finding was that a number of the zoo’s exotic animals are not suited to B.C.’s climate and should be moved to more appropriate facilities. In the longer term, the report recommended, the zoo should transition toward becoming a sanctuary for native species.

The report has received widespread media attention and many people joined our e-campaign calling on the zoo to address the issues it raises. Our opinion editorial in the Georgia Straight gives an overview of the psychological suffering experienced by captive animals at the Greater Vancouver Zoo and other zoos around the world.

The management of the Greater Vancouver Zoo has not responded directly to VHS or Zoocheck, but has told news media that it has plans to make changes and improvements over the next few years. It remains to be seen whether these changes will make a positive difference to the lives of the animals, but VHS will continue to monitor the zoo and draw public attention to their conditions and welfare.

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Opinion Editorial

The Greater Vancouver Zoo must chart a new course

Caged tiger

Article originally published in the Georgia Straight.

To watch the Siberian tiger at the Greater Vancouver Zoo pace back and forth along the fence of her enclosure is to witness to one of the most common experiences of zoo animals: boredom.

The pacing is recognized by animal behaviourists as a “stereotypy”, which has been described as a functionless behaviour pattern that “captive animals may develop as a response to physical restraint, lack of stimulation, or inescapable fear or frustration.”

Giraffes at the zoo can also been seen exhibiting stereotypic behaviour. In their case it’s chewing and licking metal bars, likely indicating frustration with not being able to forage naturally.

The central problem here is obvious: it’s captivity. While some animals adapt to it better than others, a walk around the zoo will find many animals looking lethargic, sometimes motionless, as they languish in enclosures with little to do and nowhere to go.

While ending animal captivity is the only real answer to the problem, giving the animals more space and something to do would at least alleviate some of the tedium they endure. But according to a new report, the Greater Vancouver Zoo is even failing to do that adequately.

The report, commissioned by the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) from researchers at Zoocheck, argues that the zoo hasn’t invested enough in behavioural or environmental enrichment for the animals—a problem identified by the two groups in previous reports in 2003 and 2008. Enrichment involves providing challenging and stimulating activities, environments, and objects for zoo animals. It can include habitat design, increased food variety, and foraging opportunities.

The report also found that a number of the zoo’s animal exhibits don’t provide enough space. Reptiles are kept in small terrariums, with no ability to engage in natural roaming behaviours. Several birds, including owls and hawks, are in undersized cages, denying them little or no opportunity to fly.

Recommendations in the report include developing a comprehensive enrichment program; increasing the size of enclosures; and moving animals to other facilities if they are not suited to the Lower Mainland’s climate or if the zoo cannot satisfy their physical, psychological, and social needs.

Such measures would improve the welfare of the zoo’s animals but the complexity of their natural habitats—which they have evolved to thrive in—can never be adequately replicated. The question remains: how can we justify holding animals captive when it compromises their welfare?

Zoos argue that they are all about conservation and education. Indeed, the Greater Vancouver Zoo participates in conservation projects involving butterflies, frogs and turtles, but the vast majority of its animals are there for show. They will never be returned to the wild.

There is little evidence to show that zoos have educational value. Damian Aspinall, the owner of two U.K. wildlife parks, estimates that 99 percent of visitors who come to his parks come for an enjoyable day out, but just one percent get newly enthusiastic about conservation. He has called for zoos, including his own, to be phased out in the next two decades.

The Greater Vancouver Zoo needs to fundamentally change direction. It can start by alleviating the crushing boredom so many of its animals endure. A comprehensive program of behavioural and environmental enrichment will help.

In the longer term, the zoo should move toward being a sanctuary for native species and abandon its current model, one that condemns animals to a lifetime of captivity just to provide humans with a day out.

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Media Release

Report says Greater Vancouver Zoo failing animals

Vancouver – A report commissioned by the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) is calling on the Greater Vancouver Zoo (GVZ) to improve conditions for its animals and to move away from keeping animals unsuited to B.C.’s climate.

The report, commissioned from Zoocheck, found that many animals at the zoo are living in barren, under-sized cages and enclosures that restrict them from engaging in natural behaviours. The report also says the zoo does not provide adequate behavioural enrichment for the animals. (Behavioural enrichment involves providing animals with a stimulating environment that allows natural activities such as climbing, foraging or digging and also creates physical and cognitive tasks that simulate challenges animals would find in their natural environment.) The report notes these issues were identified in previous reports but little has changed.

“Captivity is never good for animals but the Greater Vancouver Zoo could at least provide animals with enclosures that allow them enough space and stimulation to avoid enduring lives of unrelenting boredom and frustration,” said VHS spokesperson Peter Fricker. “These problems need to be addressed urgently. In the longer term, the zoo needs to stop keeping captive animals for entertainment and move toward being a sanctuary for native wildlife.”

The report is also critical of the zoo’s giraffe enclosure, describing it as unchanged since a 2003 report described it as “barren and lacking in any stimulation for the animals to engage in natural behaviours.” The report states that giraffes are not suited to B.C.s climate and suggests the zoo consider constructing a new, larger and climate-controlled enclosure or relocating the giraffes to a more species-appropriate facility elsewhere.

The report cites the zoo’s raptor exhibit (holding kestrels, owls, hawks, etc.) as an example of an under-sized enclosure that denies natural behaviours, stating: “There was little or no ability for the birds to engage in flight.”

“It seems bizarre to have to tell the zoo that birds need to fly,” said Fricker, “but sadly that’s what they need to hear.”

The report also found that:

Reptiles in the zoo’s vivarium are being kept in “very restricted circumstances” with “minimal” space in some of the exhibits. Most of the reptiles were “inactive” and some demonstrated repetitive behaviours, indicating lack of stimulation.

The hippopotamus enclosure is “barren, lacking any vegetation and or enrichment elements” and the indoor holding facility is “small and not suitable for the permanent keeping of these animals…”

The zoo’s lone red fox should be found a companion or be rehomed to a facility that can meet its social requirements.

Squirrel monkeys and coatimundi are in small enclosure and should be moved to more appropriate accommodation.

The zoo suffers from excessive groundwater (water-logging), which has led to muddy enclosures and standing water in some areas.

The report recommends:

That the zoo develop a comprehensive environmental/behavioural enrichment program for all its animals.

That the zoo stop keeping animals that aren’t suited to B.C.’s climate and those it cannot accommodate in a way that “satisfies their physical, psychological and social needs…”.

That inadequate, undersized cages and enclosures be enlarged or removed.

The full report can be seen here.

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Categories
Media Release

Most Canadians are against rodeo so why is it being celebrated at the Grey Cup?

A calf is pulled into the air by her neck in a calf roping rodeo event.

Vancouver – The Vancouver Humane Society (VHS) is calling on the Canadian Football League (CFL) to cancel a rodeo being held as part of this year’s Grey Cup Festival in Calgary.  The call comes as a new poll shows that a majority of Canadians are opposed to rodeo. The poll, by Research Co., found that almost three-in-five Canadians (59%) are opposed to using animals in rodeos, with only 34 per cent in favour.  Even in Alberta, 49 per cent of residents oppose rodeo, according to the poll.

“The Grey Cup Festival is a national event, supposedly representing Canadian culture and values,” said VHS spokesperson Peter Fricker, “So why is the CFL including a rodeo, which most Canadians oppose?”

Fricker added that the public outrage at the deaths of six horses at this year’s Calgary Stampede and the Stampede’s long history of controversy over animal deaths and cruelty made it hard to understand why the CFL would associate itself with rodeo.

“It seems tone-deaf for the CFL to link Canadian football to rodeo at the league’s premiere event,” he said.

VHS has launched a campaign asking the public to urge the CFL to drop the rodeo from its Grey Cup plans.

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Categories
Opinion Editorial

Let’s put an end to events that torment animals

Article originally published in the Vancouver Sun.

Most people care about how kittens and puppies are treated, but how many people have empathy for a 2,000-pound bucking bull?

The rodeo and bull-riding industries say bulls are mean and “ornery” and, of course, dangerous. They also call the bulls “athletes” — as though bulls have chosen a career in sports in the same way a football player might. They say bulls are just doing what they love to do.

The truth, however, is a different story. Bull-riding events depend on unnatural, coercive and inhumane treatment of bulls.

First, the bulls are bred to buck — a fact bull-riding promoters commonly use to defend the “sport.” But this only means that bulls are bred to have a genetic predisposition to buck. And it doesn’t mean the animal will enjoy bucking. It’s equivalent to breeding dogs for aggression or fear or to have a sensitivity to some form of negative stimulus.

In bull-riding there’s plenty of negative stimulus to make the animal buck. It has an unwanted rider on its back, who is wearing spurs that grip the bull’s hide. Just before the bull is released into the arena a “flank strap” is tightened around its hindquarters, which further induces bucking.

The flank strap is much debated, with rodeo supporters arguing that it’s just a “signal” to the bull to start bucking or that it just makes the bull buck harder. At most, they say, it’s a mild irritant. In fact, just like the unwanted rider and the spurs, the flank strap is causing the bull distress. Consequently, it enters the arena bucking wildly. It wouldn’t behave so otherwise.

The B.C. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act states that: “A person responsible for an animal must not cause or permit the animal to be, or to continue to be, in distress.” However, livestock are effectively exempted from the act, if “the distress results from an activity that is carried out in accordance with reasonable and generally accepted practices of animal management that apply to the activity in which the person is engaged … ” 

The drafters of the act presumably had in mind agricultural practices such as branding cattle, which would be illegal if applied to dogs or cats. Until challenged in court, it seems rodeo events like bull-riding will qualify for the same exemption, despite having no agricultural purpose. Sadly, this means the bulls, calves and steers in rodeos don’t get the same legal protection from abuse as other animals.

Again, many will say: why care about bulls? They’re just livestock. Contrast this lack of public empathy with, say, captive whales or dolphins. For years, animal advocates and thousands of concerned citizens have rightly fought to end the keeping of cetaceans in marine parks and aquariums because it’s inhumane to hold them in tanks. The debate between pro and anti-captivity supporters has been fierce, with intense media attention about the issue.

But imagine if dolphin trainers applied deliberately stressful, physical methods — the equivalent of spurs and flank straps — to make the dolphins perform. There would be no debate. No civilized person would stand for it.

Some will argue: yes, but cetaceans are intelligent, beautiful and graceful, bulls not so much. But should we deny compassion and empathy to animals that are not as charismatic as others? As Jeremy Bentham reminded us, the only question that should matter is “can they suffer?”

On Sept. 15, Abbotsford’s Exhibition Park will host what has been billed as an “extreme-rodeo” event, featuring bull-riding, “extreme freestyle bullfighting” and “Mexican bull poker,” all of which involve stressing bulls to make them perform. Animal advocates are calling on Abbotsford city council, which owns the venue, to cancel the event.

The Chilliwack Fair rodeo (Aug. 10-12) also features bull-riding, along with controversial events such as calf-roping and steer-wrestling, which animal advocates are campaigning against.

All animals deserve our empathy and respect, even the strong and powerful.  Isn’t it time we abolished events that depend on the taunting and tormenting of animals to entertain us? The cities of Abbotsford and Chilliwack could make a bold stand for compassion and kindness toward animals by doing just that.