Tag: Media – Captivity

“In a bid to draw attention to the ongoing and dangerous problem of keeping exotic wildlife in captivity, either in zoos or as house pets, World Animal Protection Canada is building a new database and interactive online map to document all the events it can find.”

Michèle Hamers, wildlife campaign manager for World Animal Protection Canada, hopes that the database will “compel people to ask for more comprehensive laws to protect animals and people.”

Typically, bylaws and provincial laws around wild and exotic animals include a prohibited animals list. These lists can leave gaps that allow many wild and exotic species who do not thrive in captivity to be kept as pets, while even more can be kept in facilities such as zoos and aquariums.

The VHS is calling on the B.C. government to introduce better protections for wild and exotic animals in captivity, including adopting a positive list approach, which allows only those species that meet certain evidence-based suitability criteria to be kept, bred and transported.

“Conservation officers have seized a nearly three-metre-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.”

While this particular species of snake is illegal to keep in B.C., MANY other wild and exotic species are, in fact, legal to keep as pets. But wild and exotic animals, whether wild-caught or captive-bred, retain their complex social, physiological and behavioural needs that they would have in the wild. As a result, they can experience significant suffering when kept as pets.

The VHS has been calling on the B.C. government for better protections for wild and exotic animals. Add your name in support!

The Vancouver Humane Society has weighed in on the planned breeding of red pandas at the Greater Vancouver Zoo in a new article from the CBC.

The breeding is part of a “Species Survival Plan”, a program by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) which maintains captive animal populations at AZA facilities. Zoo officials comment that captive bred red pandas could be reintroduced back into the wild “if needed”.

However, the program does not immediately benefit animals in the wild.

Chantelle Archambault, Communications Director for the Vancouver Humane Society, said the organization is disappointed to see the zoo bringing in another red panda for breeding. 

“We know the program brings a lot of financial benefit to the zoo, but the cost of that is there’s more animals who will spend their entire lives in captivity in a foreign and unfamiliar environment that can’t meet all their needs,” said Archambault. 

“Breeding exotic animals halfway around the world to be kept in a zoo their whole life is not about conservation,” she said. 

The two red pandas born at the Greater Vancouver Zoo in June 2022, Maple and Mei Mei, have since been moved to other zoos in Canada.

The Greater Vancouver Zoo is once again planning to breed red pandas a continent away from their native habitat. Without a reintroduction plan in place, they will spend their entire lives in captivity.

“‘This important introduction is a part of our species survival plan for Red Pandas and will hopefully lead to future little Red Panda cubs! (we hope ??),’ the zoo said on Facebook.”

The two red pandas born at the zoo in 2022, Maple and Mei Mei, were moved to Assiniboine Park Zoo in Manitoba and Zoo de Granby in Quebec.

The Vancouver Humane Society is calling for meaningful changes to prevent the suffering of animals in captivity.