Zoos remain a source of controversy. Recently a video camera-toting animal rights activist has been charged with trespassing after seven surreptitious visits to the Guzoo facility at Three Hills to document allegations of mistreatment. Whether the government plans to do anything with the evidence he claims to have gathered remains to be seen. Alberta’s Minister of Environment previously indicated to the activist that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did not back up assertions made in July.
Closer to home there has been controversy for years over a single elephant housed in Edmonton’s small zoo. High profile celebrities have called for the aging Lucy to be moved to a retirement facility in a warmer clime. The City of Edmonton claims such a move would endanger her.
My own attitude towards zoos has changed over the years. As a small boy I used to enjoy visiting the Calgary Zoo. Particularly exciting was the time we took our pet wire-haired terrier Perky along off leash – that was allowed in those days. Perky was combative, and when he saw an ostrich in an enclosure he readily leapt the six or seven foot fence and positioned himself barking in front of the big bird. My father was screaming at the dog to return. The ostrich was measuring the distance and limbering one claw for a kick which I had no doubt would put Perky into the nearby Bow River. Luckily our pooch realized he was badly outmatched and hopped the fence back to safety.
I recall much pleasure watching two polar bears lolling about their pool equipped cage. They were named Mary and Carmichael after two characters in Jack Benny’s popular radio show, the broadcast Carmichael supposedly being a polar bear. But looking back – the cage and the pool were small for these nomadic creatures. Even more cramped was the housing for a pair of wolves. I remember them pacing incessantly in a cage that even to my youthful eye was cramped, perhaps twenty-five by forty feet or so. Periodically one wolf would jump to the wired over cage top, ten feet or maybe a bit more high, to snag a piece of popcorn an onlooker had thrown. As I grew older and learned the incredible distances wolves in the wild routinely traverse I began to think how cruel such confinement was. That view was reinforced years when I visited the zoo as an adult. By then reforms had introduced larger cages, including a substantial landscaped area for Siberian tigers. But the grassed perimeter had been worn bare by the incessant striding of the big cats.
Zoos are popular, but ethical debate over their existence is not going to be stilled. Any educational value is minimal from wild animals living an unnatural existence apart from their habitat, and indeed often born and raised in zoos for that purpose.
Writer David Haas is a long term St. Albert resident.
