Urban Wildlife
In the face of their own possible extinction, Canada’s zoos are trying to redefine themselves. What role can they play?
Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to make existing systemic failures obvious. Consider Canada’s zoos. During a wholesale social lockdown lasting more than a year, already-declining visits and revenues simply ceased. Spending didn’t, of course. The care and feeding of their many inhabitants had to continue even as costs for foods increased. Zoos called for government support and the public’s cash to keep the zookeepers on the job. Emergency donations and grants kept the lights on, but COVID-19 has made clear that city zoos are anachronistic and unsustainable.
For the past several decades, Canada’s urban zoos have struggled to survive. Visitor numbers have dropped. The global pandemic served to highlight the question many were already trying to answer: do zoos have a role in our future?
They have a long history, dating to the private menageries of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, in China, Greece and Rome. By the 18th century,
collections of exotic animals were de rigueur in European courts, most particularly that of Louis XIV who installed a grand menagerie at the Palais de Versailles.
The first “zoological garden” opened in Paris in 1793, post revolution, when Versailles’ and other animal collections of the aristocracy were moved to a central garden accessible to the public. London’s famous zoo opened in 1847. The notion spread to North America’s burgeoning cities, driven more by municipal vanity and one-upmanship than an interest in nature. These zoos were often indifferent to the animals’ welfare, from the dismal cages, inappropriate food and casual cruelties by the visiting public.
It was only about 100 years ago that any concerted attention was paid to animals’ right to humane treatment. The debate about zoos has continued and intensified into the present. Recently, two commercial zoos in Canada were cited on the World Animal Protection website for cruel conditions.
The pandemic has brought it all into high relief. Attendance at Toronto’s municipally owned, 284-hectare facility, home to 5,000 animals, has been sagging for much of the last three decades. In its 2020 Strategic Plan, there is a promise to “ignite the passion,” to “create wow” as they “save wildlife,” but few details. Locked down in November 2020, at press time it was still closed.
Also in November, the Calgary Zoo was forced to return loaned pandas early due to bamboo sourcing issues related to the pandemic. (Pandas are one of the few money-makers in Canada’s zoo business; before arriving in Calgary, they had been propping up Toronto attendance for five years.) Exotic celebrity species from China aside, the Calgary Zoo is trying to move into a local conservation role. Among its research and conservation projects are breeding whooping cranes for release and researching the dependent relationship of black-tailed prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets.
Is this the future of zoos? With their expertise, facilities, fundraising capacity and public face, Canadian zoos could be in the vanguard of local conservation.