Strike sparks debate over future of Toronto Zoo
Activists push easing animals into larger sanctuaries or shutting facility completely
As managers and their striking employees try to hammer out a new contract and reopen the Toronto Zoo, some potential visitors are saying: “Please don’t.”
The 43-year-old zoo’s closure last week, when staff walked off the job, prompted social media commentary and emails to the Star arguing zoos are outdated, inhumane attractions that should be closed outright, or converted to animal sanctuaries where the question of whether people can see them is way down the list of priorities.
“It’s sort of a taste for us all, including the animals, of what it’s like to not have a zoo in Toronto,” says Daniel Bender, University of Toronto historian who wrote The Animal Game: Searching for Wildness at the American Zoo, published last year.
“For some people that’s a cause for great celebration.”
They include animal rights lawyer Camille Labchuk, who says “there could be a future for the zoo, but it would have to operate very differently.
“Rather than putting on a for-profit exercise where animals can be dis- played to the detriment of their welfare, I think the zoo could play a better role in actually protecting these animals and giving them sanctuary, rehabilitating animals, providing homes for ones that can’t be released back into the wild.
“If there is a way the public can see them incidentally, I don’t necessarily think that’s a problem, but priority number one has to be the welfare of the animals,” she says, arguing zoo claims of saving endangered species are an overblown justification for animal display.
While major zoos are accredited through the American Zoo Association and its Canadian affiliate, held to standards on everything from enclosure size to breeding programs, sanctuaries — often for mistreated or abandoned exotic animals — operate more independently.
In 2013, after a bitter battle involving politicians, animal rights advocates and zookeepers, the Toronto Zoo’s elephant program was closed and two of its stars transferred to Performing Animals Welfare Society sanctuary in California.
Proponents said the spacious, hilly refuge was more like their African ancestral home.
One of them, Iringa, was euthanized there in 2015 after a long history of joint and foot disease.
Some see a transition to sanctuaries as part of an animal-first movement that got beasts out of circuses and dogs out of local pet shops. Other potential zoo visitors, however, want to end wild animal enclosures completely.
“I love animals, but I love them in their environment. I don’t understand people’s fascination to see animals out of where they should be,” says Oakville resident Monica Watson, who hasn’t set foot in a zoo since her childhood in South America.
As for learning about animals, Watson notes she can watch countless breathtaking nature documentaries at home.
Not surprisingly, Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA), a private charitable organization representing the country’s leading zoological parks and aquariums, rejects the comparison.
In a statement, CAZA said the Toronto Zoo is among those that have “demonstrated their commitment to the highest standards of animal wel- fare and care, and fighting extinction through conservation programming and educational outreach through CAZA accreditation.
“The Toronto Zoo is not simply an exhibitor of animals — every animal in the facility is part of larger efforts to save critically endangered species or educate visitors about the effects human induced degradation is having on their natural habit and ability to survive in the wild.”
World class doesn’t come cheap. City taxpayers last year subsidized Toronto Zoo to the tune of $12.6 million from property taxes, reserve funds and capital budget transfers. Attendance of 1,309,394 seemed to reverse a slide, but was boosted by a temporary, and costly to host, panda exhibit.
U of T’s Bender says talk of replacing zoos with sanctuaries is often uninformed. Most sanctuaries are cashstrapped, unregulated and harbouring “charismatic” animals like elephants that will draw big donations, he says.
The “uncomfortable reality,” he adds, is that most North American zoo animals are acclimatized.
“A Sumatran tiger here is really a Canadian Sumatran tiger — it has grown up in North America, maybe moved on the zoo circuit, but this is its habitat,” and Torontonians have a collective responsibility to it, he says.