Zoo's care of animals probed
Ethan Baron, With Files From David Carrigg and Matt Carter, The Province
Published: Thursday, June 01, 2006
A Lower Mainland zoo charged with cruelty toward the hippo made famous in a Telus ad is under investigation for its treatment of other animals.
"There are other problems," said the SPCA's senior animal-protection officer Eileen Drever. "There's a definite concern with respect to other animals at the zoo."
More charges are possible, she said, but would not elaborate.
The animal-cruelty charges laid May 17 against the Greater Vancouver Zoo allege that Hazina the hippo was kept for 19 months in an inadequate enclosure: a small concrete room with a 60-centimetre-deep pool and no access to the outdoors or to other hippos.
"Hazina remains today, 19 months later, in solitary confinement," Drever said. "She's in distress."
The zoo has nearly completed a large new enclosure for the two-year-old female hippo and plans to bring in an older male hippo from a Denver zoo to join her.
Yesterday, Hazina lay on the floor of her concrete enclosure in a spot of sunlight falling through a fenced door opening.
Visitor Jade Donauer, 9, of Mission pressed her nose against the window to see the hippo, and passed judgment on zoo management. "They're mean," Jade said. "[Hazina] looks really sad, and her cage is really small."
Visitor Andrea Scarpino of Abbotsford, with her daughter Emily, 2, stopped by Hazina's enclosure. Keeping the hippo in the concrete room for 19 months was "a bit insane," Scarpino said.
But the new enclosure is "fabulous," Scarpino said. "At least she'll be . . . into a better home."
Zoo officials hope to have the new enclosure finished within a few weeks. It will contain a heated indoor pool for winter, a heated concrete building and a grass-verged pond about 40 metres long by 20 metres wide.
Dr. Bruce Burton, the zoo's vet, called the SPCA's charges "goofy," and said Hazina is "happy as a clam" in her temporary enclosure.
"She has not suffered," Burton said.
Burton said that over the past four to five years animal conditions at the zoo have "gradually improved."
"The care and attention that the animals get here is good. I wouldn't say superb," Burton said. "If there's a problem with an animal, they deal with it."
Zoo animal-care manager Jamie Dorgan said weather and the contractor were responsible for delays in completing the new $500,000 hippo facility.
"We had no intention of her being in [the small enclosure] for that long," Dorgan said.
With respect to the SPCA's investigation of other animals, Dorgan said: "I have no qualms about the living conditions of any of the animals here."
Craig Daniell, B.C. SPCA chief executive, said the probe is continuing: "There are issues involving other animals at the zoo."
Vancouver Humane Society spokesman Peter Fricker said the zoo has just spent $75,000 on a new mini-train.
"They have not made animal care a priority at the zoo," Fricker said. "Their priority seems to be the amusement of the public."
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HIPPOPOTAMUS FACTS
- Hippos spend their days wallowing in shallow water and nights grazing in short grass.
- Range in weight from 1,600 to 3,200 kilograms.
- Mate in water, sometimes with the female submerged.
- Can open their mouths up to an angle of 150 degrees.
- Live about 45 years.