Educational benefit or cruel prison?
ANNIVERSARY High-profile deaths of star animals have stirred controversy over the years

Darah Hansen
Vancouver Sun

Saturday, August 20, 2005

It's been 35 years since strange and exotic animals started showing up on a 48-hectare parcel of farmland in Aldergrove.

Butter, a three-month-old lion cub, was the first to arrive in June, 1970. He was joined a week later by an adult female hippopotamus called Gertrude.

Two months later several more unusual occupants were added to the property -- a grizzly bear, a small herd of buffalo, antelope -- and the Vancouver Game Farm was born.

Sure, there was a price to get through the gate, but the stated purpose of the farm when it officially opened to the public in August, 1970, was about public education and wildlife conservation.

"You could call it Noah's Ark," Claus Mueller -- one of the two men behind the farm at the beginning -- told The Vancouver Sun at the time.

"We intend to get all of the endangered species we can and breed them on the farm," he said. "Otherwise, a lot of animals are going to be gone forever in a few years."

Over the years, the game farm -- now known as the Greater Vancouver Zoo, and majority-owned by retired Korean businessman, Duk-Wan Park -- has faced much criticism for conditions in which many of the animals in its care have lived and died.

Four hippos have died prematurely over the past 20 years, most recently Gertrude and her mate Harvey.

Cages, pens and aquariums have long been cited by animal welfare groups as too small and outdated for many of its animals, including Arctic wolves, crocodiles, snakes, lions and tigers.

But it was the plight of Tina, the resident Indian elephant at the zoo for 30 years, that really focused negative attention on the business. The zoo's decision in 2003 to sell the aging, ailing animal to a zoo in Ontario, where she would be used in circus-type shows, prompted public outrage. Ultimately Tina was sent to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, where she died less than a year later of a congenital heart defect.

Tina's life in Aldergrove and her premature death were tragic proof of why zoos are increasingly unacceptable, said Peter Fricker, spokesman for the Vancouver Humane Society.

Yet, more than three decades after it opened, the Greater Vancouver Zoo remains a fixture in the Lower Mainland, with celebrations set to get underway at the park today to mark its 35th anniversary.

The bears, buffalo and big cats are still on display, along with 140 different species, for the enjoyment of the 200,000 people who go through the gates every year.

According to zoo general manager Malcolm Weatherston, it's his intention to expand and modernize the business, taking it into the 21st century in the image of cutting-edge zoos such as the San Diego Zoo.

"Our goal is to make it one of the leading zoos in North America," he said.

Like his predecessors at the game farm, Weatherston talked of conservation and education as the key principles driving the business.

In that vein, the zoo is currently host to a breeding project designed to help increase the Oregon spotted frog population, a local species currently considered endangered because of its sensitivity to pollution and environmental change. The small hatchery breeds approximately 700 frogs each year and releases them into the wild.

The zoo is also taking part in a salmon restoration project in a creek that cuts through the Aldergrove property, and has had success in breeding a species of deer known as Pere David's deer. Named for Pere Armand David, a French missionary who discovered the species, it has been hunted to extinction in its native China.

"There are between 500 and 1,000 of these deer in existence in the world, and we have 12," said Jamie Dorgan, animal care manager at the zoo.

New, larger pens for the animals have also been a focus for the zoo in recent years. The arctic wolves have been moved to a larger pen, as will the zoo's four Bactrian camels. The new camel enclosure is under construction and features the latest in zoo trends: It is not fenced. In this case, a portion of the enclosure is open to visitors, with a three-metre-wide stretch of rock lining the space where a fence would normally stand.

"Camels," said Dorgan, "have soft, sensitive feet so they won't walk over the rock."

Weatherston said the fenceless design gives visitors the sense they're viewing animals in a more natural habitat.

"When people want to see animals, they want to see them in large, natural settings," Dorgan added.

That concept is nothing new in the zoo debate and, in fact, plagued urban zoos such as Stanley Park's for decades.

In a presentation to park commissioners in 1949, the parks superintendent of the day spoke out against the Stanley Park zoo, which featured animals in small metal cages and cement-floor pens.

"Underlying the whole debate is the fact that the public conscience is uneasy about the imprisonment of wild animals. People dislike to see these creatures moping in captivity," the superintendent said.

"Our impression is that most citizens of Vancouver would breathe a sigh of relief if the park board mustered the courage to get out of the zoo business."

The Stanley Park zoo finally closed in 1993, the result of a plebiscite. A polar bear named Tuk remained the zoo's sole occupant until his death in 1997 at the age of 34.

According to Fricker, it's long past the time for all zoos to face a similar fate.

"Our official view is that we are, on principle, against animals being kept in captivity for human entertainment," he said.

"People need to ask themselves, what is a hippo doing on the West Coast of North America? To me, that's when you start to think, why is this zoo necessary? What is its purpose?" he asked.

"In our view, it's appealing to people's desire to see novelty, to see something exotic, and spend money."

Still, Fricker added: "We do know zoos are here so we try and encourage owners to invest and try to make their [animal] enclosures as close as possible to what they might have had in the wild, which, in some cases, is virtually impossible."

Fricker said the humane society has had its sights set on the Greater Vancouver Zoo since 1994, when the provincial government launched an investigation into its alleged mistreatment of deer on the property.

While the zoo was exonerated, the humane society and another animal welfare group, Zoocheck Canada, remained concerned. In 1997, both groups commissioned reports looking into zoo conditions. A lack of adequate space and lack of behavioural enrichment for the animals were two major problems cited.

According to Fricker, the animal behaviouralist contracted by the humane society to write the report found the boredom exhibited by Tina the elephant was so extreme, she appeared to be "going insane."

"Everyone remembers seeing [Tina] standing out in the rain in the winter and seeing her head bob up and down repeatedly. People were complaining all the time," Fricker said.

The death of the two hippos in 2004 and 2005 only increased concerns.

But earlier this year, animal welfare activists eased up on the zoo when it hired Weatherston. With Weatherston at the helm, Fricker said there were "encouraging signs" things were going to improve.

Pen sizes were increased for many of the animals, new landscaping designs were introduced to vary the simulated habitat of other enclosures, and plans were put in place to replace outdated pens currently housing the zoo's lions and tigers.

"They certainly seemed to be moving in the right direction," he said.

But the truce between zoo and activists cooled after the zoo bought a young hippo, Hazina, but had no adequate place to put her.

Hazina is currently housed in the rhino shed on her own until a new hippo facility is built -- a situation, Fricker said, that is "totally unacceptable."

According to the humane society, hippos are social animals and need to be in the company of others of their kind.

"We think it's appalling that she's been sitting in that little barn without any access to the outdoors and no companionship from others of her own species," Fricker said.

This week, Weatherston said the hippo barn will be built -- estimating it to be open in the new year. At that point, he said, the zoo plans to bring in a male hippo to keep Hazina company.

Weatherston said the zoo is doing all it can, with the money it has, to improve the zoo. He said gate profits are constantly reinvested back into the zoo and used to improve enclosures and conditions for the animals.

"We're happy and proud of our standards of care and what we're doing here," said Dorgan. "We're happy with the way zoos are going, generally, and the way things are improving here."

Weatherston and Dorgan are adamant that zoos are a necessary means of wildlife and wilderness conservation, now more than ever before.

Children, said Weatherston, "can only go so far with books and pictures. This is the place to see wild animals and really understand what they're all about."

Dorgan said it's important people develop a connection with animals, particularly top-of-the-foodchain species such as lions or tigers. That bond -- which he believes comes with seeing the animals first-hand -- can inspire conservation efforts necessary to benefit all species sharing the habitat.

"Nobody wants to save habitat for some spider or fly, but if you can save habitat for a jaguar, everything else just comes with it," he said.

dahansen@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2005