Imagine what it would be like to be bred at a zoo to undergo a litany of reproductive experiments and then be shipped off to live in a cramped cage at a notorious laboratory testing facility that has been repeatedly cited by federal authorities for significant violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).

This is exactly what’s happening at the Cincinnati Zoo’s Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) program, in which domestic cats are bred as a “research model [to] provide basic reproductive information about felids in general.” Experimenters attempt to extrapolate these findings to reproductively different, endangered, nondomestic cat species for the zoo’s small-cat conservation initiative—a process that is inherently riddled with scientific absurdities.

Leading conservationists from Yale University, the National Zoo, and the San Diego Wild Animal Park have published a landmark study titled “Limitations of Captive Breeding in Endangered Species Recovery,” in which they warn, “Captive breeding is no panacea for saving endangered species.”

They argue: “Captive breeding should be viewed as a last resort in species recovery and not a prophylactic or long-term solution because of the inexorable genetic and phenotypic changes that occur in captive environments. … t should not displace habitat and ecosystem protection nor should it be invoked in the absence of comprehensive efforts to maintain or restore populations in wild habitats.”

While the Cincinnati Zoo focuses its efforts on in vitro fertilization techniques in endangered small cats, the long-term survival of these species hinges on their success in the wild. The authors state that animals can become domesticated in just two generations in captivity—making it impossible for them to survive in the wild. In fact, only 11 percent of the 145 programs that have reintroduced captive-bred species into the wild have been successful, according to a recent study.

The researchers also note other grave limitations of captive breeding, including low fertility rates, which make it difficult to sustain population levels, and a lack of administrative continuity and stable funding to maintain long-term programs. In addition, diseases can spread through close contact with species encountered in the wild. Inbreeding can also make captive-bred species more susceptible to disease.

In addition to breeding and experimenting on domestic cats, Barbara Rish, the zoo’s corporate communications manager, confirmed that there are approximately 80 domestic cats at CREW and that they are typically forced to stay there for about five to eight years. The older cats are then “donated” to Summit Ridge Farms, where they are locked away in cages and used for geriatric dietary experiments.

During random inspections, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has cited Summit Ridge Farms for the following AWA violations:

Section 2.31(d)(1)(ii): Failure to include in the experimental protocol a search for alternatives to painful procedures that were performed on animals. This was a repeat violation two years in a row for the same protocol.
Section 2.31(e)(4): Failure to include in the experimental protocol the name, dose, or route of various drugs that were to be administered to animals to minimize pain and distress. This was a repeat violation two years in a row for the same protocol.
Section 2.33(b): Failure to provide adequate dental care to dogs, all of whom had the facility’s “worst dental score” several years earlier and whose “premolars and molars [were] covered with tartar.”
Section 3.1(c)(2): Failure to properly maintain sanitary surfaces; the floor’s coating peeled up from the concrete, thereby preventing the floor from being adequately cleaned “when urine, excreta and dirty water [are] between the peeling floor coating and the concrete.”
What You Can Do
Please send polite letters to the Cincinnati Zoo and ask that it act responsibly by ending its breeding program for small domestic cats—animals who are part of the overpopulation crisis—and work with PETA to place these animals in good, loving homes. Also, please ask the zoo to stop shipping these cats to Summit Ridge Farms—where animals are forced to live in filthy cages for years on end and receive substandard care and where experimenters repeatedly shirk their minimal legal obligations to ensure animals’ welfare:

Gregg Hudson, President
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
3400 Vine St.
Cincinnati, OH 45220-1333
gregg.hudson@cincinnatizoo.org
513-487-3336 (fax)

Please also send polite letters to the zoo’s primary donors asking that they suspend their financial support until the zoo stops breeding domestic cats and shipping them to testing laboratories at Summit Ridge Farms:

Carl H. Lindner, Chair
American Financial Group, Inc.
1 E. Fourth St.
Cincinnati, OH 45202
513-579-2113 (fax)

Thomas E. Hoaglin, Chair, President, and CEO
The Huntington National Bank
Huntington Center
41 S. High St.
Columbus, OH 43287
952-828-8998 (fax)

Joseph C. (Joe) Guyaux, President
The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.
1 PNC Plz.
249 Fifth Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-2707
412-762-7829 (fax)

Allen Boerger, CEO
Recker & Boerger, Inc.
10115 Transportation Way
Cincinnati, OH 45246-1317

Murray Sinclaire, President
Ross, Sinclaire & Associates, Inc.
700 Walnut St., Ste. 600
Cincinnati, OH 45202-2027

Christopher J. (CJ) Fraleigh, CEO
Sara Lee Food & Beverage
3500 Lacey Rd.
Downers Grove, IL 60515
630-598-8220 (fax)

Kelly Summers, Principal
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP
4900 Key Tower
Cleveland, OH 44107

Michael Brown, Owner and President
Cincinnati Bengals, Inc.
1 Paul Brown Stadium Dr.
Cincinnati, OH 45202
513-621-3570 (fax)