FOR the first time in a century and a half, London Zoo has no elephants. The three Asian elephants that used to live there left last month, one at a time in a specially designed truck with a police escort. They are now in new, roomier digs at Whipsnade wild-animal park in the Bedfordshire countryside, and the zoo has no plans to replace them. After a keeper was crushed to death last October by Dilberta, a 3.8-tonne female elephant, zoo officials decided that central London is no place for such huge animals.
The decision is sure to disappoint zoo-goers, for whom a zoo without elephants is鈥ell, not much of a zoo at all. But it鈥檚 symptomatic of a much deeper struggle. Modern zoos are having to abandon their historical baggage and do more to justify their existence-a rethink that goes to the heart of what zoos are for. Animal rights groups have argued for years that zoos are cruel, antiquated institutions that imprison animals for no good purpose. Governments are starting to agree, insisting that zoos do more to justify their existence. In their defence, zoos point to three important roles they can play in the modern world: conservation, research and education. But when you look closely, most fall far short of the mark on all three counts. A few of the best zoos, however, are leading the way to a newer, more substantial mission. The rest must follow their lead or risk being consigned to history.
The first 鈥渮oos鈥� were the royal menageries of ancient Egypt and Assyria. For millennia after, zoos were little more than spectacles that symbolised the might of nations or their rulers. That began to change in the last century, and by the 1970s, zoos had come to portray themselves as modern versions of Noah鈥檚 ark, rounding up endangered species and harbouring them in captivity until they could be reintroduced to their native habitat.
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But the vast majority of zoos don鈥檛 do as much for the cause of conservation as they鈥檇 have you believe. 鈥淐aptive breeding has been looked at as a panacea. It鈥檚 not,鈥� says Ginette Hemley, vice-president of species conservation at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington DC. The World Conservation Union (IUCN), which keeps the semi-official records of endangered species, includes 5428 species in its latest 鈥渞ed list鈥� of threatened animals. And since most of the planet鈥檚 species haven鈥檛 even been named and recognised yet, the total must surely be much higher-perhaps even in the millions. Yet the IUCN says that even if the world鈥檚 zoos and aquaria pooled their resources, they could only expect to sustain about 2000 species in captivity.
However, zoos don鈥檛 come anywhere close to hitting even that limited target. For one thing, most breeding programmes are geared more towards keeping the zoos stocked than to rescuing endangered species. 鈥淎t the moment, the goal for most breeding programmes is to maintain healthy genetic populations to get away from ever having to take animals from the wild,鈥� says Mairead Farrell, director of conservation programmes for the British Federation of Zoos.
Even when zoos do breed endangered species, they rarely reintroduce the offspring to the wild. 鈥淩eintroductions do take place, but at the moment they鈥檙e still very much at the experimental stage,鈥� says Farrell. Captive-breeding programmes have saved a handful of species-the Arabian oryx, California condor and golden lion tamarin are often cited-and they may be the only hope for species whose populations are so small or fragmented that they can鈥檛 survive without drastic intervention. To return species to the wild, however, you need the right habitat to put them in.
For that reason, a few leading zoos have focused their efforts on saving animals in the wild. One of the most vocal proponents of this approach is William Conway, senior conservationist and former director of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which runs the Bronx Zoo in New York City. 鈥淵ou can sustain tigers in captivity for a long time, but we鈥檙e not trying to preserve tigers in cages,鈥� he says.
Under Conway, the Bronx Zoo greatly increased its field conservation work, and now participates in 326 programmes-far more than any other zoo in the world. The zoo has helped governments around the world to create national parks and wildlife reserves. One effort has led to an interconnected network of reserves in Brazil covering 57,000 square kilometres of rainforest-an area larger than Switzerland-constituting the largest swathe of protected rainforest in the world. Besides working to set up the parks, the zoo helped train local people to look after them. In the Brazilian reserve, locals now act as custodians, patrolling for poachers and illegal loggers.
Zoos that want to make a serious contribution to conservation need to get more involved in field conservation, Conway says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no question it should be the top priority.鈥� If more zoos did this, he argues, it could make a big difference. There is encouraging evidence that more zoos have been getting involved. Conway says that a few years ago, the WCS sponsored more than half of all zoo-based field programmes. Now, he estimates its share is down to a third or a quarter.
But if the focus switches to conservation in the wild, why hang onto zoos at all? After all, organisations like the WWF and The Nature Conservancy funnel hundreds of millions of dollars each year into field conservation while avoiding all the practical and ethical worries of keeping animals in captivity. Captive animals cost a lot to maintain, and most zoos barely raise enough from ticket sales to make ends meet, let alone subsidise conservation.
Some zoos do manage to find substantial sums for conservation-the San Diego Zoo raised more than $10 million in 2000, for example. But almost all the money comes from private donations, government grants or membership dues for the zoological associations that run the zoos, not from people buying tickets to see the animals.
A notable exception is the popular Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit at the Bronx Zoo. Visitors pay a $3 supplement and then choose which of four conservation projects they鈥檇 like their money to go to. 鈥淚 hope that someday every visitor in every zoo will pay a special fee that鈥檚 the conservation portion,鈥� says Conway. That way people who go to the zoo would know that some of their money will go towards conservation. In the two years the Bronx Zoo鈥檚 gorilla exhibit has been open it has raised $2.5 million-an impressive sum, but paltry compared with the $40 million the WCS as a whole put into field conservation in the same period.
Zoos do have one advantage over other organisations when it comes to field conservation: their expertise with wild animals. 鈥淲e have highly trained vets who work with everything from elephants to alligators,鈥� says Conway. The WCS鈥檚 Field Veterinary Program sends vets with zoo experience into the wild, where they monitor the health of endangered populations, help identify diseases that may interfere with their recovery and anaesthetise animals so that they can be relocated or fitted with tracking devices.
This expertise develops because zoo researchers can study animals in a way that isn鈥檛 possible in the field. 鈥淎 lot of research can鈥檛 be done on free-ranging animals,鈥� says Michael Hutchins, president of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA). 鈥淚n captivity you can collect urine, faeces or blood, and you have to collect these things on a daily basis for some research.鈥�
Work with captive pandas, for example, has revealed the importance of scent cues in the animals鈥� breeding behaviour (快猫短视频, 30 September 2000, p 20). Male pandas are notoriously unromantic in captivity, but researchers from San Diego Zoo鈥檚 Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species found that males react very positively to scent marks left by females-especially ones on heat. This suggests that giving a male the chance to sniff the scent of a potential mate before meeting her face-to-face may make him more likely to mate with her. The biologists hope their research will boost the success rate of panda breeding programmes, which so far have resulted in only a few baby pandas, none of which has yet been reintroduced to the wild.
AZA members publish about 600 papers a year in scientific journals, says Hutchins. But while this sounds like an impressive number, most of this research has nothing to do with conservation-it鈥檚 geared towards better ways to maintain captive animals, not better ways to conserve wild ones. And Hutchins concedes that the quality of zoo research programmes varies tremendously. 鈥淲e think we do need to get better,鈥� he says. The AZA has set up a task force to look into ways to do that.
The other major contribution zoos can make is in raising people鈥檚 awareness of conservation issues. 鈥淧otentially there鈥檚 no more effective place for getting people to become excited about conservation,鈥� says David Hancocks, director of the Open Range Zoo in Werribee, Victoria, and a former director of two prominent zoos in the US. 鈥淚f we鈥檙e going to have really effective conservation programmes, we humans are going to have to change our ways. Zoos can both tug at the heart strings and make strong intellectual arguments as to why we should do that.鈥�
Zoos are certainly a good way to reach people. The AZA鈥檚 member institutions attracted 136 million visitors in 2000-greater than the combined attendance at all of America鈥檚 professional baseball, basketball, hockey and football games. If even a fraction of these visitors come away more aware about conservation and more committed to it, zoos would be doing an undeniably valuable job.
But are they achieving that? The answer is no-mostly. Several studies have shown that what people learn at the zoo is closely related to how the animals are displayed. In 1989, a survey of zoo visitors by Yale University psychologist Stephen Kellert found that visitors felt more favourably toward animals that were kept in conditions more like their natural habitat. In contrast, traditional zoos with animals in bare cages left people indifferent to or even afraid of the animals. After all, what does a 10-year-old learn from watching a tiger pace back and forth in a concrete enclosure, or a polar bear slouching in a tepid pool? 鈥淚t reinforces the idea that we鈥檙e smart and they鈥檙e dumb,鈥� says Hancocks.
He also believes zoos need to focus more on exhibits that show off the interactions between animals and their environments. One attraction already doing that is the 拢4.4-million Web of Life exhibit at London Zoo, which opened in 1999. It showcases the diversity of life through exhibits that illustrate how animals have adapted to such varied habitats as rainforest canopy, desert sands and ocean depths. Visitors learn which human activities threaten biodiversity and what they can do to conserve it. Part of the exhibit is an on-site breeding programme for critically endangered snails.
Such programmes are still the exception, but they represent the vanguard of a much broader move to refocus zoos鈥� conservation role. Professional organisations like the AZA and the British Federation of Zoos have done a great deal to raise zoo standards and promote conservation. Both groups look at zoos鈥� conservation efforts as part of their accreditation process (although only the BFZ requires some type of conservation work for membership), and both work to coordinate breeding programmes and other activities among their members. Yet most zoos don鈥檛 meet the qualifications for accreditation by these groups-only about a quarter of British zoos belong to the BFZ, and an even smaller fraction of North American zoos belong to the AZA. The rest tend to fall far short in terms of conservation. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 think of any [US] institution right now that isn鈥檛 accredited by the AZA that鈥檚 making a big contribution to conservation,鈥� says Hemley.
But the laggards may soon have to clean up their act-in Europe at least. The European Commission has passed a directive that will come into effect this April, requiring zoos to prove they are doing conservation work. 鈥淭here are some zoos that will have huge problems complying with the new criteria,鈥� says Miranda Stevenson, a zoo inspector and director of conservation programmes at the Zoological Society of London. Those that don鈥檛 comply risk being shut down.
The new standards require zoos to provide detailed information about their conservation, research and education programmes to zoo inspectors, who then decide whether those efforts are sufficient, given the zoo鈥檚 resources and purported mission. It remains to be seen, though, whether the new regulations will have teeth. Britain passed its version of the regulations in 2000, but zoo inspectors have only been required to use the new standards since March 2001. Therefore, Stevenson says, too few zoos have actually gone though the process to tell how it鈥檚 working.
Regulations aside, it鈥檚 relatively easy to judge whether a zoo is doing a good job at conservation and education. Ask the zoo whether it contributes to field conservation work or does conservation-related research, but be wary of claims about captive breeding programmes. 鈥淭he material zoos put out for public consumption vastly overstates their importance in this role,鈥� says Hancocks.
Yet some zoos-even those doing top-notch work-make little effort to explain their conservation programmes to the public. 鈥淓very zoo that has an endangered species has an obligation to make a contribution to conserving that species in the wild and to explain their work to the public in the exhibit of that animal,鈥� says Hemley.
Above all, a visit to a zoo should be educational and even a bit inspiring. 鈥淎 good zoo would leave you changed,鈥� Hancocks says. 鈥淵ou鈥檇 leave the zoo not just with a better understanding of the complexity and interdependence of nature and the extraordinary diversity of natural forms, but also with a passion for finding ways to make the world more environmentally harmonious.鈥� Most zoos have a long way to go.