| Animal rights groups are asking Calgarians to protest the Calgary Zoo’s plans to bring marine mammals to the city because they say it’s inhumane to keep such animals in captivity.
The zoo has already announced that it will have polar bears and seals as part of a new Arctic exhibit, and Zoocheck Canada and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) say they’ve also received phone calls from Calgary Zoo staff who say there are plans to have beluga whales as well.
Sherry Rainsforth, director of conservation, education and research at the Calgary Zoo, says so far it has only decided on polar bears and seals.
"We’re looking at a number of other species from the Arctic because our objective is to do a natural simulation of the Arctic ecosystem," she says.
Julie Woodyer, campaigns director for Zoocheck Canada, says her organization has heard from more than one Calgary Zoo employee. "They are very concerned about the concept of whales coming to the zoo because they feel that those animals won’t be able to be provided for adequately in a tank in the zoo," says Woodyer. "We’re calling on the zoo supporters to deliver a resounding no to marine mammals at the Calgary Zoo."
The zoo had two polar bears in the past, but Patrick Tohill, campaigns and communications manager for WSPA, says they ended up on Prozac because of "extreme pacing behaviours, head bobbing and weaving."
"The Calgary Zoo doesn’t have a good track record with polar bears. We would ask them to abandon the idea of keeping polar bears and, in fact, other marine mammals," he says.
Rainsforth says the Calgary Zoo decided to stop housing polar bears years ago because the zoo knew there were problems.
"We demolished the previous polar bear exhibit because we knew we had to do it better," says Rainsforth. "The most sought after animal for years has been polar bears…. We’ve got so much more information and research on an appropriate habitat for polar bears and that’s what we’ve been doing a lot of work on."
Last year, the zoo housed two polar bears temporarily, which proved very popular with Calgarians.
Naomi Rose, marine mammal scientist for Humane Society International, the international arm of the Humane Society of the United States, says there’s no justification for keeping polar bears and whales in captivity. She says both species have low reproductive rates in captivity, and very few zoos or marine facilities are returning captive bred mammals to the wild. She adds that marine mammals suffer in captivity.
"(Polar bears) are extremely wide ranging. They cover tens of thousands of square miles… but when they’re put into confinement in a facility, no matter how big their display is, it’s not big enough," she says.
Rose says if the Calgary Zoo acquires whales, Calgarians should question where they come from. Rose says many beluga whales that end up in zoos or other facilities are captured through "incredibly traumatic" methods and adds that it has become a very lucrative business that has attracted "unsavoury characters."
"When you look at the sordid underbelly, what you find out is these animals are traded. They are captured in ways that are not just cruel, but in fact are unsustainable," she says.
Rose, who has observed marine mammals at dozens of facilities around the world and has fought to end the captivity of marine mammals for years, says belugas display similar behaviour to polar bears in captivity.
"They swim in a repetitive circle, they surface at the same time, they breathe the exact same number of times, they use the exact same number of fluke strokes to make a circle," says Rose. "I just feel that it’s inherently problematic to keep these species in captivity. I don’t think they’re suited for it."
Rainsforth says the Calgary Zoo is accredited with both the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and adds that it "meets or exceeds" all of those organizations’ standards.
She says the zoo’s number one priority is the welfare of all its animals. |
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