Jessica Scott-Reid is a freelance journalist and animal advocate based in Winnipeg.
There has been a notable change among some zoos and aquariums across Canada. Some facilities that once allowed African elephants to be ridden by children, forced dolphins to dance and shipped pandas from China for temporary exhibits, no longer want to be considered sources of mere exhibition and entertainment. Today, some of the most well-known zoos and aquariums in Canada want consumers to instead consider them as partners in conservation, education, research and even the reintroduction of wild animals back into the environment. But while the marketing messaging may have shifted, and to a minor degree some practices, experts warn that much of this move is simply conservation-washing.
Like the term greenwashing, and perhaps the lesser-known humane-washing and blue-washing, conservation-washing denotes a strategy to influence public perception – in this case about the purposes and practices of facilities that hold wild animals in captivity. Conservation-washing works to position zoos and aquariums as beneficial rather than exploitative, and as helpful rather than harmful. The motivation behind the strategy is to appeal to a consumer base that is growing increasingly critical of animal captivity. In Canada, a 2019 survey found that 52 per cent of the population opposes keeping animals in zoos and aquariums (rising to 56 per cent among younger demographics), with another survey in 2020 putting that number at 51 per cent.
Rob Laidlaw, a chartered biologist and founder of Zoocheck Canada, a wildlife protection organization, points to the 2019 passing of Bill S-203, known popularly as the Free Willy Bill, as evidence of the start of this cultural shift among Canadians, and “a sort of a wake-up call to zoos” that something had to change. The Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act makes it illegal to hold any new whales, dolphins or porpoises captive in Canada for entertainment or any purpose aside from rescue and rehabilitation, punishable by fines up to $200,000. The law does not, however, ban holding whales and dolphins already in captivity. After the death of Kiska the killer whale at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ont., this past March, Humane Canada estimates there are still around 50 beluga whales and dolphins in captivity at the amusement park. In August, The Canadian Press reported that the Ontario Solicitor-General had accounted for the deaths of 13 beluga whales, one killer whale and one dolphin at Marineland in the four years since Bill S-203 was passed.
Since the passing of the Free Willy bill, facilities still housing whales and dolphins, along with some top zoos, have been working to reassure the public that wild animal captivity remains something worth enjoying and, more importantly, something worth paying for. Commercials, billboards and websites extol the virtues of certain Canadian zoos and aquariums as rescuers of wildlife, aiding at-risk species (both at home and away), educating children, and assisting with reintroducing animals back into the wild. But as Mr. Laidlaw explains, while some progress is being made in these areas, “it is a very, very tiny part of zoo operations.”
A statement provided to me by Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA), a private charity that includes 23 member facilities including Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto and the Edmonton Valley Zoo, says “CAZA members are and have been undertaking conservation work for many years, in Canada and internationally. The advent of social media platforms has created a tool to more effectively share that work with Canadians. Now there is even greater collaboration in driving these efforts forward.” The statement continues: “Animals in zoos and aquariums can help [with the] conservation of their wild counterparts in many ways, including addressing primary threats, offsetting the impacts of threats, buying time so species do not go extinct (holding insurance populations), as well as restoring them to the wild.”
But as some animal advocates point out, for every turtle or marmot bred and reintroduced into the wild by a zoo in Canada, many other native and non-native animals continue to be held captive for the entirety of their lives by those same facilities. “Zoos and aquariums love talking about their captive breeding programs, especially the ones where they are doing reintroduction,” explains Camille Labchuk, executive director of the Canadian animal-law organization Animal Justice. “Yes, this happens, but it happens in a very, very small number of cases and a very small number of species compared to the ones they confine.”
For example, the Toronto Zoo – considered one of the best in the country, holding accreditation from both CAZA and the international Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) – reported last year that it had successfully released more than 1,000 small native animals into the wild, such as ferrets and turtles, since the program began. However, the facility also continues to hold captive more than 5,000 other animals, the vast majority for their whole lives, including lions, tigers, gorillas and giraffes. And while the equally accredited Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg reports successfully releasing more than 200 endangered native butterflies last year, it also continues to hold captive more than 150 different species of animals, including kangaroos, monkeys and camels. Ms. Labchuk calls the emphasis on this small aspect of zoo and aquarium practice “window dressing.”
Ms. Labchuk explains that zoos often try to “cloak themselves” in claims about beneficial practices, such as conservation, research and education. “There is this message that zoos will inspire the next generation to care about animals,” she says. “But the evidence is lacking.” For example, a study published in the journal Conservation Biology surveyed 2,800 children aged 7 to 15, after a visit to the London Zoo, to see what they had learned. The researchers found that 66 per cent of children showed no indication of learning anything new about animals or conservation after their unguided tour of the exhibits, and 59 per cent learned nothing new even when guided by an educator.
According to Lesley Fox, executive director of the Fur-Bearers, a Canadian charitable organization that protects fur-bearing wildlife, the utilization of conservation and education messaging by zoos and aquariums serves to “provide a false sense of reassurance.” She says, “Most people like animals, they like being near them, and they want to feel good about being near them. But generally, wildlife do not want to be near people.”
The current fundamentals of wildlife conservation being employed by many zoos and aquariums have been largely informed not by animal advocates, Ms. Fox explains, but by hunters, governments and colonialist models. “The North American wildlife model, what we know about wildlife management, is super dated and based on colonial constructs,” she explains. (There have been recent calls to decolonize conservation.) “Conservation is often viewed through the lens of hunting and use [of animals], but in recent years animal advocates and some environmentalists have been working really hard to reclaim what it means to be a conservationist, to challenge the status quo, [and to recognize] that conservation is really about using less.”
She points to a growing, albeit debated movement known as “compassionate conservation,” which values co-existence with wildlife, rather than control over it. The movement strives to do conservation work with the least amount of harm possible and to view animals as individuals rather than as grouped populations, avoiding extinction-status terms such as “in danger” or “stable” so that we don’t only view animals as worthy of our attention when they’re at risk. Through the lens of compassionate conservation, the acts of capturing, transporting, holding, breeding and/or exhibiting wildlife in zoo or aquarium settings are, in most cases, unjustifiable.
CAZA admits that “while the [conservation] efforts of individual members [zoos and aquariums] should be highlighted, the need is too big and no one facility will be able to fully meet the need in Canada.” It adds that “more than 70 Canadian species have a Recovery Plan identifying a role for an ex-situ (in human care) population. CAZA’s Conservation Committee is currently developing a formal process to ensure action will follow upon planning for these and other species.”
But why should any facility plan to keep animals in captivity at all? Both Ms. Fox and Mr. Laidlaw say that when it comes to questioning the motivations of zoos and aquariums in the conservation space, we need to follow the money. For example, Ms. Fox suggests looking at how much a facility budgets for its conservation programs in comparison to how much it budgets for enhancing its gift shops. However, finding that information can be difficult, Mr. Laidlaw notes. “Precise, credible stats that meaningfully break down conservation spending by Canadian zoos are not easily accessible,” he explains.
The reason: “The zoo definition of conservation can be exceptionally broad and include, or be lumped together with, a range of expenditures associated with educational activities, animal housing and care, staff salaries and costs, local, regional, national and international meetings, new exhibit construction, enclosure upgrading and repairs, research projects, external project support and pretty much anything else zoos may choose, rightly or not, to characterize as, or include with, conservation.” He adds that zoos and aquariums with substantial budgets “ranging from the single-digit millions to tens of millions of dollars annually, suggest they are saving species and repopulating the wild, but the number of species where they’ve actually done that is almost negligible.” In other words, he says, “if one were to look at return on investment, namely the number of species successfully re-established in the wild by zoos, zoo conservation could quite reasonably be viewed as a very poor investment.”
Though Mr. Laidlaw does have “cautious optimism” and sees “cracks in the dam” when it comes to changes being made to old models of zoos and aquariums in Canada, so far, he says, “that change has not kept pace with criticism.” But it appears Canadian lawmakers are pushing zoos to pick up the pace. Most recently, Bill S-15, introduced in the Senate last month, “would achieve a phase-out of elephant and great ape captivity over time,” according to a statement from Animal Justice, “by prohibiting zoos and private individuals from acquiring new animals or breeding existing ones, and would outlaw the use of these animals in entertainment performances.”
Bill S-15 incorporates aspects of another, the Jane Goodall Act (a proposed amendment to the Criminal Code that would regulate and protect wild animals and plants), which was first introduced in 2020 and remains before the Senate today. The Goodall Act would in part put new legal restrictions on which animals can and cannot be held in captivity, banning the new (but not existing) captivity of great apes, elephants, big cats, bears, wolves, seals, sea lions, walruses, certain monkeys and certain reptiles. While both bills are meant to build on the Free Willy legislation and are considered by most animal advocates as a step in the right direction, they remain limited in capacity and in many ways offer mere Band-Aid solutions to human-made problems.
Ultimately, Mr. Laidlaw says, “if zoos really want to be seen in the way they are portraying themselves right now, they have to become advocates for animals, and the current model doesn’t lend itself to being advocates for change.”
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
