December 2021 – Blood Lions

Youth For Lions Blog: A visit to the zoo or a captive wildlife facility – education or edutainment?

Written by Youth Ambassador, Stephanie Emmy Klarmann and published with permission

There are some heated debates about the value of captive wildlife facilities and zoos. Many are firmly situated in the belief that animals in small enclosures and cages do not educate visitors or serve an important conservation purpose. There are others, however, who argue that seeing animals in captivity educates visitors and encourages them to care. I personally can’t help but wonder what the public is learning when they witness an animal standing against a fence or sleeping in an unnaturally small space. Even more importantly, does this type of education result in pro-conservation behaviour?

I want you to consider for a moment the last time you may have viewed an animal in a cage or enclosure. What was the animal doing? What was it eating? Was the animal alone or in a natural social group? How much space was provided for them to roam? Did the enclosure provide any enrichment for the animal? The reality in many captive facilities is that the animals were likely to be pacing or lying down. They may be fed a diet comprising unnatural supplements to mimic the nutrients they would normally receive in the wild. Their natural social groupings have been artificially created, while some may be entirely alone.

With the latest scientific findings in the IPBES report (2019), we know with certainty that we need to protect biodiversity now more than ever. Education is therefore an important start to understanding how and why conservation of the natural world and its wildlife is so vital. However, we need to question the real value of a captive facility or zoo, where the animals remain in cages and enclosures much smaller than their natural habitats. We also need to question if these facilities live up to their promise of educating visitors about the importance of wildlife and conservation.

In South Africa, several zoos have faced serious welfare criticisms. Two years ago, the Johannesburg Zoo faced an outcry for keeping a lone elephant despite knowing that elephants depend heavily on herd structures in the wild (HSI, 2019). The Pretoria Zoo has been similarly criticized for its treatment towards a lone elephant despite calls to have him relocated to a suitable sanctuary (The Daily Maverick, 2021). In both cases, rather than acting on the animals’ welfare and wellbeing, decisions revolved around keeping more elephants in small enclosures, unlike the vast plains they would naturally roam, to attract paying visitors. The Bloemfontein Zoo was eventually closed due to a serious lack of funds resulting in animals living in substandard conditions with little food or veterinary care (The Citizen, 2020).

The welfare of South Africa’s wild animals is in the hopelessly wrong hands of the food police – this has to change urgently

This is an excerpt from an article written by Don Pinnock and published online by Daily Maverick on 09 December, 2021

The welfare of wild animals in South Africa is being thrown under a bus by dithering departments and inappropriate legislators.

Giving the job of drafting wild animal welfare legislation to the Department of Agriculture is like asking a jackal to look after your ducks. It’s the wrong department for the job. They’re the food police. They administer the Meat Safety Act, the Animal Improvement Act, chopping trees, drought relief, catching fish, pets, draft and performing animals, and exporting sheep. Their vision is sustainable agriculture and food security, for God’s sake.

If you put “animal welfare” into the search box on its website you get Animal Production, Wildlife Ranching, Aquaculture and Animal Improvement. Yet for almost two decades they’ve been tasked with drawing up an Animal Welfare Act. Doesn’t show.

Michele Pickover of the EMS Foundation got it right when she said: “We urgently need new legislative protection for wild animals, but DALRRD lack the competency to write it. Also, the department’s business is slaughter and production plus they’re in bed with the industry. They’re the wrong people to be tasked with wild animal welfare.”

Right now there’s a team of vets supposedly writing an Animal Welfare Bill. Outsiders are not welcome. When the job’s done, they say they’ll consult other stakeholders. The drafters, all Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) insiders, have limited expertise in ethical conservation management, biodiversity policies, wildlife trade legislation or animal protection, economics and welfare. Even Parliament raised a red flag.

Animal welfare bill being developed in isolation

This is an excerpt from an article written by Sheree Bega and published online by Mail & Guardian on 2 December, 2021

A giraffe that was decapitated in 2014 when a transporting vehicle moving the animal to a game farm drove under a low bridge in Pretoria; captive lions found neglected and starving on a lion farm in Limpopo and a lion “abattoir” in the Free State to feed the lion bone trade.

These are some examples of legislative shortcomings where standards for domestic animals are applied across the whole range of wild animals, with “often dire results”, according to a 22 November report on animal welfare by a parliamentary research unit.

It describes how a June 2018 joint report by the Centre for Environmental Rights and the Endangered Wildlife Trust found that the existing regulatory environment is inadequate to manage proliferating commercial private wildlife facilities.

South Africa has split the animal welfare mandate between the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment (DFFE) and the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development (DALRRD).

But various reports, according to the parliamentary document, have highlighted the inability of these departments to work together to regulate norms and standards relating to the welfare of wildlife in captivity.