Zoo liberation group fails in wild ambition for animals in Pont-Scorff zoo | World | The Times An English article focusing on the latest updates. It has a pay wall.
Someone on Facebook has very helpfully put an entire transcript in a comment under a link to the aforementioned Times article: Zoo liberation group fails in wild ambition for animals in Pont-Scorff zoo Activists who raised €700,000 to buy a French zoo and return its animals to the wild have been criticised as unrealistic. Rewild, a coalition of seven animal rights groups, bought the Pont-Scorff zoo in Brittany a year ago after a crowdfunding campaign backed by Marc Simoncini, the founder of Meetic, a dating site, and Hugo Clément, a television journalist and environmentalist. The coalition vowed to “liberate” the 560 animals, including lions, giraffes, elephants and pandas, by returning them to the wild or by putting them in sanctuaries in their countries of origin. Yet Le Monde said no animals had been released and argued that most would struggle in the wild. Sergio Lopez, chairman of Wildlife Angel, a wildlife charity, said: “Almost all the animals are not releasable.” Julie Lasne, an animal consultant, said the project had “no health or scientific basis”. The interior ministry published a report last autumn denouncing “major failings” in the running of the zoo. The coalition said it had inherited many of these problems. The group claims it has agreement from authorities in France and in the Seychelles to return two giant turtles to the Indian Ocean island. Jérôme Pensu, co-founder of Rewild, said: “The defenders of the captivity industry hide between educational arguments . . . for them, the animal is only an object for generating profit.”
Well, there were few news articles in the last few days but nothing really interesting was said. Nevertheless, we learned two infos : - they didn't paid the price for the purchase of the zoo. It seems that the previous owner gave them five years to pay it. So the 700.000 euros raised were used for the running costs which is not fair for the donators (as they gave for the purchase at the beginning) and don't guarantee they could pay at the end ! - the return for the Aldabra's giant tortoises is compromised as there is a problem with the tortoises origins. Zoo le Cornelle, Italy, claims the two tortoises are its property as they were on loan to the zoo but Rewild coalition produced a certificate of ownership with a french citizen as the seller (which was a keeper in the zoo in 2014). Who knows the reallity ?! What is sure it will takes time for justice to be done. Last comment : The coalition spoke about many historical problems and that's right but forget something clear under french law. They purchase the company which is the real owner of the zoo. So for the french authorities the owner didn't change and in this way Rewild can't put the blame on the seller. They know the rules when they purchased and they have to respect them now, immediately ; no matter what happen before (even it was not normal).
Another evidence that animal rights activists can only accuse effective for the public, but are not able to improve the situation/solve the problem when it is their turn to act... I wish the responsible authorities will confiscate the zoo and will hand it over to a company with animal keeping experience.
@Junklekitteb: FYI: Zootierliste list them as Western/Nepalese Red Pandas in the "actual holdings" (= aktuelle Haltungen) page for Pont-Scorff.
Important info from monday : Centre Athénas, one of the two major partners with SeaShepherd France, decided to leave the project after significant desagreement with the other members on the future. They indicated they want to concentrate on their main goal that is rescuing and releasing wild animals in the east of France. Moreover they told that the project is not financially secure and SeaShepherd is obliged to put money each time to go on. Now the project relies on two members : SeaShepherd France and Biome (the last one is just one person in fact). Facebook
For goodness sake, when does the magistrate's office take its duties seriously and shuts down this charade of an operation and bring these organisations judicially to task. It could be argued that from the outset it was clear no experience, no expertise nor any clue how to manage an animal collection ... that alone should have been a red flag. It is high time, an organisation or zoo management group take over this facility and start running it proper. Public authority why do you let it slip like that, if it where a proper zoo it would have been shut down within weeks and months of failure or going into receivership.
If a zoo in this condition was in the hands of a utilitarian then people would be mad and would do anything to take away the animals from the zoo.
If there was a zoo which was built for a monetary purpose or simply for the pleasure of the owner, then people would have protested much more often about the treatment of those animals than the activists mismanagement. Then again most protest organizations are anti utilitarian when both should be protested in equal levels.
There are plenty of zoos that were built for a monetary purpose out there, I am not an animal rights activist by any means but personally I am not particularly keen on collections of that kind either.
@Kifaru Bwana From what I know french law is one of the more restrictive about creating or running a zoo. But you know better than me that there is law and there is economy. This zoo was really in a poor situation (zoological and economical) for a few years now and for me no one could save it. It would take more money to get this zoo back on its feet than to create another one. But it was a visitors attraction and it gave some jobs to the area....always the same. It's exactly the case of Zoo des Trois Vallées which was closed by a minister and will be save by the local authorities (even if it is one of the two worst in the country).
