COVID-19 effects on zoos and animal conservation

They will certainly justify it. It was a bit of a jab from me too, because there are many places with a high turnover/density of people in Bratislava, but the zoo is not one of them at all.

Yeah...about that... if there is a zoo where I seriously doubt it, it's Bratislava.

 

The WCS shared the following on their social media today:



~Thylo

 

Brilliant graphic design with a cool layout and nice succinct information.

I just hope people actually bother reading it (considering peoples attention spans on social media I'm not at all optimistic though) and that it works to stop the spread of misinformation and hysteria.

 

Muyi Xiao on Twitter

I have seen the above image circulating on the internet. I cannot vouch for its authenticity or for the above source being the original source, but it is presented as being a price list of some sort from a Wuhan wet market. I don't understand Chinese so I can only go by what sources tell me this is.

If your menu of available meats resembles the inventory of a zoo you are clearly doing something wrong AND asking for major trouble. Especially if the animals are kept, stored and processed in the repulsive conditions that generally abound at these wet markets, after being poached from the wild or raised in questionable conditions and taken to the market.

And now just because some backwards Chinese elites think eating wild animals will bring them health, pleasure, social standing and good luck the whole world has to grapple with a dangerous disease outbreak and economic fall-out and many are suffering and dying, including many of their compatriots and their own country.

Cracking down hard on this industry from now on and upholding and tightly enforcing the ban to root these practices out of Chinese society likely wouldn't prevent all future epidemics and pandemics, but it would definitely help make the world a better and safer place in terms of pathogenic threats. I really hope China will also understand that and do what needs to be done. If they don't it's only a matter of time before something goes viral out of on these places again. Unfortunately I don't think the Chinese Communist Party can be trusted to make smart environmental choices for their own country and the world, especially if money is involved...

 

This epidemic is one of many possible scenarios that could affect the tourism industry (financial recessions are another scenario, and a potential future scenario is the increase in "travel shaming" for taking too many emission-causing flights). This brings to light the risk of running a zoo that relies heavily on tourism revenue as opposed to a zoo that has a less volatile financial source, such as catering primarily to locals and/or having a large endowment to draw from and/or getting tax money. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if tourism-reliant zoos start offering steep discounts or even if some of them are forced to close.

 

Tiergarten Schönbrunn has just announced they will be closed until April 3rd under measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Zoo Vienna Schönbrunn

Several weeks is a long time for a zoo to be closed, I hope it won't become months because at that point most zoos would be in serious trouble.

 

Maybe it is more of a thing in America, I don't think there are many zoos in Europe that would be heavily reliant on foreign tourism...Pairi Diaza springs immediately to mind, but that is probably the only one...

That is a very bold claim.

 

I would think most zoos in large cities that are popular with tourists would at least to some extent be reliant on international tourism.

I'm not sure what you are calling a bold claim - the epidemic lasting months or zoos getting in trouble if this lasts months.

I will however readily admit that I have no inside knowledge on zoo finances, and I guess I should have added I made an assumption. I am mostly guessing that zoos have limited finances and savings and that going weeks or even months without entrance revenues and still having to pay for animal supplies, utilities and some staff salaries could cause financial problems that perhaps would not necessarily cause them to go out of business but could hamper operations and future investments for some time. Like any business zoos wouldn't be able to keep on going indefinitely without revenue or with severely depleted revenue. Presumably zoos have some safeguards against lean times and low seasons, but those reserves might get exhausted if this coronavirus situation lasts too long.

If governments implement economic aid to help business survive the economic fall-out from this epidemic my hope would be that zoos could also receive some of that if they are in need.

In a pinch the public and zoo fans might even have to come to the aid to keep some places in existence.

At this point no-one can say how long we will be dealing with this coronavirus. But I fear things could last a while.

 

In this thread of Reddit, this list was translated, and a Japanese person also translated this list on his personal blog.

I translated this list by referenced that two translated things.

1st column
活孔雀: Live peacock
孔雀肉: Peacock meat
活大雁: Live goose
大雁肉: Goose meat
去骨大雁肉: Boneless Goose meat
活鸿雁: Live wild goose
活火鸡: Live turkey
活闘鶏: Live gamecock, or Live shamo chicken
活野鸡: Live pheasant
野鸡肉: Pheasant meat
斑鸠: Turtle dove
竹鸡: Chinese bamboo partridge (Bambusicola thoracicus)
藏鸡: Tibetan chicken
线鸡: Capon
育槟鸟: Some kind of bird
蜈蚣: Centipede

2nd column
活鸭豚: Live muscovy duck
活珍珠鸡: Live guinea fowl
活贵妃鸡: Live chicken, spotted kind
鹧鸪: Chinese francolin (Francolinus pintadeanus)
土鸽: Rock dove
铁雀: Sparrow, or Longspur
活白鹅: Live white goose
香椿鸟: Some kinds of grouse
活鸵鸟: Live ostrich
鸵鸟肉: Ostrich meat
鸵鸟掌: Ostrich feet
鸵鸟肾: Ostrich testicles
鸵鸟蛋: Ostrich eggs
野山羊: Wild goat
毛野兔: Some kind of hare?
金蝉: Cicada larvae

3rd column
活蝎子: Live scorpion
活蜗牛: Live snail
蜗牛肉: Snail meat
蜂蛹: Bee pupa and larvae
蚕蛹: Silkworm pupa
蚂蚱: Locust
木虫: Longhorn beetle larvae
竹虫: larvae of moth, species chinese named '笋蠹螟'（sǔndùmíng）
活竹鼠: Live bamboo rat
竹鼠肉: Bamboo rat meat
活麝香鼠: Live asian house shrew (Suncus murinus)
活青根貂: Live muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus)
活海狸鼠: Live nutria
袋鼠肉: Kangaroo meat
松鼠肉: Squirrel meat
活狐狸: Live fox

4th column
狐狸肉: Fox meat
活狼仔: Live wolf pup
狼仔肉: Wolf pup meat
活果子狸: Live masked civet
果子狸肉: Masked civet meat
活刺猬: Live hedgehog
刺猬肉: Hedgehog meat
活狗狸獾: Live asian badger
活猪狸獾: Live ferret badger
花猪肉: Spotted pig meat(some kind of pig)
活石头猪: Live stone pig(some kind of pig)
狍子肉: Roe deer meat
杂交野猪肉: Hybrid wild hog meat
野猪肚: Wild boar tripe
活野猪: Live wild boar
野猪肉: Wild boar meat

5th column
活豚鼠: Live guinea pig
活荷兰猪: Live guinea pig
活藏香猪: Live tibetan fragrant pig
活豪猪: Live porcupine
活湘猪: Live Xiang pig
香猪肉: Fragrant pig meat
牦牛肉: Yak meat
牦牛掌: Yak feet
骆驼肉: Camel meat
骆驼掌: Camel feet
骆驼峰: Camel hump
活梅花鹿: Live sika deer
小活鹿: Live baby deer
鹿白条: Fresh full deer meat, cut out head and another small things.
冷鲜鹿肉: Refrigerated deer meat
鹿腿: Deer leg

6th column
鹿腩: Deer sirloin
鹿血: Deer blood
鹿筋: Deer sinew
干鹿筋: Dried deer sinew
鹿茸: Deer antler
鹿里脊: Deer tenderloin
袋裝鹿肉: Venison in bags
鹿鞭: Deer penis
鹿排: Deer steak
活麂子: Live muntjack
麂子肉: Muntjack meat
娃娃鱼苗: Baby chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus)
活娃娃鱼: Live chinese giant salamander
活鳄鱼: Live alligator
鳄鱼肉: Alligator meat
鳄鱼苗: Baby aligator

7th column
鳄鱼尾: Alligator tail
鳄鱼掌: Alligator foot
鳄鱼鞭: Alligator penis
鳄鱼肚: Alligator stomach
鳄鱼舌: Alligator tongue
鳄鱼肠: Alligator intestine
活鳄鱼龟: Live snapping turtle, Whether it is a alligator or a common is unclear, and it may be both.
活山龟: Live turtle, maybe captured from mountain.
活山瑞甲鱼: Live wattle-necked softshell turtle (Palea steindachneri)
活水貂: Live mink
活树熊: Live bamboo rats ('树熊'(shùxióng) originally means 'Koala', but that is not real koala. According to a Japanese blog that I referred to it, the research found that bamboo rats(芒鼠) were distributed in the area, calling them '树熊')
带皮乌梢蛇: Big-eyed Ratsnake (Ptyas dhumnades) with scales
去皮乌梢蛇: Big-eyed Ratsnake without scales
大蛇条肉: Long shape snake meat
活海蛇: Live sea snake
活虎纹蛙: Live Chinese edible frog (Hoplobatrachus rugulosus)

 

Thank you very much for your effort @dt644 !

All I can say is this is rather shocking, but not at all surprising for China.

No less infuriating to see this under the current circumstances, though.

 

One zoo (or rather institution) I am quite worried about is Singapore. With the island and its collections so heavily relying on the tourism industry, surely they must be taking a major financial hit.

As for zoos in general, I don't think the issue will so much be a reduction in tourism, but rather a reduction in public recreational activities as a whole. It's become a pretty common warning now to avoid large public gatherings or at least areas with large clusters of people when unnecessary. Additionally, the increasingly public knowledge that this is a zoonotic disease may put a lot of people off from going to a place where anywhere between dozens to thousands of animals are all in close proximity to large groups of people clustered together.

This likely will not be a problem in the immediate future, but if this pandemic is not contained within the coming weeks we may see a much greater impact on some of our favorite collections.

~Thylo

 

Who would eat a deer penis?

 

People eat tiger penis. People also eat fish sperm.

Hell, in the US people eat bull/bison testicles regularly.

~Thylo

 

In Morocco sheep testicles are eaten as well, I'm pretty sure it's the same in most of northern africa.

 

Poland is closing all zoos, together with museums, schools, universities etc., in effort to slow the spread.

 

There is no fundamental difference between eating deer penis and eating venison, which millions of Americans do every year.

More generally:

I agree that conditions in China were probably a big part in the emergence of COVID19. Actually, the biggest finger should be pointed at the officials who had some knowledge of the virus in early January and covered it up, be they in Wuhan or Beijing. But no doubt the combination of wet market and large population centre is an awful one.

However, some context. Wet markets are not unique to China, they are a common feature of human society prior to a certain point in development. The idea that China is in some sense different from India, Indonesia or Nigeria (to name but three) in this regard seems highly unlikely to me (happy to be taken up on this point). Similarly, the consumption of wild meat is the default, and it would be a surprise to those Australians who have the occasional kangaroo steak, the Brit enjoying his pheasant or an American and her venison to find they are commiting some sort of societal sin.

Should China have kept the wet market ban in place after SARS? Absolutely. The price is now being paid for that. But even in a system like China's, political capital must be spent to change social norms. How many countries have toothless conservation laws because the officials tasked with enforcing them are not interested? Similarly, these kinds of developments need the technological support of a society around them. If you want to only sell meat that is disease-free in a hygenic environment you are going to need the tools to do that and a population that is skilled in the use of the tools. Just passing a law isn't enough.

Now, in hindsight we can say that China should have put the necessary resources into this problem, as they no doubt could have done. And it's true that for much of the last two decades the Chinese government devoted too much time and money to invading the South China Sea, to interfering in Australian politics and to persecuting minorities. However, here is a statistic that might give you pause: in 2002 the poverty rate was 31.7%. In 2015 (the last year I could consistently find data for) the poverty rate was 0.7%. That means that since SARS 400 million people in China have left poverty.

Nobody would argue that this hasn't come without a cost, both human and ecological. Certainly, there have been many opportunities missed to develop more sustainably. But I think often when people talk about China they really have almost no idea what they are talking about.

 

Woodland park zoo has closed at least until the 31st, the whole of Seattle is closing all public gatherings to slow the spread so as to not overwhelm hospitals.

 

Not just zoos being adversely impacted either as it will also likely negatively effect ecotourism which contributes heavily to funding ex-situ conservation of endangered species particularly in the tropics.

 

Citation needed! I quite like a venison steak, a penis sausage on the other hand, not quite as appealing to me!

And that's one of the reasons I'm glad to have you as a friend, a bit of insight into a country few of us know any specific details about. (I mean living conditions, current attitudes, etc. Not the history and wildlife, along with more general things.)