How can we improve Zoos and Aquariums?

There is a paper on this regarding a researcher from Paignton zoo V.A. Melfi which is very interesting, it is called "There Are Big Gaps in Our Knowledge, and Thus Approach, to Zoo Animal Welfare: A Case for Evidence-Based Zoo Animal Management".

I'll put some quotes here:

"As has been acknowledged in previous sections of this article, an appreciation of animal welfare requires a full understanding of the animals’ needs in order to determine whether the variety of captive conditions currently being provided meet their needs. This is a huge task that is not going to be satisfied if research interests continue in their current direction. A review of zoo research, undertaken in British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) member zoos since 1998, demonstrates that the majority of studies undertaken are on just a few species (Table 1 and Fig. 2); there is a distinct lack of research being undertaken on certain taxa, notably all nonmammals!"

"These data show that 690/774 projects were undertaken on mammals and of these 490 focused on primates. A similar trend is also apparent in a review of zoo research undertaken in Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) member zoos, reported by Stoinski et al. [1998], where a heavy emphasis on mammal research is again noted; studies were highest in primates4 carnivores>hoofstock>birds>reptiles>amphibians>fish."

"A review of 744 environmental enrichment studies published between 1985–2004 carried out by Azevedo et al. [2007] noted a clear and dramatic taxa bias; most studies were undertaken on mammals (92.2%)4birds (8.2%)4fish (0.4%)4reptiles (0.57%)4 amphibians (0%)4invertebrates (0.57%). This bias toward primates and charismatic megafauna hinders our understanding of the biology and welfare needs of many different species."

Breakdown of studies conducted:

"The number of studies carried out in BIAZA member zoos (from 1998–2008) are highly biased towards mammals; there are more studies undertaken on two mammal species (N 5 90, Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus) than on the non-mammal taxa of birds, reptiles, fishes, amphibian and invertebrate (N 5 84

Mammals: 690, Primates: 415 Great apes: 152, Cercopithecidae : 94, New World Monkeys & Callatrichids: 84, Lemurs : 27, Carnivores : 89, Felids : 43 (species studies 4), Elephants & giraffes : 56."

 

Yes, I agree that it varies from species to species and is not necessarily limited to the overall size and that many smaller species are in fact as equally difficult to maintain as larger taxa.

For example, look at the difficulties with the pied tamarin (incredibly difficult to maintain), mountain chicken and black lion tamarin (all species worth keeping ex-situ in zoos though) or how seemingly impossible it is to maintain the tarsier in optimum conditions for its wellbeing (a species that is not worth keeping in zoos).

Yes, I am talking about a reduction because it seems to me that you cannot have an increase in these species without a reduction in resources and space allocated and focus on the other (resources are finite and particularly in this challenging period that we live in).

As much as I would like to believe that zoos are capable of balancing this and I believe that there have been signs that zoos are improving in this regard I am still hesitant to believe that they are optimizing this in terms of conservation output.

Again the quote from the article I suggested in one of my first comments :

"Pie in the sky, critics of the zoo will say—and not without reason. Today, the zoo is standing at a crossroads—and has to decide if it will fully commit to the new paradigm and develop into a conservation center or if it will degenerate (further) into a venue for entertainment that will provoke increasing criticism, not only from animal protectionist but also from wildlife conservationists."

I am a wildlife conservationist / conservation biologist and not by any stretch of the imagination an animal rights activist but even though I deeply appreciate zoos I feel they need to change and improve in terms of conservation output by not focusing on megafauna as much.

 

Still decreasing too much megafauna can lead to economical problems, eventually leading to even fewer species kept. For a zoo like Planckendael for example removing their giraffe, elephants or lions would only bring economical downturn whilst Pakawi park can easily get rid of 2 out of their 3 lion groups, 2 out of 4 leopards, etc. without much problems. Or Pairi Daiza could reduce the number of brown bears by half. I can agree with reducing the number of individuals kept of megafauna, especially for megafauna that is present in numbers far greater then needed for the breeding program. Wether you have a pair of tigers or several pairs matters much less, and as tigers are after all popular animals there is no need to have several pairs in one zoo. Reducing the number of megafauna species is far more dangerous, especially when talking about non-similar species (reducing from 3 to 1 bear species is different then getting rid of giraffes and elephants but keeping 1 bear species). With species like giraffes, white rhino and Indian rhino also easily kept with other species (something that should still be done more often for the latter) you can actually keep less popular species whilst maintaining a highlight exhibit.

This is very controversial, and seems to me very much different from zoo to zoo. I's not really the presence of megafauna that often decides this, but rather the mentality of the zoo in question and how they use that megafauna. Both Pakawi park and Planckendael have giraffes and elephants, but Planckendael has in-situ programs focussed on both species (water conflicts and creating corridors) whilst Pakawi has neither. Blijdorp also has a large amount of megafauna with giraffes, lions, elephants, zebra, tigers, polar bears, ... but also an excellent track record in in-situ conservation support as well as ex-situ support of rare reptiles.

 

Some good points have been mentioned so far.
I would like to add two others: I wish that zoos would start to reach out to a larger demographic audience. Too often, zoos are advertising themselves as mainly kid-friendly family attractions. Nothing wrong with that, but it limits their public image and outreach. A teenager or childless adult will have a hard time taking a "kiddie attraction" seriously. And the zoo education seems to fail them. I see that all too often in WdG, but as an observer in other zoos as well: the children often know way more about animals and nature than the accompanying teens and the adults. Somehow, most of the latter seem to lose the interest and knowledge they had as kids while growing up. Yet trust me: the inherent fascination is still there - you just have to approach it differently. And I think zoos and aquaria should focus more on these different educational approaches and market themselves as more than just kiddie attractions.
Furthermore, I wish zoos would be more consequent when advertising "going green". All the colorful graphics and big mottos mean little if you're selling industrial fast food full of palm oil, commercially fished tuna or factory farming meat products (on non-returnable plastic dishes that you put on illegally harvested tropical rainforest hardwood tables) in your zoo restaurant, über-kitschy plastic trash souvenirs, disposable plastic ponchos and other trash in your gift shop while driving everything around in energy-inefficient vehicles. Practice what you preach.

 

I guess we will have agree to respectfully disagree about this one.

To be clear and on an ending note I'm not advocating getting rid of megafauna entirely, I'm just saying there needs to be a paradigm shift and a reduction in these kinds of species kept.

 

Both of these would be very beneficial changes to zoos around the world. I especially feel that expanding the intended audience to cater towards adults and teens would be a good way to further the educational reach of zoos, especially when you consider most kids have short attention spans and don't come to zoos for the purpose of learning. Many adult visitors would actually be interested in learning about the animals they see, but I can't say the same thing about kids.

 

We will probably always disagree on it, but in the end what we think doesn't matter as it's what the average person thinks that matters. And so far, the general public still wants to see big animals they can relate to. We can try to fight that as conservationists, or we can try to follow the stream and nudge here and there. And in this case, fighting it is trying to fight our own natural tendency to connect with large charismatic mammal species.

In the end everyone has different reasons to do things, even for something as simply as going to a zoo. Some seek pleasure, some seek knowledge and others seek conservation. What I do tend to find in your vision is that the simple pleasure-seekers, which are by far the majority of the zoo-public, are often neglected. Zoos are more then a place for conservation in the end, and if they want to keep existing they will have to keep balancing out these three. It's what we call the stakeholder problem, something I take you're all too familiar with as a conservationist.

 

Again I merely said that it is open to debate what kind of charismatic large mammals should be kept by zoos. My own opinion at the moment is that there is a value for a couple of larger species to be kept in order to attract visitors to the zoo but that the predominate focus should still be on ex-situ of smaller taxa.

I do not share your belief on elephants though and similarly I believe that there are also other species that are better conserved in-situ and not kept by zoos.

I agree that zoos will have to do the tight-rope walk act of balancing these four often largely incompatible elements of recreation, conservation, research and education and often one will invariably come at the expense of another. However, I believe ultimately all four of those different elements are holistic and should at least theoretically be managed.

Yes, my vision of zoos is a bit more austere than most and I would put conservation and education above recreation (though I also see it as important) both because zoos have historically been centres of recreation and because this is one of the main and persistent criticisms against their societal value. Believe it or not there are conservationists out there who are totally anti-zoo whereas I myself am not at all anti-zoo I just believe they have to try harder and harder to justify their existence.

I personally can imagine a time when public opposition to zoos may harden and the need to justify their existence will become even greater then it currently is. This is why I feel that these institutions must do the hard work of reforming now before that point in time is reached.

Sadly, yes, I'm very familiar with the stakeholder problem within conservation and it is a great challenge not just ex-situ but also far more so within in-situ conservation which makes the future of zoos dilemma frankly look like a walk in the park.

 

Something that I notice about this is how it fails to notice that whilst the amount of species relative to the total species is lower, for birds, fish and reptiles the amount of species kept in total is higher then that of mammal species in many zoos and in captivity in general. Amphibians are a rarity without doubt, but their care is also by far the most difficult of all vertebrates. Hatchetfish and alike aren't kept as far as I know, but maybe someone can prove me wrong.

For the invertebrates the matter is more complicated. Sponges are an extreme rarity, at least partially due to the failure to keep many species alive in captivity. I'm not sure about Cnidaria and other jellyfish alikes, whilst medusa-like species are certainly less represented then mammals the Coraline species might tip the balance otherwise in zoos with aquatic facilities. Still those facilities are expensive to maintain so no surprise that most zoos can't keep them. The 3 worm groups are practically absent. Quite logically as most never show themselves, are too tiny too maintain properly and many are obligate parasites. Worms are more of a group for small-scale local projects behind the scenes. Mollusks are quite rare, which I think is a shame especially for aquatic exhibits. Ambulacraria (sea-urchins and sea stars most notably) are a group that is very dependent on the presence of saltwater aquaria, but is quite popular in the zoos that have them. Still the amount of species rarely exceeds a dozen or two. And finally we have the Arthropods, probably the most kept group of inverts. Butterflies are fairly common these days, but for most other species it's difficult to find zoos to exhibit more then a few terrestrial species (many aquatics are easily kept alongside fish, so most aquaria keep at least a few). When it comes to arthropods, it's also the bigger or colonial species that are more often kept. I do think that with arthropods the way of displaying them can however make a difference, and large natural-looking mixed species dioramas could prove a more popular option then the tiny glass boxes they are sometimes kept in. A great example of this is the Nurnberg desert house which showcases several free-living species of dung beetle alongside lizards, birds and rodents.

I know of one zoo, Artis, that went even further and has a permanent exposition about micro-biotic life. I'm unsure about how much such a setup costs, but I can imagine when they work with mostly fixed specimens the running costs are low. But the fact that it's not done more common on a permanent basis raises questions on how popular such setups are in the long term, and thus how economically viable. After all such setups are similar to what can be found in some musea (the Artis exposition is also separated from the zoo and you need a special income ticket).


Regardless of how many species zoos exhibit of those inverts (in particular arthropods and mollusks), what do you think about the way they are presented currently? Just putting rows and rows of tiny enclosures isn't really attractive to the public, something that's clearly shown by reptiles houses moving from tiny exhibits to larger dioramas. How would you envision a way of housing terrestrial inverts that makes them more popular, and thus more economically viable to present.

 

That depends on the species: some, like Xenopus laevis, Pleurodeles sp. or Rhinella marina, are pretty easy to keep.
The husbandry and amount of kept species of jellyfish has increased considerably within the last two decades. At least some marine sponges are not that rare in public aquaria.
When it comes to arthropods, many zoos benefit more or less directly from the private hobby / trade - which is always bringing new kinds of trends and thus novel zoo species, may it be ants, flower chafers, exotic cockroaches etc. The latest trend among invertebrate keepers are, among others, exotic isopods.

I think that's a question worth its own thread.

 

I agree, some species of amphibians are very easy to keep. Sometimes even as easy as just releasing 20 in a hall and having hundreds or thousands years later (Burgers' Bush for those who wonder).

I know that there are some marine sponges that are kept, but still not your everyday sight (or at least not intentionally, maybe there are some sponges that grow like "pests"?).

Without doubt for arthropods (and reptiles and freshwater fish and inverts as well) the private sector works very much together with the zoo sector. For some species like endangered Sulawesi shrimp the private sector is the most important ex-situ conservation effort (and still a big threat to some in-situ populations it must be noted).

 

The thing is that even those amphibians that are more challenging to keep like the Chinese giant salamander and the mountain chicken frog are ultimately far more cost-effective in maintaining in zoos than large bodied species like elephants, rhino and big cats.

Not talking in terms of display to the public or popularity but rather in terms of conservation but if you took an old shipping container you could relatively easily convert a structure of this kind into a captive breeding centre for a dozen species of threatened amphibians or more.

Of course there are costs associated with this, there always are with keeping an animal ex-situ afterall, but nowhere near the costs of larger bodied taxa. This kind of thing has been done in several locations in Central America where amphibians have been threatened by chytridiomycosis (Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama) and has worked out suprisingly well.

The same might be said of pupfish that are extinct in the wild or the Lord Howe Island stick insect or several iguana species. The costs are just nowhere in the league of how expensive it is to maintain a herd of elephants in captivity and moreover a further benefit is that the ex-situ success in breeding occurs over a relatively short period of time in comparison to an elephant.

Not just herps, inverts or fish either and the same may be said of small mammals. Look at the Malagasy giant jumping rat or the Livingstone's fruitbat at Jersey for example and how successful that captive breeding programe was, literally from the moment the species arrived at the zoo they had already begun to breed.

The issue as Carl Jones in his article suggested is more a human one and particularly a zoo management and organizational culture one. Although one zoo may press ahead with breeding a species there will be other zoos and their curators (perhaps the majority) who will be reluctant to keep it or become involved in a captive breeding programe.

Ironically, and I believe this does need to be pointed out here, these same zoos do have a long term vision when it comes to their herds of elephants or giraffes.

 

For a single exhibit or a breeding program, yes, as said before to fill in the same display space like those big species, definitively not. The costs are often lower for such programs but the funds these species bring is a lot lower as well, and unlike big species you always need behind the scenes facilities and populations to breed them which you don't really need for most megafauna. Such programs are often done behind the scenes for those reasons, like in Antwerp and Blijdorp where they have most of their amphibians behind the scenes (and in the case of Antwerp quite probably even a significant few species). This way zoos don't have to invest in more expensive on-show terraria and after all for the general public after the tenth frog species it often becomes a bit boring (especially when a facility specializes in a certain group like dart or tree frogs). They are far from crowd-pleasers and thinking that one can simply replace an elephant or rhino with amphibians for the public display is foolish, but I can agree that many institutions could and should invest in some sort of behind the scenes breeding center for amphibians (of which a few species/individuals could always be presented on-show of-course).

 

Fair point about the need for offshow facilities and particularly with more sensitive species like the mountain chicken for example.

I'm not actually saying that amphians are crowdpleasers but rather that a zoos conservation output would be manifold with holding amphibians within their collections and in captive breeding. This reality is already recognized and hence why there are initiatives such as Amphibian Ark that are involving a lot of zoos worldwide.

Once again, I did not say that elephants or rhino should be replaced with amphibians. I was rather highlighting that the same concern in keeping and long-term focus shown towards larger bodied taxa is notoriously absent towards smaller taxa regardless of whether they are small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish or inverts.

Moreover, I was suggesting that there is a reluctance in doing so even though these options are far more cost effective and produce a greater overall conservation output in real world ex-situ terms than does keeping a herd of elephant. Read the Carl Jones article, this kind of organizational problem within the wider zoo world has literally doomed ex-situ conservation programes and led to species dying out in captivity merely because of lack of interest.

Lastly, I have said this repeatedly ( ) but I do concede, see and recognise the utility of keeping a few charismatic megafauna (I do not agree on elephants though) or charismatic ABC's in captivity in order to get visitors through the gates and I have said so from the begining of this thread.

What I think is open for debate is how these charismatics are defined (can we engineer through conservation marketing more charismatics ? is this possible? if so shouldn't we try ? ), how many of these are kept, at what cost and whether the evidence suggests that these are better conserved in-situ. These are the hard moral / ethical and practical questions that zoos need to ask themselves as they stand at the current crossroads.

 

I agree

 

I agree with @Batto , this topic would make for a brilliant thread.

 

I think that we should have ABC species but that zoos should try to highlight lesser-known species through advertising and proper education. For example if San Diego Zoo Safari Park had better advertised and educated the public about saigas maybe more people would care about them in the wild and the issues they are affected by. An example of how this might work is Bronx Zoos TV show. They showed the public new and interesting species through TV and entertainment and it worked. It created animal celebrities in the zoo and helped people learn more about these special animals. Now of course not every zoo can have a TV show but they could start youtube channels like Cinncinati Zoo or they can include rarer and more interesting species in advertisements.

 

After fully going through Jozef's paper, I do still think that the amount of ABC's is not too much. In fact I'd say for many big zoos in my area (Antwerp, Planckendael, Blijdorp, Burgers', Artis and Gaiazoo are prime examples) that they have a collection of ABC's that would only hurt conservation by serious reductions (in some places they will have to reduce due to space constraints and in some cases removing one species to give another more space might not do that much damage). An explanation:

Small species for sure cost less to keep, and thus for ex-situ programs it's much cheaper in costs to keep them. If placed sparsely like they are nowadays in many zoos, they could even have a relatively higher monetary benefit per exhibit compared to the costs they bare then a large species like an elephant or giraffe. When you would work with a fixed amount of income, prioritizing small species over large species in ex-situ conservation makes sense.

However, this benefit doesn't scale up, as at a certain point small species become repetitive for your average visitor. Especially non-mamalian species suffer this fate, as for many people every frog is just a frog, every beetle just a beetle and every snake just a snake. So at a certain point visitors drop interest, and adding more of those exhibits doesn't lead to an increase in visitor numbers anymore. The way of displaying these creatures does matter a lot, and spreading them out alongside megafauna is one of the ways that people keep being interested in those smaller species cause it's unknown species after unknown species but a mixup. The same applies for megafauna too by the way, simply having megafauna alone without less popular filler species is also not the most optimal. Small side-exhibits give visitors more to explore, something both us hardcore zoofans and regular visitors do seem to appreciate. Especially when well-integrated into these megafauna-exhibits, alternating viewing points of the same megafauna with several smaller side-species makes people both stay interested in small species and spend more time with those megafauna. But this way those small species are thus reliant on megafauna. In certain places like a small reptile zoo or an aquarium (though there sharks and large fish fulfill similar roles as megafauna) this can work, but in non-aquaria this greatly limits their size and thus their total net income generated.

That total income is what I think matters very much. Zoo Antwerpen and Planckendael could certainly keep less megafauna and more smaller animals, at the cost of it's visitor numbers and total net income however. By mostly being two parks with multiple species of megafauna they are able to generate far more net income. Whilst this might decrease their importance in ex-situ conservation of smaller species this does allow them to invest more in in-situ conservation. This in-situ role is something I value much more then their ex-situ role in most species (wether it is small or large). If thus for the purpose of generating in-situ funds I believe keeping a large amount of megafauna is justified, even when it comes at the expense of ex-situ keeping of smaller species. The KMDA does seems to balance a bit between the two, with both decent in-situ work but to a certain extent also ex-situ programs with birds, amphibians and reptiles. I do think that zoos each have the option to choose their own balance between an important role of ex-situ conservation (thus more small species, often behind the scenes to reduce costs) or towards in-situ. Only in Planckendael I think adding some small species could make it more attractive, but rather as an addition to their megafauna and not at the cost of it.


I will admit that far from every zoo does uses it's megafauna even close to their maximal potential nor mixes it enough with smaller animals. Maybe my local area is also not really a great sample of this with many zoos highly involved in in-situ conservation, something I didn't really consider up to this point. Though Olmen/Pakawi is a great example I believe of a Belgian zoo not using this potential at all. They don't contribute to in-situ conservation and they barely contribute to proper ex-situ conservation. They do have a lot of small species, but little of conservational importance. This does seem to go hand in hand with their highly outdated enclosures showcasing too many species for the size of their park, so maybe the next owner will finally make real change (or with much luck the current new owner, though I have my doubts as it's the son of the previous one).

 

I'm not sure about ABC's, I am sure that one of two charismatics are often (not always though) necessary but one thing I do agree is that zoos have a role to play in highlighting the plight of lesser known species (primarily smaller taxa), raising their profile and working with these ex-situ.

 

That is an interesting observation, I don't know much about Olmen zoo but I would say that if it doesn't perform well in terms of ex-situ and in-situ conservation then it is hardly alone in that and in fact most zoos underperform in this regard.

But do you really a reduction of megafauna would translate into a loss of visitor numbers ?

I do agree with you about the importance of in-situ conservation often being greater than ex-situ efforts.

That said, I would say that it is very important to investigate further and think critically about what actions zoos state they are doing in-situ and to ask whether this is actually accurate because often it is insufficient.

I suppose I would somewhat disagree with you there on the issue of ex-situ keeping of smaller species by zoos and that keeping megafauna often translates into greater returns in terms of in-situ conservation. It is very much a case by case situation and each zoo and its merit in this regard must be judged separately.

Again, yes, income is very important but the question is how much of it reaches in-situ conservation efforts ?

It was once estimated that about 3 % of the budget of over 200 accredited zoos in the USA actually goes directly to in-situ conservation. At most zoos it is even less and is at 1% of their annual budget to in-situ which just doesn't cut it IMO. If it was 10 % then a lot more could be done in terms of in-situ and there would be far more to feel proud about but at the moment, if we are honest it just isn't enough.

When the Los Angeles zoo built their elephant enclosure they spent $42 million dollars on constructing this and can you imagine what could be done with money of that kind in terms of in-situ efforts for elephants or indeed ex-situ for smaller taxa ?

Moreover, if the argument hinges on the economic benefits, does the keeping of elephants do anything for the conservation of the species either in ex-situ terms or in-situ if so little zoo money actually reaches these species in the wild ?

My answer to that would be no and if they are not there for any reason other than because the public like elephants and if the money generated is insufficient for in-situ then why not focus on the ex-situ of a smaller species that does in fact need to be there and is compatible with being held under captivity ?