Worst Enclosures You Have Ever Seen

Many people on here have called the gorilla cages at the Aspinall's bad based purely on visual. However, after seeing them for myself and talking with those who know a bit about them, I can certainly say they're far from bad. Unnatural? Yes. Ugly? Yes. Bad for the animals? No. I mean you only have to notice that the gorillas at Howlett's often choose to stay in the cage as oppose to going into their outdoor yard.

Personally I think it's fair to criticize exhibits and enclosures from a visitor standpoint as long as you do so fairly, and take the animals needs and behavior into consideration.

~Thylo

 

Agreed. When we're talking about the term "worst," it implies that they are at the bottom of the barrel, the poorest of all conditions. In none of the concrete cases shown is anything that borders on truly atrocious however much hyperbole we want to throw around. To say something from a world-class zoo, like Henry Doorly, is "the worst" shows little consideration for what "the worst" actually means and shows a highly limited sample size on the part of the accuser.

If we want to define bad, then it must be something that is unquestionably bad on all fronts. Something that doesn't meet any animal needs, can harm the animal, is dangerous for the animal and/or visitor. Past meeting these criteria, we get into shades of gray. Yes, exhibit x may be worse than exhibit y, but neither are bad in light that the animals are well cared for.

 

I Agree with Thylo. A good example of a bad exhibit is the pachyderm area at Milwaukee county zoo. Unnatural? Yes. Ugly? Yes. Bad for the animals? Yes. I am mainly referring to the indoor cells but its not like the outdoor yards are much better.

 

But you can't separate exhibits based on what you see and what you can't see. This is the crux of my argument all along. Often times, there are areas that the guests cannot see that changes the opinions on animal welfare. Just because you can see the animal holding in Milwaukee doesn't automatically make it bad. If you saw the animal holdings for most animals you might be surprised at how small they are (especially for big cats). Sometimes a small holding pen is absolutely needed for an animal, like elephants, so that the keepers can work with the animal for husbandry purposes. So again, without knowledge of how zoos actually work, it's wrong of you to judge simply based on opinions.

 

This seems generous.
If we are being pedantic than of course there can only be one 'worst' lion enclosure etc. However, to say that an enclosure can only be bad if the staff do not care for the animals is demonstrably false.
Many of the exhibits that are routinely panned on ZooChat are in zoos with good reputations which we can assume have highly trained staff. But you can't polish a turd. A small concrete grotto maybe better if the staff are motivated to provide enrichment, but that doesn't make it not a bad exhibit.
Sometimes it only takes one glaring error to make an exhibit bad.It doesn't need to be bad on all fronts.

 

Bad does not equal worst though. Sometimes we are subject to bias. When surrounded by excellent exhibits, the one lesser exhibit stands out. But, in most cases, that lesser exhibit put into a different scenario might be completely standard.

 

Yes but you do know that they are stuck in them for almost all of the winter season. I know holding areas are small but Large pachyderms need fairly large holding areas, More so when that area is on display.

 

By using the that looks horrible so it must be bad criteria,just because something looks bad to our eyes doesn't mean the animals think its bad!

 

I think we can probably agree on this. However, that still does leave a class of exhibits which fall below the bar you just set. Plus many of us have visited a large number of zoos and seen a large number of exhibits. I think it's reasonable to base criticism on that.

 

Visiting zoos does not equate to understanding husbandry, keeping practices, animal needs, etc.

 

Essentially what we have is a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Simply stated, it means that those who know a little are far more confident in their assertion than those who know more. only those who are deemed true experts in the field come close to the level of confidence seen by those who only know a little. On this site, there are maybe five total members (maybe) who truly fall into the expert category (hint: I'm not one of them).

 

Ive just spent five minutes reading about the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It seems pretty simple and I know I understand it fully, so I'm happy to argue over it.

I'm not actually sure what your argument is. Are you saying that there are only five people on the site who can reasonably criticise an exhibit? Or that those of us with less experience are arrogant for believing we could?
I am well aware that I am not an expert and often pull back from criticising an exhibit that looks bad because I do understand my own limitations. But unfortunately there are many exhibits in the world which transcend this. You can be far to the left of the DK chart, massively overestimate your own ability and still be correct in identifying a bad exhibit.

For example, how much experience or knowledge of zoos do you think is necessary to say that this is bad?
Nanjing Zoo - Green Turtle Exhibit | ZooChat

 

Actually no, I don't believe so. I'm not defending this exhibit, I know nothing about it or the circumstances. From an aesthetic and educational perspective, yeah it's definitely not very good. But I wouldn't rush to criticize the husbandry. For instance, do we know anything about the specific animals in this enclosure. A sea turtle who has been injured and lost its ability to dive wouldn't need a deep tank because it would not be able to use it. Are these animals in here long-term, or is this a rehab situation? That changes things immensely. I'm not saying any of those things are the case here, but do you know that they aren't? Charges of animal cruelty are very serious, and in the current socio-political climate, its not wise for friends of the zoo community to level those accusations lightly. It's really easy to make a perfectly healthy, appropriate zoo situation look bad.

 

As I've never seen the exhibit in person, nor do I know the circumstances of the situation, I cannot make any judgment calls on the exhibit overall. The only thing I can correctly comment on are the concrete things I see in the photo.

 

As someone who works as a zookeeper inside and out of exhibits every day, I will say that it is very hard for someone from the outside looking in (i.e. from the visitor side) to get an accurate view of how positive or negative an exhibit is for animal welfare. Are there obvious exhibits that are negative? Yes, but I think it is very easy to fall into a black vs white kind of thinking, when in reality, there are shades of grey. There are aspects of animal husbandry and management that many members of the public aren't aware of or do not realize when looking at animal exhibits, especially when you look at off-exhibit holding (which often just looks like concrete "cells," as someone said earlier in this thread). So please, educate yourselves or put some thought into why exhibits may be the way they are, especially in zoos with good reputations. There is always, always room for improvement, but that doesn't mean that your criticism of "bad" exhibits is correct based on what the exhibit is actually used for.

 

I agree that "outsiders looking in"- that being people who do not have experience caring for captive animals- are not in a position to judge the status of exhibits based on animal welfare. In that sense, calling an exhibit "good" or "bad" is meaningless, and also offensive to zoos that have a reputation for high quality of care but who may not have the funds to construct an exhibit that is bigger, more naturalistic, or more visually pleasing.

That being said, I think discussing preferences is fine as long as they are phrased as preferences and not absolutes. For example, my preference is for all exhibits to be as naturalistic as possible because it enhances the effect of being immersed in nature, so in most cases I would like/prefer a naturalistic exhibit over one that is not. But that's just a preference, and I realize that it in no way makes the exhibit bad for the animals. I would agree with someone saying, "I don't like the exhibit because everything looks fake", but saying "What an awful exhibit! These animals deserve better" would be less appropriate.

 

I think the first thing to say is that calling an exhibit bad and leveling a charge of animal cruelty at a zoo are not the same at all. The same with criticising the husbandry. Possibly we disagree on this point, if so that might be an interesting tangent discussion.

In regards to this specific turtle exhibit:
I suspect that you, like me, have been to a turtle rehabilitation centre and seen animals with missing limbs etc in similar sized and shaped pools, either permanently or short-term. This is not the setting for this photo. This pool is in a zoo, far from the sea, full of exhibits of “a similar standard”. You are correct to suspect that I can’t actually say with certainty that these turtles aren’t in some hidden way disabled, or indeed that they are not due to be released tomorrow. However what I can do is use context and inductive reasoning to suggest that when large parts of the zoo look like this, Occam’s Razor gives the only plausible explanation as being that the zoo simply has substandard long-term housing (incidentally I suspect that Occam’s Razorwire is the name of a company they used for some of their containment solutions).

Of course every situation is complicated and nothing is black and white. However, when grey gets dark or light enough it is basically indistinguishable from the aforementioned colours. I think this is a good point to remember that this whole discussion is taking place in a thread called Worst Enclosures You Have Ever Seen. Not, Exhibits Which On The Whole May Be Slightly Below Average. I am certainly not trying to paint vast swathes of the zoo landscape as ‘bad’, I’m simply suggesting there are some low points that deserve that label, and that it’s possible for a visitor to identify these in some cases. It is increasingly baffling to me why this is proving controversial on a site where almost every zoo trip account will include some level of judgement of exhibit quality.

Many of the examples I would expect to see in a thread like this would not come from zoos with good reputations. Perhaps it is unfortunate that some of the initial examples were.

Why do you assume that people who call exhibits ‘bad’ in zoos with good reputations have not put in any thought? Take this well-trodden example from Dudley:

Enclosure for Bornean orangutans at Dudley Zoo, 12 February 2010 | ZooChat

Most people would say Dudley has a good reputation; but many of them would also say this is a bad exhibit. We all know that it exists purely because it is a very old exhibit that Dudley cannot afford to replace. We all know that Dudley has a highly trained staff that work hard to improve the situation in many small ways but that doesn't mean we can’t also say it is bad.

I agree that critisising the way an exhibit looks is a preferential thing; Thylo’s example of the gorilla cages at Howletts is a good case in point. Some love them, some hate them. Some people will criticize an exhibit for not having a message or not having the right message. I’m much more interested in trying to understand if the exhibit provides a good environment for the animal inside. Am I unqualified to do this? Absolutely. Are there lots of situations where I simply won’t know the requirements of individuals or not have enough information? Of course. But that still leaves the bottom-of-the-barrel stuff which is what this thread is all about. It only takes one dog-turd to ruin a chocolate cake, and sometimes you don’t need to be a master-baker to spot it.

 

I'm on the FunkyGibbon side of this debate. Whilst I agree with jbnbsn99 that accusing a zoo of poor welfare is serious, I disagree that we should never do it as a result. If animal welfare is that important, we should be demanding acceptable standards. Such passionate criticism is far more likely to precipitate positive change than dogged passivity. There are varying opinions, which I would always express as such, but there are also cases which any informed individual could identify as unacceptable.

When quibbling the difference between "bad" and "worst", it seems unfair to ignore the latter's context. You're criticizing it as an unqualified worst, but the thread title does qualify it. And since we're discussing the worst exhibit you have ever seen, the sample size is not "highly limited". In fact, it's not a statistical sample at all; it's a population.

On the topic of sample size, though, @Ituri is happy to condemn the turtle exhibit from a visitor and educational standpoint, essentially projecting his/her personal opinion onto everyone who sees it (n=1). Why, then, should we not even consider doing likewise for the inhabitants? Pointing out that you don't know the context is evasive, because we all know some zoos well enough to answer those questions. The important point, then: is it okay to raise welfare issues in those cases?

As FunkyGibbon argues, no it doesn't. By your logic, if I were to provide an animal with excellent all-round care but neglected to feed it, that couldn't be described as bad. Yes, welfare is a continuum, however that doesn't mean everything better than the anti-Panglossian exhibit is above criticism.

The evidence for your argument is qualified ("often times", "sometimes", etc.), but you extrapolate from that to a universal: so we can't ever properly judge an exhibit. But, if your argument is that one can't judge welfare because one can't judge the full extent of an exhibit, clearly it's only partially true. As your qualifications indicate, "sometimes" one can and "sometimes" one can't.

Perhaps, though, your point was that husbandry is the great unknown from a visitor perspective. I agree, but compensatory husbandry practices are not a panacea. For instance, a large and growing body of evidence indicates visitor presence causes chronic stress in some taxa. Keepers can do as much as they like behind-the-scenes, but if a susceptible species is kept in an exhibit that clearly makes no effort to mitigate the problem, particularly over an extended period, you could legitimately criticize that exhibit on welfare grounds.

I think both you and Ituri are mistaken to conflate care (what is provided to animals) with welfare (how they experience the world). So, I fundamentally disagree that keepers alone can accurately assess an animal's welfare status. They may provide excellent care, but the only individual who truly knows if an animal has good welfare is the animal itself. What that means in reality is that assessments should be based on a rigorous "evidence-based" approach, using a range of welfare indicators. Keeper insights are invaluable to that process, but they should not be the beginning and end of it.

Take this clouded leopard exhibit, for instance: Bornean Clouded Leopard Exhibit | ZooChat. Over the last 15 years, a lot of work has been carried out to understand cloudy needs and this basically meets none of them. I don't know whether the inhabitant is a rescue, but I would still feel confident calling the exhibit poor on welfare grounds. And to emphasize this isn't just an Asian phenomenon, here's the new clouded leopard exhibit at Denver: Elephant Passage - Clouded Leopard Exhibit | ZooChat. It's better for several reasons, but still lacks vertical space. Again, I would feel confident saying it was poorly designed from a welfare perspective, just on that drawback. So, I've recognized a welfare continuum, without accepting better means good. You can disagree with my assessments if you like, but your position would not be an objective one.

I agree it's unhelpful to make unjustified declarations that an exhibit is awful, but identifying specific features which would be expected to compromise welfare is often possible. Indeed, it would be far easier if zoos were meeting their welfare responsibilities, because published papers should (as a general rule) be universally comprehensible. As such, we wouldn't be having this debate if every zoo had comprehensively researched factors influencing the welfare of their animals. Anyone arguing two acres is great for elephants whereas one acre is appalling, for instance, is probably ignorant of the evidence. But that kind of research is all too uncommon (with exceptions), so zoos have only themselves to blame when they cannot reasonably respond to this sort of criticism.

Incidentally, I don't think you're being humble at all. What you're actually saying is we should assume every animal in every exhibit at every zoo has good welfare. Please forgive me if I suggest that's naïve. I would also suggest there's a difference between supporting an institution and shirking one's ethical responsibility to ensuring it meets acceptable standards. Faith in a universal despite any and all evidence to the contrary seems, to me at least, the very definition of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

You have to realize that much of what I've been doing on this thread is acting as a teacher. I'm asking the younglings to back up their reasoning. The vast majority of my comments were directed at people who have no direct knowledge of zoos outside of getting to visit occasionally with their family. In doing so, a lot of times I've been playing devil's advocate.

In reality, yes, we can make judgment calls, but out calls will be more faulty with less knowledge, which is where Dunning-Kruger comes into play.

One of the main points of ZooChat, and one we moderators strive to achieve, is to keep this a positive environment. At the end of the day, we know that keepers will actively look at this forum. They look at a lot of members on here like people who play fantasy sports. By including such threads as "worst ever" we end up being no better than the animal rights activists whose goal is to close down all zoos.

I think we're better than that.

 

This is perhaps the best quote I have ever heard... like... EVER