Last years a lot of animals got stolen from Dutch zoos. Stealing animals isn't completely new, but the scale is. Januari 2015: 5 golden lion tamarins were stolen from Apenheul. The monkeys were never found back Throughout 2015: several zoos including Arcen lost their squirrel monkeys. In that specific incident, only one monkey was found, it had probably gone unnoticed and escaped. September 2015: 34 birds were stolen from Avifauna, many of which extremely rare and endangered, including hornbills, Hill myna, macaw and turaco. Someone them were breeding. Luckely , most endagered hornbills were found back, but in horrible condition, and atleast one of them, and a great blue turaco, died after being found. Januari 2016: the complete colony of bee-eaters was stolen from BestZoo. The birds were found back but they were starving. Marth 2016: a pair of black-throated magpie-jays were stolen from the same zoo. April 2016: 30 amazon parrots and two male hyacint macaws were stolen from Zoo Veldhoven. So you can see it is a real problem and mostly, small monkeys and birds are victim. What can or should zoos do about this?
In Czechs zoos, theft of animals used to be quite common, you would hear about it 1-2 times per year. Mostly tortoises and parrots. But over time, it got better. I can remmember only 1 animal theft within last 4 years here. What can be done? Security measures. Cameras, movement sensors, trained dogs, night watch.
