Zoos & Aquariums
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1993:
The proposed marine mammal
exhibit at Colorado’s Ocean Journey, a
theme park planned for Denver, took a blow
January 20 when Animal Rights Mobiliz-
ation revealed that two veterinarians
involved in the project have records of vio-
lating marine mammal care standards. Dr.
Gregory Bossart was the veterinarian of
record at Ocean World in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, 1987-1991, when it was cited
repeatedly for dolphin care violations, while
Dr. Jay Sweeney was barred from practicing
in Florida for his part in the illegal capture
of two dolphins for the Baltimore Aquarium.
The Colorado Aquarium, a rival to Ocean
Journey in development at Arvada, mean-
while announced that it won’t include
marine mammals.
Friends of the Dolphin and
Marineland at Niagara Falls, Ontario, are
disputing over the condition of Duke, an
aging performing dolphin who has spent 22
years in captivity. According to Rob
Laidlaw of Zoocheck Canada, “He’s in pret-
ty bad shape.” Experts differ as to whether
relocating Duke would help.
The Dolphin Project asks readers
to protest plans by the Shedd Aquarium, in
Chicago, to capture three Pacific white-
sided dolphins in Monterey Bay, California,
later this year. Address the National Marine
Fisheries Service, 1335 East-West Highway,
Room 7324, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
Montreal mayor Jean Dore
pledged recently that beluga whales will not
be included in the Biodome, whose director
has promised to have belugas by 1994.
Thank Dore c/o Hotel de Ville, Montreal,
Quebec, Canada.
Claiming the word “zoo” has
bad connotations, the New York
Zoological Society on February 4 renamed
the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Queens
Zoo, and Prospect Park Zoo, to howls of
derision from local media. The sites are
now called “wildlife conservation parks.”
Timmy the gorilla, whose 1991
relocation from Cleveland to the Bronx Zoo
brought a storm of protest, has reportedly
impregnated one member of his three-mem-
ber harem. His genes are considered a vital
addition to the captive gorilla gene pool.
The Philadelphia Zoo, with a
record of successfully breeding rare birds
from Pacific islands, has received funding
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
capture and breed three endangered species
native to the Marianas Archipelago.
An Andean condor and four
other rare raptors were stolen from the
Warsaw Zoo in Poland in a series of three
break-ins, January 23-25.
The Detroit Zoo marked the
New Year by adopting a young lioness
whom an anonymous benefactor rescued
from a crack house and turned over to the
Michigan Humane Society.
Bert, a Cleveland Metroparks
Zoo giraffe, broke his neck January 28 and
died while trying to reach a female in heat.
His ninth offspring was born nine days later.
