Category: Zoos & Aquariums

Listen to what Keiko wants!

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  July/August 2003:

Listen to what Keiko wants!
Guest column by Bonnie Norton

Do you (along with thousands of other people), know in your
heart that after five years of trying to free Keiko, it is now time
to bring him to a place where he can be taken care of and again be
with people?
I am a devoted animal lover. In general, I am not in favor of
keeping wild animals in captivity, but have learned to observe,
listen to, and honor each animal as an individual.
In 1997 I learned to communicate with animals. While visiting
the Oregon Coast Aquarium I communicated with Keiko who,  to my
surprise,  told me he did not want to be set free and would continue
to behave in ways to discourage his handlers from releasing him
because his work was with the people who came to see him.

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Elephant captures & rampages spotlight habitat encroachment

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

PRETORIA, NEW DELHI, NAIROBI, SAN DIEGO, BANGKOK,
COLOMBO–Pretoria Regional Court magistrate Adriaan Bekker on April 7
found African Game Services owner Riccardo Ghiazza of Brits, South
Africa, guilty of cruelty to 30 young elephants in 1998-1999. The
verdict reportedly took Bekker four hours to read.
Convicted with Ghiazza, but on just two cruelty counts, was
student elephant handler Henry Wayne Stockigt.
Charges were dismissed against another handler, Craig
Saunders, and another company, African Game Properties Inc.
Captured in the Tuli district of Botswana during July 1998,
the elephants were transported to Brits for training and sale to
overseas zoos.

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Is the NIH really going to send chimps to India?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

THIRUVANATHAPURAM–G. Mahadevan of The Hindu daily
newspaper caught both the Indian and U.S. animal advocacy communities
by surprise with an April 15 report that the Thuruvananthapuram Zoo
in the capital city of Kerala state “is finalizing paperwork for the
transfer of two male and two female chimps from the National
Institute of Health in Maryland.”
Joyce McDonald, acting communications director for the
National Center for Research Resources at the U.S. National
Institutes of Health, confirmed to ANIMAL PEOPLE that “NCRR has
begun preliminary discussions with the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo in
India concerning the transfer of chimpanzees from the United States,”
but indicated that it is far from a done deal.

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Big cats caught in a war zone

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2003:

BAGHDAD, SAN ANTONIO, ASHEBORO, N.C.–Anxious U.S. Marines
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schwartz during the
nights of April 15 and April 17 unhappily shot three of seven
starving African lions found at the Baghdad Zoo after first one and
then two more broke out of their bomb-damaged enclosures.
On the loose, they could easily have found their way into
densely populated parts of the city.
“We fought our way from Kuwait to Najaf to Kerbala to
Baghdad, but the hardest thing I’ve had to do in Iraq was kill those
lions,” Schwartz told London Sunday Telegraph correspondent Philip
Sherwell.

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Chickens, pigeons & sea lions go to war; Brooke Hospital hopes to help Iraq zoos

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

BAGHDAD–Sentinel chickens deployed to detect poison gas
attacks were among the first casualties of the March 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq–but they were not gassed, and they never left the
Kuwait staging area, where they were distributed to the U.S. Marines
in February.
Exactly what killed 42 of the 43 chickens was unclear. Avian
influenza and heat stress were among the theorized possibilities.
Contrary to some reports, the birds were in the care of experienced
chicken handlers.

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Is Malaysia big and wild enough to keep wild tigers?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

SUNGAI PETANI, Kedah, Malaysia–The mid-January 2003
disappearance of Malaysian oil palm plantation owner Haji Zaitun
Arshad, his family, and the pet tiger he allegedly imported from
Thailand combined into one case the dilemmas surrounding both private
tiger-keeping and wild tiger survival.
Zaitun was photographed a few days earlier in the act of
giving the tiger a jeep ride. Possessing the tiger exposed him to a
fine of up to $4,000 plus four years in jail.

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Progress at the Kabul Zoo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

KABUL, Afghanistan–“The bear Donatella’s nose is looking
much better,” Whipsnade Wild Animal Park senior curator Nick Lindsay
reported to Kabul Zoo relief effort coordinator David M. Jones on
December 20, 2002.
That is not the latest information ANIMAL PEOPLE has from the
Kabul Zoo by far, nor the most important in terms of the future of
Afghan animal welfare, but it answers the question most asked about
the war-torn zoo and the resident animals, who became familiar to TV
viewers worldwide during the military campaign that ousted the former
Taliban government of Afghanistan in December 2001, then dropped out
of sight after the fighting mostly ended and most of the visiting
news media returned to the U.S. and Europe.

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Bonus for failure?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2003:

LOS ANGELES-The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association kept $7.3
million over the past five years that should have been given to the
city-operated zoo,  Los Angeles city controller Laura Chick reported
in December 2002 after completing an audit.  GLAZA is the independent
nonprofit entity that conducts fundraising activities for the zoo.
“Chick is seeking a legal opinion from the City Attorney as
to whether the city should try to recover the funds,”  Los Angeles
Daily News staff writer Harrison Sheppard reported.
Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11,  2001
brought a nationwide collapse of nonprofit fundraising,  GLAZA
“missed its fundraising goals twice since 1998 and a third time this
year,”  Sheppard wrote.
The 2001-2002 fundraising goal was $7.5 million,  but GLAZA
raised just $2.2 million,  falling 71% short.
However,  Chick revealed,  ex-GLAZA president Don Youpa was
given a performance bonus of $20,000 on top of his $175,000 salary.

“Well-meaning” wildlife traffic? CITES weighs Taiping gorilla case

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2002:

TAIPING, Malaysia; SANTIAGO, Chile–Few points on earth
are farther apart, with more open sea and sky between them, than
Taiping, Malaysia, home of the struggling Taiping Zoo, and
Santiago, Chile, the host city for the 12th Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species Conference of the Parties,
called CITES-COP 2002 for short.
Yet the Taiping Zoo and CITES-COP 2002 had an awkward issue
to deal with in mid-November, having to do with the zoo illegally
buying baby gorillas in the name of conservation. The facts were
less in dispute than the intentions behind the January 2002
transaction–and the closest resemblance to common ground between the
positions of Taiping and the CITES Secretariat, across 6,000 miles
of Pacific Ocean, might have been the rolling deck of a Japanese
whaling ship.

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