6 February 23-March 1, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents who actually care and want to see good done for these animals.” Emilie Flaherty agrees that the Dallas Zoo adds much to the Oak Cliff area, citing its accessibility to families of varying socio- economic backgrounds. The teacher de- scribed it as a “beautiful” zoo that brings the community together, and she loves taking her own children. Flaherty said her family has member- ships to other Dallas institutions like the arboretum and Perot Museum of Nature and Science, but she thinks the zoo is her 3-year-old’s favorite. There, he can feed the giraffes, goof around on the playground or scope out the gorillas and hippos in their enclosures. Kids, particularly toddlers, learn much about life when they go to the zoo, she said. They can answer questions like: What color are the flamingos over there? Can you count the legs on that baboon? Flaherty, who is also sad for what zoo staff have had to endure, said she’s never had a negative experience there. The way she sees it, the positive aspects of zoos far out- weigh the negatives. “As a mom and a teacher, I have person- ally just witnessed so much educational op- portunity,” she said. “In the community that we live in, giving kids access to experiences like going to a zoo gives them schema, it gives them background knowledge. … And how do kids learn? They have to connect one thing to something they already know, and I just feel like being able to take kids to the zoo really gives them experiences to connect the things that they’re learning to.” J onathan Miot looked relieved as he stood in front of an outdoor enclo- sure at the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo in Gainesville, Florida. The sun beat down on the bespectacled zoo director as he spoke to reporters in early June 2018. An arrest had just been made in connec- tion with the theft of 11 of the zoo’s ani- mals; police would later apprehend additional suspects. It was the first time in the Santa Fe Col- lege Teaching Zoo’s 48 years that an animal had gone missing, news station WUFT re- ported at the time. The 11 stolen animals included a prehen- sile-tailed skink and a squirrel monkey. Two others, a box turtle and gopher tortoise, were ultimately never recovered, Miot told the Observer earlier this month. Learning what the Dallas Zoo is going through brought up some painful memories of the theft at his own facility. “We were pretty shocked over it,” Miot recalled. “We felt personally violated, but we worked with law enforcement officers … we engaged with the community, and that’s what made the difference to getting our case resolved.” Afterward, Miot’s zoo updated its secu- rity measures and implemented new ones, he said, and an armed police force stands on guard. The zookeepers there are much more vigilant today about keeping an eye out for would-be wrongdoers. But the blame rests squarely on the perpetrators, he said, not the zoo. Among those in the broader zoo commu- nity, the Dallas Zoo is in great standing, Miot said. It’s part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which he described as “the gold standard” for the industry. Institutions strive to attain and maintain their AZA ac- creditation, for which they must reapply ev- ery five years. They must meet exceptionally high standards to get there, including pass- ing an inspection by industry experts; pro- viding excellent animal nutrition, veterinary care and staff expertise; and maintaining fi- nancial stability. AZA counts some 238 accredited institu- tions and emphasizes field conservation ef- forts. An annual report from 2021 claims that “more than 900 species, subspecies, and species groups benefited from both species- specific and habitat-focused conservation projects.” Of those, 120 species and subspe- cies were considered critically endangered. National Geo- graphic noted in 2019 that many zoos have introduced captive breeding programs for endangered species, leading to the reintro- duction into the wild of some animals, like the Arabian oryx. Crit- ics insist that such conservation boasts may be overstated. A leader at the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for in- stance, told National Geographic: “Zoos are prisons for animals, camouflaging their cru- elty with conservation claims.” One organization that wants to see zoos phased out over time is Born Free USA, whose programs director, Liz Tyson-Griffin, told the Observer that her group doesn’t think zoos serve a conservation purpose. Rather, she said, they likely distract from other crucial conservation work. Zoos breed animals for a lifetime in cap- tivity without any real pretense they’ll someday be set free in wild habitats, Tyson- Griffin said. The institutions may claim that entrance fees are used for their conservation aims, but zoos’ money mostly “goes to hold- ing animals captive” instead, she said. The “zoos are educational” justification doesn’t sit well with Tyson-Griffin, either. While children might enjoy seeing animals at the zoo, she cited a study that suggests they aren’t really learning much while there. And animals meant for the wild don’t fare well in captivity, which is often manifested in behaviors like bar-biting, pacing and swaying. Tyson-Griffin has also heard the argu- ment that zoos are needed because few folks can afford to fly to Africa for a safari excur- sion. “But that implies that we’ve got a right to see these animals, and that they should be held captive because we feel like we want to look at them. And that just feels like a really trivial reason to hold millions of animals captive around the world,” she said. “You know, nobody’s going to suffer inherently because they don’t get to see an animal in a zoo. … It might be ex- citing to see a tiger or an elephant, but it shouldn’t be construed as a right.” Zoos may also tout their research efforts, but Tyson-Griffin notes that such studies are often focused on deal- ing with captive ani- mals instead of helping those in the wild. In addition, the vast majority of zoo-held ani- mals belong to species that aren’t threat- ened, she said. Born Free USA recently released a report that found zoos across the country, includ- ing the one in Dallas, have imported wild el- ephants, running counter to conservation efforts. Tyson-Griffin said many zoos are el- ephant-consumers, meaning that instead of creating and sustaining new populations in captivity, they’re stripping the animals from their native habitat. The Dallas Zoo’s track record for elephants has been uneven. In 2018, advocacy group In Defense of Animals named it the third-worst zoo for those ani- mals in the entire U.S. because of allegations it had “[severed] the social bonds of trauma- tized elephants,” CultureMap Dallas re- ported at the time. An article by Tyson-Griffin on Born Free USA’s website also mentions an incident at the Dallas Zoo in July 2015: A 3-month-old giraffe died after running into the perimeter edge of her habitat, breaking three of her long neck’s vertebrae. Tyson-Griffin acknowledges that fully phasing out zoos can’t happen overnight, calling it a “project for a lifetime.” Still, it’s a goal she’s working toward. To her, zoos op- erate on a spectrum of “bad” to “better.” “We wouldn’t say that there is such a thing as a ‘good zoo,’” she said, “because we just don’t think they should exist.” A ndrew Gregory has heard the anti- zoo arguments before. To the assis- tant professor of wildlife conservation at the University of North Texas, most of them are misguided. The idea that zoos don’t send money to conservation efforts is “patently false,” Gregory said. Another one he’s heard is that zookeepers mistreat animals, which also strikes him as outrageous. But there is one ethical claim that Gregory admits rings at least a little true: Keeping living beings in captivity is cruel. “Because no matter how good of an enclosure you make,” he said, “it’s not the same as being wild.” Gregory previously did work with the Toledo Zoo in Ohio, and he said that the in- stitution has “very active” conservation pro- grams, as does the Dallas Zoo. Such entities have been known to spend tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thou- sands, on conservation efforts on a local and global scale, he said. The Toledo Zoo forked over millions on a hatchery that ultimately saw some 3,000 baby sturgeon go back into the wild with an estimated 97% survival rate, Gregory said. Dallas Zoo, meanwhile, directly con- tributed nearly $342,000 to its conserva- tion partners in 2021–22, a zoo representative said, adding that the money came from earned revenue and fundrais- ing, not operating funds or support from the city. Additional expenses for that year related to the zoo’s conservation-program support totaled more than $548,150. Viewers can learn about animals through slickly produced series like Planet Earth, Gregory said, but they might not necessarily experience the same personal connection that they would at an exhibit. There may be a certain “romanticism about what it’s like to be a wild animal,” but zoo animals are well-cared for and in most cases have a lon- ger life expectancy than their wild counter- parts, he said. Thanks to attentive zoo staff, they receive medical treatments and are fed optimal diets. Born Free USA’s Tyson-Griffin has a differ- ent take on this subject, though. She said that while zoo animals should theoretically outlive those in the wild — and some do have compa- rable lifespans — certain captives die far younger than they otherwise would. “I know that the average life expectancy for an ele- phant in a U.S. zoo is 27 years, and they can live into their 60s and 70s,” Tyson-Griffin said. “So, there’s something very wrong there.” Gregory agrees that an all-out zoo ban would be unlikely, at least in his lifetime. Zoos are often backed by wealthy patrons, and corporations may donate to zoos for tax breaks. As a result, those arguing for closure would be up against “powerful special inter- ests.” And if a ban did come down tomorrow, he said, it wouldn’t be possible to turn Unfair Park from p4 Teacher Emilie Flaherty supports the zoo as an accessible educational institution. Mike Brooks “WE WOULDN’T SAY THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A ‘GOOD ZOO,’” BECAUSE WE JUST DON’T THINK THEY SHOULD EXIST.” – LIZ TYSON-GRIFFIN, BORN FREE USA >> p8
