Reply to I was a zookeeper at National Zoo. AMA.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The last time I visited the National Zoo (a long time ago) there was a pigmy rhino walked in a figure 8 pattern in his concrete pen. He had walked this path so long he had worn a track in the concrete. And the pen was littered with feces.

Is that proper care? Serious question, because it depressed the heck out of me. Main reason I now avoid zoos.[/quote]

That’s common with zoo animals. It’s called stereotypic behavior. Basically, they don’t get to carry out natural behaviors like walking for long distances, but those behaviors need an outlet, so they develop these repetitive patterns. An example is walruses - they suck the meat out of clams in the wild, and if they don’t have an opportunity to suck in captivity, they start sucking on their flippers. Or apes - they need to chew for long periods of time (most of the day of a wild ape is spent chewing plants). Since they don’t chew as much in captivity, they vomit up their food and re-eat it over and over. Animals that need to move long distances develop those repetitive walking patterns.

It’s a tough situation. Most of the big zoo animals people love to see really require huge amounts of land, plants to tear up and destroy, ways to obtain food naturally, etc. But if an exhibit is large enough for a tiger or rhino, guests can’t see them. Trees that are destroyed cost money to replace. You can’t ethically put a live goat in with a tiger.

Reptiles are another animal that aren’t well suited for captivity. Most snakes aren’t able to stretch out their full length in a cage. Imagine being compressed in a space so small that your torso was always folded over. That’s what we do to snakes.

An option is to stop displaying the animals that do poorly in captivity. But the elephants, bears, and tigers are what bring in visitors and their money. Most visitors don’t really care about birds or rodents.

Also, sometimes I think animal “welfare” sets things back. Back in the 70s, keepers would bring out large animals like elephants after hours. I’ve met older keepers from back then who would walk the elephants to nearby forests and meadows. At Sea World, they would take the walruses and seals to a nearby lake to swim. People took animals home, so they lived more enriched lives. You can’t do that now because of “animal welfare”. [/quote]

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