Tiger Politics: Is AZA and Few Outspoken Individuals Representing the Views of the Majority of AZA Members?
By Zuzana Kukol, January 2008
Las Vegas, NV (1/2/2008)--AZA (American Zoo and Aquarium Association, lately
also known as Association of Zoos and Aquariums), has been under heavy
criticism lately following the December 2007
fatal tiger attack at the San Francisco zoo
which is accredited by them.
Although still under investigation, it is speculated the 12.5 feet moat wall
was too low, allowing the tiger to escape its cage by climbing out, killing
one person and injuring two.
There are speculations the three attacked men might have been taunting the
tiger; however, that is a separate issue. A tiger shouldn’t have been able
to escape no matter how much visitors taunt it, and the zoo and AZA have to
concentrate on that and
take full responsibility unless it is shown
the tiger had ‘help’ getting out of her cage.
AZA is
not a government agency; it is a powerful
private group accrediting zoos and aquariums that have
(supposedly) met certain standards for
veterinary care, exhibits, physical facilities, operations, safety,
security, finances, staffing, education, conservation and research. For most
small private zoos, the accrediting fee is too expensive.
For many years, non AZA private owners of wild and exotic animals in the USA
have been coming under increased attacks from animal rights (AR) community,
who became very successful at introducing bans against exotic animal
ownership, many of which passed. All the bans, until now, exempted AZA
accredited facilities, so AZA saw no reason to help us fight this unfair
legislation, just the opposite, AZA material and speakers were often
supporting exotic bans against non AZA sector, aka private competition.
On top of that, almost every time there was an exotic animal accident, even
if the facility was accredited by AZA, their spokesperson went on
criticizing the non AZA owners to deflect the blame, instead of accepting
the responsibility and stay focused on their internal problem.
As reported in Examiner on December 30, 2006, AZA spokesman went on rather
unprovoked attack against private owners, when the female keeper got
severely injured by the same tiger that one year later escaped, killing one
and injuring two visitors at the San Francisco zoo:
“"The reports may show that the procedures were followed, but with wild
animals these things sometimes happen,” said Steve Feldman, spokesman
for the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the nation’s accrediting
body. Feldman said the vast majority of injuries from tigers happen to
people who keep the animals as pets, not professionals who work with them in
zoos."
On May 4, 2006 AZA accredited San Diego Zoo made a
press release concerning 33 orphaned
monkeys being imported from South Africa under the auspices of the AZA's Old
World Monkey Taxon Advisory Group (TAG). Without skipping a beat, the zoo
found a way to attack US exotic pet owners, aka, non AZA facilities:
” "We do not put a price tag on our animals as we do not wish to
contribute in any way to promoting exotic animals as pets here in the United
States," said Karen Killmar, associate curator of mammals at the San
Diego Zoo. "As stunned as we were by the call, we thought that maybe
there was an opportunity to provide these animals with good homes with their
own species in the U.S. at AZA-accredited zoos.""
Not a month goes by lately without news about AR demanding that zoos close
their elephant exhibits and send their elephants to a Tennessee elephant
sanctuary, which had one of its handlers tragically killed in July 2006 by a
former AZA Zoo elephant.
But despite warning from the private sector, AZA officials and some
individual members continue to be totally blind to the fact that they are
being used by AR to divide all captive exotic animal keepers by helping the
animal rights groups in passing the bans toward the non AZA sector. They
refuse to acknowledge they are the next AR target, whose final agenda is no
animals in captivity, no pets, no meat, no eggs…
These predictions came true after the San Francisco fatal tiger incident,
when AR went on full frontal attack asking for elimination of all zoos,
including the ones accredited by AZA. But when you look at the history, it
was AZA leadership and few individual members who helped AR get the
credibility by working with them and supporting their propaganda and public
brainwashing.
Most gullible seems to be the director of the Detroit Zoological Institute
Ron Kagan, who won “2004 PETA ‘proggy’ award-Peta progress Award” and
supposedly became ‘friends’ with Gary Yourofsky who seems to have ties to
the
terrorist Animal Liberation Front, ALF.
In Yourofsky’s own words :” Actually
people are shocked that I befriended Ron
Kagan a Detroit zoo director over the years. Ron happens to be a pretty cool
guy; he hates circuses and rodeos, fur, hunting, and vivisection.”
Kagan was almost fired this year from his $200,000 job when it was revealed
he lied about having a Ph.D..
June 12, 2003, Dr. Eric Miller, DVM, Director of Animal Health and
Conservation for the Saint Louis Zoological Park and a member of the
American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Board of Directors, testified in
Congress on behalf of AZA and American Association of Zoological
Veterinarians in support of H.R. 1006, also known as ‘Captive Wildlife
Safety Act’, which would amend the Lacey Act to define “prohibited wildlife
species” as any live lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah, jaguar, or cougar.
This animal rights sponsored federal bill passed and it makes it a felony
for a non commercial private (pet) owner of big cats to move their animals
across the state line for any reason, even veterinary care. Similar bill is
now attempting to add non human primates as prohibited species, with AR
hoping to add reptiles, birds and the rest of the mammals soon.
Miller, in his propaganda ridden testimony, stated that:
”The bill is a logical starting point for addressing the public safety
threats posed by the private ownership of certain wild and dangerous animals
as pets, as well as the important animal welfare issues associated with the
personal ownership of these animals.”
Somehow, the only examples he could use to prove the supposed need for this
bill were incidents at two facilities that were already licensed and
regulated by federal USDA agency and also on the state level, and would
therefore be exempted from the bill he was supporting and trying to pass. It
is like mixing apples and oranges, trying to ban orange growers because few
apples were bad. How about just going after the bad apples and leave the
rest alone?
He also claims that: ”Private ownership of large felids also creates
significant public consequences.”
Interesting, since only 19 people were fatally mauled by big cats between
1990 and 2007, that is
one (1.1) death per year. This number
includes AZA Zoos as well.
September 2004
AZA publication brags: ”In January of
this year, the Captive Wildlife Safety Act was passed into law. The AZA, as
well as individual members, worked with other animal protection groups and
testified before the United States Senate.”
Talking about tigers, let’s not forget Mr. Ron Tilson, director of
conservation at the Minnesota Zoo and coordinator of the American Zoo and
Aquarium Association’s captive breeding program for tigers, who too has been
known to spout AR propaganda based on pure magic and estimates, such as” "Trafficking
in endangered species is third only to trafficking in narcotics and gun
smuggling".
Well, according to United Nations, it is human trafficking, not animal
trafficking, that is third in line.
Reading news reports interviewing Tilson, it is obvious he doesn’t hide his
disgust with private non AZA owners of tigers: “…Tigers represent
everything fine and decent and powerful. Everything those people would like
to be. It’s all an ego trip—big guns, big trucks, and big tigers” and “For
private owners to say, ‘We’re saving tigers,’ is a lie,”. He adds: “They
are not saving tigers; they’re breeding them for profit”.
US Zoos manage 3 tiger subspecies with max target population of 150
individuals for each of them. However, what the AZA zoos fail to tell the
American public is that only the Siberian tiger has reached that target goal
of 150 individuals. The population of other two sub-species pure tiger
collections only number in the few dozen, hardly a survival plan, how long
will it take before they start inbreeding? You don’t have to be a geneticist
to figure out that if you only had 150 humans to save human race, pretty
soon we would all look the same, not to mention health issues where any
single disease would wipe us all out. With AZA Zoos having all the financial
and cage space problems, why can’t the AZA leadership look at us, private
owners, as the answer/solution to their own as well as conservation problems
instead of ridiculing us any chance they get???
In “exotic animal owners’ bashing” interviews too numerous to list, Tilson
is known to practice fear mongering by saying that tigers kill on average
40-60 people each year, but conveniently ‘forgetting’ to add that majority,
in some years all, are people killed by wild tigers in India. This
misinformation helps feed into AR hype and hysteria by creating the
appearance that captive pet tigers are wiping out entire US human
population.
AZA publication titled 'Why Wild Animals Don’t Make Good Pets' makes it
abundantly clear that in the
delusional ‘World According to AZA',
anybody not accredited by them is a lowly stupid pet owner : ” Hundreds
of wild “pets” attack their owners every year. Well-publicized examples
include the Las Vegas animal trainer who was seriously injured by his tiger,”
After basically calling professional exotic animal trainer Roy Horn of
Siegfried & Roy a ‘pet’ owner, the brochure sends you to an extreme AR site
to look for more animal attacks.
It is time AZA officials stopped the ‘us against them’ hypocritical rhetoric
which is echoed in May 2001 AZA Publication ‘Communiqué’ by Steve McCusker,
Director of the San Antonio Zoo, that “he wouldn’t be in the business now
if he didn’t own wild animals as a child. He notes it would be hypocritical
of him to reprimand others for doing the same. “
When will the AZA leadership and few outspoken individuals see the wrongs
and damage they are doing with their all mighty attitude toward all animal
owners and, in the long run AZA zoos as well?
AZA helped AR groups get respect and power by aligning themselves with them
by spouting the same’ anti non AZA zoo’ propaganda, by testifying and
supporting AR ban bills. AZA officials need to undo the damage they created.
Coming from a communist country, I know how it is sometimes hard to go
against the leadership. I would like to think the majority of AZA zoos
employees love the animals the same way we at non AZA sector do, and I hope
they don’t support the misguided views of their leadership.
In his January 2, 2007 blog, Wayne Pacelle, the current president an AR
group HSUS, asked AZA to join them in eradicating the private exotic sector.
If you read between the lines, Pacelle seems to be basically offering AZA
the immunity from more AR attacks if they join in their jihad to eradicate
the non AZA community:
“Accredited zoos are here to stay, but they can do better. And the
professional zoo industry should unite with the humane community to
eradicate roadside zoos, circuses that use exotic wildlife, and private
ownership of wildlife, especially of dangerous exotics. The case of Tatiana
shows us that even the top institutions fall short, and it lays bare the
broader crisis in our treatment of captive wildlife in America.”
Maybe it is time to remove AZA exemptions from exotic animal bans, all
animal owners should be abiding by the same rules. Private AZA shouldn’t be
treated any different than other private clubs or associations; AAA gives
you some perks but doesn’t exempt you from following traffic laws, BBB gives
businesses a seal of trustworthiness, but it doesn’t exempt these companies
from commerce laws. AZA accreditation shouldn’t be anything more than what
BBB seal is.
Most importantly, not being a member of AAA or BBB (Better Business Bureau)
still allows entities to continue their commercial or non commercial driving
and business activity. The latest exotic animal bans usually only allow
facilities to keep, breed and replace their animals if they join a very
expensive AZA club. Forcing people and businesses to join expensive private
clubs to stay legal is wrong.
Any zoo, breeder, sanctuary or pet owner should be allowed to keep their
animals if they do it in a responsible manner. If all animal owners, from
pet to major AZA zoos, have to fight on the same side of the fence, we will
all get much stronger and have a better chance of winning the AR war against
captive exotic animal ownership. AZA shouldn’t allow themselves to be at the
mercy of AR who will go after them again once they outlive their usefulness
to these extreme AR groups.
Or is AZA becoming more interested in political
correctness and money than in the animals themselves?
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