Ending the Use of Animals in Entertainment in Canada

Ending the Use of Animals in Entertainment

We oppose the confinement and display of wild animals for entertainment purposes, and we urge such facilities to stop this practice. We have helped to shut down zoos, keep captive cetaceans out of aquariums, and more:

Bowmanville Zoo

By engaging in emails, letters, and phone calls, Born Free USA was part of a successful campaign to close down the Bowmanville Zoo: a facility whose owner supplied a range of animals for various entertainment and theatrical purposes, and who had been videotaped abusing the animals.

CAZA Accreditation

We challenged the substandard accreditation standards of the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA) (can we get this document from Barry?) – and CAZA has since written a new manual.

Vancouver Aquarium

We were part of an effort to stop the future keeping of cetaceans in captivity in Canada, including at the Vancouver Aquarium.

Toronto Zoo

We played a role in helping to convince Toronto’s City Council, which owns Toronto Zoo, to send its three aging African savannah elephants to the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) sanctuary, as opposed to a much less suitable facility approved by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA).

Photo by Steve Snodgrass (https://flic.kr/p/6dzeiW) via: freeforcommercialuse.org

By WingedWolfPsion [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons.

Advancing Legislation

Born Free USA pursues compassionate legislation to outlaw the owning, trading, and/or selling of dangerous wild animals with little to no regulation or oversight. For example, we strive to:

End the keeping of reptiles as pets (often wild-caught animals from declining populations); and
Stop Mobile Live Animal Programs that force animals to travel around to nursing homes, schools, libraries, malls, and other such facilities in the name of “education” (but that often put both people and animals at risk). To discourage the Mobile Live Animal Programs, we document the conditions we see, meet with city councilors, write letters, present arguments to show that the program offers no educational value, and share information about the risks these animals pose to the public.

Thanks to the efforts of animal advocates, the tide is finally turning. Born Free USA writes letters to the editor, as well as letters in support of organizations that fund specific projects.