National Zoo Lovers Day: Another Ploy by the Zoo Industry to Deceive the Public

National Zoo Lovers Day is commemorated every year in April in the United States. The zoo industry uses this day to encourage the public to visit accredited zoos and aquariums to learn about their role in wildlife conservation, education, and animal care. They emphasize that zoo visits directly support species conservation efforts and inspire the public to help protect animals globally. According to our research on the impact of zoos and ongoing series of undercover zoo investigations, however, we know that this “holiday” does little to benefit the animals themselves.

Zoos Adopted a Conservation, Education, and Welfare-Based Marketing Model to Deflect Criticism

Despite other cities exhibiting wild animals earlier at more informal menageries (small collections of “exotic” animals), like the Central Park Zoo in 1864, the Philadelphia Zoo is often cited as the oldest zoo in the country, which officially opened to the public in July 1874. Many claim that zoos have evolved from their original form, which strived to superficially showcase animals not native to the region solely for entertainment purposes with little attention paid to the animals’ needs. By the 1960s-1980s, animal welfare advocates began criticizing the role of zoos and the simplified, minimized, and lonely lives wild animals were forced to live in these facilities in small, barren cages that differed so much from their lives in the wild.

These critiques forced zoos to redesign their exhibits and missions to continue to appeal to the public and maintain the profits gained from zoo admissions. As a result, many zoos adopted a three-pronged conservation, education, and welfare-based approach to displaying their animals, which seemed evident through moving away from the standard of desolate cages to more open, naturalistic, and barless enclosures and newly enhanced emphasis on research to better understand the animals they kept. Thus, even from their inception, zoos were never about giving the animals what they need but rather giving the humans what they want: to witness an “exotic” animal in real life, up close, and at their convenience.

Thus, even from their inception, zoos were never about giving the animals what they need but rather giving the humans what they want: to witness an “exotic” animal in real life, up close, and at their convenience.

By the logic of what zoos argue they do every day — improve the welfare and conservation of the species they keep — you would think that an industry as large as the zoo industry would have made astronomical strides in saving most of the animals they keep. You may be surprised to find out, however, that despite zoos being around for over 150 years, and the highest-standard accreditation agency (the Association of Zoos and Aquariums – the AZA) having been around since 1924, zoos are largely not responsible for improving species conservation in the wild.

Zoo Captivity Does Not Help Save Wild Species

The AZA currently oversees 254 accredited facilities, over 200 million visitors annually (a higher attendance than the combined annual attendance of the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB), and billions of dollars gained in revenue every year from admissions. According to the numbers published by AZA, accredited facilities house 8,600 different animal species and 800,000 individual animals total altogether. Of these, there are just 900 species classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as Vulnerable to Extinct in the wild, leaving just 10% of all animals housed at AZA member facilities threatened with extinction. If the other 90% of all animals kept at the zoo are not threatened with extinction to the same extent, why keep and breed them in captivity?

The zoo industry repeatedly uses the same ten or so species to justify their role in conservation and right to keep wild animals in captivity, including black-footed ferrets, golden lion tamarins, Attawater’s prairie chickens, American red wolves, Arabian oryx, California condor, Bongo, Amur leopard, and Pryzewalski’s horse. While legitimate reintroductions of these species into the wild coordinated with the help of zoos have been successful on an individual level, many of these species still struggle with threats in their natural habitats that cannot be mitigated by captive breeding in zoos, like poaching, habitat loss, and limited resources. Further, many of these species still have larger populations in captivity than in the wild, and many individuals born at zoos will spend their entire lives in captivity as “insurance” populations should their species become Extinct in the wild, without any capacity to help their wild counterparts.

Animals born and raised in captivity often do not survive in the wild upon release, as they become too dependent on humans for food, shelter, and other behavioral needs. For most animals kept at zoos, captive breeding is not a recommended conservation action by top conservation agencies; for example, in 1990, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) identified survival action plans for 1,370 species (418 of which were Endangered). Only 1.4% (19 species) were identified as being candidates for reintroduction of captive-bred animals. Additionally, according to Benjamin Beck, former associate director of biological programs at the National Zoo in Washington DC, in the last century, “only 16 of 145 reintroduction programs worldwide ever actually restored any animal populations to the wild. Of those, most were carried out by government agencies, not zoos.” 

Zoos Spend Far More Money on Facility Maintenance than on Conservation Efforts

This may be in large part due to the high daily operating cost and multi-million enclosure renovations zoos are responsible for paying for on a regular basis, which leaves a minimal amount leftover for zoos to invest in legitimate conservation efforts in the animals’ natural habitats. According to their website, AZA-accredited facilities have supported “conservation efforts around the globe, including contributing over $5.2 million to big cat conservation field projects in 2019.” Although seemingly large, this number is a miniscule percentage of zoos’ total annual revenue. In 2018, AZA members collectively spent $4.9 billion on operations and construction; comparatively, the $5.2 million amount spent on big cat conservation in 2019 is just 0.1% of zoo operational expenses in 2018. After having kept these animals in captivity for over a century (many of whom are the most popular with visitors, including lions, tigers, and leopards), why have we not seen a significant improvement in these animals’ conservation statuses yet if that has been the goal of keeping them at zoos all this time?

An in-depth review of the financial records of the AZA accredited Indianapolis Zoo determined that conservation was not a priority based on their allocation of finances. The investigator discovered that, between 2009 and 2019, the zoo spent just an average of 1.04% of its budget on conservation. Problematically, the total amount of funds allocated to conservation work was even less than the salary of the zoo’s CEO ($370,282 in 2019). Further, determining how much of the funds dedicated to “conservation” proved to be difficult as well; the zoo’s financial records revealed that donations marked as “conservation” often went to other zoos or were categorized under vague umbrella terms like “monitoring,” “research,” or “support.”

The investigator discovered that, between 2009 and 2019, the [Indianapolis Zoo] spent just an average of 1.04% of its budget on conservation. Problematically, the total amount of funds allocated to conservation work was even less than the salary of the zoo’s CEO ($370,282 in 2019).

Concerningly, looking closer into other AZA-accredited zoos across North America has revealed that this failure to specify the allocation of funds is not specific to this zoo, nor is the minimal amount. Even the most supportive zoos have been reported to only allocate between three to five percent of their budget to conservation work. Considering the above figures, how, then, do zoos act as conservation mechanisms with wildlife conservation as one of their top goals while allocating so much of their budgets to keeping animals in captivity and so little to actually saving them in the wild?

Say NO to the Zoo Industry

If this blog has resonated with you, please stand with us in exposing the zoo industry for what they fail to achieve: genuine conservation success for the thousands of species they keep. Do not support any facilities that claim to improve wildlife conservation unless they show you their receipts. Numbers do not lie, and unfortunately, the still-dwindling numbers of animals in the wild kept at zoos should tell you all you need to know.

Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Devan