Ben’s Zoo This new four-part BBC2 TV series looks at how the Mee Family, with absolutely no experience of working with animals let alone running a zoo, bought the notorious and beleaguered Dartmoor Wildlife Park. Conditions at the zoo have been criticised by CAPS for many years, both before and after the new owners took over. Within days of the Mee’s moving in to the zoo a jaguar escaped and jumped into a tiger enclosure, almost resulting in either the animals killing each other in a fight or one being shot dead. CAPS discovered that the jaguar was out of his enclosure for more than 17 hours as the zoo did not have a tranquilliser gun with which to sedate him, despite repeated concerns over the years about the inadequate darting equipment and emergency procedures. Just a few months later a wolf escaped, sparking an armed police hunt before he was captured two miles away. Despite CAPS’ call for a public inquiry into the escapes, no such hearing took place and the zoo was given a licence to open to the public. CAPS visited the zoo in August 2007, shortly after it reopened as Dartmoor Zoological Park, and found that little had changed for the animals. Some of the worst conditions – foxes in a pit with a cobbled floor, otters with just a small amount of water, birds and monkeys in inappropriate enclosures – were still there.
CAPS commented: “This notorious zoo should have remained closed as homes were available for many of the animals. People can not play with the lives of animals as if they were toys. While we will watch this series with interest we doubt that it will reveal many of the ongoing problems that CAPS have highlighted over the years. “The public are increasingly recognising that zoos are not safe havens for animals. Real conservation is about protecting natural habitats, not about wealthy families buying a zoo because they think it is an interesting thing to do.” A classic example of the new owners’ lack of knowledge has been shown by the names they give animals who even young children could probably recognise. A jaguar was described as the “big one with spots on it” and a tapir as "a pig-dog-horse thing".
While the Mee’s claimed they were saving the animals from certain death by buying the zoo, what they have not highlighted is that in 2007 a wolf was killed at the zoo after being injured and ostracised by the pack and a number of fallow deer were killed due to ‘overpopulation’. See our earlier news stories about the zoo: July 2007: CAPS object to zoo licence application January 2007: The day the “big one with spots on it” escaped August 2006: CAPS expose of deaths at the zoo and sale of tigers to a circus July 2002: Zoo boss guilty of illegally breeding animals November 2001: CAPS expose of conditions at Dartmoor Wildlife Park WHAT YOU CAN DO
Photographs © Captive Animals Protection Society |
