Dartmoor Wildlife Park Report on visit to Dartmoor Wildlife Park, Sparkwell, Devon This first section of the report covers the overall impression, and conservation, education and research. The second section deals with the enclosures, signs and hand-rearing whilst the third section looks at health and safety.
I visited the zoo on behalf of CAPS, along with two local campaigners. I spent 5 and half hours at the zoo, between 11am and 4.30pm. It was a dry, warm day. I have made reference throughout this report to the conditions laid down in the Secretary of State's Standards of Modern Zoo Practice (DETR, 2000 - hereafter referred to as SMZP). All zoos in the UK must abide by these standards. The SMZP requires zoos to participate in conservation, education and research, and also lays down the basis for animal welfare and public safety. Overall Impression: My overall impression is that the zoo is poorly run and little consideration is given to the needs of the animals. The whole site looks shabby and some areas had a putrid smell. As detailed throughout this report many of the enclosures were dirty. Point 2.9 of the SMZP states: "Proper standards of hygiene, both in the personal hygiene of staff and in enclosures and treatment rooms should be maintained. In particular … special attention must be given to the management and appropriate cleaning of enclosures and equipment within them, to reduce the risk of disease." I couldn't see one single enclosure where there appeared to be any attempt to provide enrichment or a stimulating environment. Food seem to be provided in containers or was simply thrown into enclosures, and I could see no evidence that the animals were provided with novel ways of obtaining food which would make them work and provide stimulation. Even furniture within the enclosures was minimal. The SMZP lists the Provision of Opportunity to Express Most Normal Behaviour as one of the five principles for animal welfare in the zoo environment. This principle includes the following: "Accommodation should take account of the natural habitat of the species and seek to meet the physiological and psychological needs of the animals" (point 4.3); and "Enclosures should be equipped in accordance with the needs of the animals with bedding material, branchwork, burrows, nesting boxes, pools, sub-strates and vegetation and other enrichment materials designed to aid and encourage normal behaviour patterns and minimise any abnormal behaviour" (point 4.4). Evidence is given throughout this report where the zoo does not meet these standards. Signs giving information on the animals were either missing, inadequate, faded or hand painted making some difficult to read; this, combined with the unnatural environments, meant the zoo certainly didn't fulfil any educational role. There was no evidence that the zoo plays any role in serious research, and conservation is called into question when seeing the number of new-born animals, particularly big cats, who are hand-reared and used for public display.
The visit also left me with serious concerns about health and safety issues at the zoo - these are covered below. I was surprised to notice that the Zoo's licence had been re-issued in February 2001. From my experience this zoo clearly fails to meet the minimum standards set down in order for a license to be issued. As stand-off barriers are an important part of public safety in zoos and are referred to frequently in this report it may be useful to provide the explanation of the term as used in the SMZP: "stand-off barrier means a physical barrier set back from the outer edge of an enclosure barrier in order to provide further distance between the public and exhibited animals" (page 5, SMZP). Distances between people and animals must also "be sufficient to minimise transmission of disease or potential pathogens" (point 3.6). Conservation, Education, Research: The SMZP (Section 2, subsection 7) refer to the principles of conservation, education and research which should be an important feature of zoos and which will become subject to legislative control when the EC Zoos Directive comes into force in April 2002. The Directive will make it a formal requirement that zoos participate in serious conservation projects; suitable facilities should be available for education purposes and accurate information about the species being exhibited must be available; zoos should be able to demonstrate that they encourage research. I could see little evidence that these requirements were being fulfilled. The second section of this report deals with the enclosures, signs and hand-rearing whilst the third section looks at health and safety. Photographs © Captive Animals Protection Society |
