Reptiles in zoos

The idea that reptiles, along with amphibians, fish and others somehow don't need as much in their lives as mammals, birds and the rest of 'us' is disappearing. Studies have shown that reptiles are well aware of their environment. But this is only part of it, importantly these animals also biologically 'notice' what is missing from their world. A 'map' of what life in the wild should be like is encoded in every animal. A reptile born in captivity can still miss, and need, its wild life.

Sensitive creatures
Reptiles, especially exotic forms, have particular sensitivities to their environments, such as needing complex thermal ranges, variation in humidity, social phases of light and dark, and many others. Failure to provide any of these causes stress, and, depending on the individual creature, even minor discrepancies can lead to disease and death.

Very basic principles relating to these matters have been known for many years, but the problems remain. There are many reasons for this, one is that we know only a tiny fraction of what keeps reptiles comfortable in nature. Not surprisingly, then, if one doesn't know how an animal really lives in the wild, then how can a naturalistic lifestyle be replicated in captivity. Reptiles get a very bad deal in captivity and zoo freezers and labs hold vast numbers of dead animals to prove it. And that is even before we begin to tackle their natural behaviour.

Observations of free living reptiles have shown that, regardless of what zoos, hobbyists and others say, these animals are often very active - they use and need plenty of space. What's more, just because an animal may be small, like a baby lizard, doesn't mean it will be all right in a small area. Often small reptiles are as active as adults of much larger species.

Problems in captivity
There are lots of behavioural and psychological problems in reptiles as a result of captivity. Many zoos try to deny they have problems, but this is typically because they know little about the subject and don't take it seriously enough. Signs of abnormal behaviour and psychological stress in reptiles are found in all zoos.

Some symptoms are obvious enough, such as animals climbing or scratching at glass barriers because they don't understand why they can't get out, or lizards and snakes that move around and around their enclosures because they too 'want out'.

Other behavioural problems include being very sedentary, seemingly 'sleeping' their lives away behind a rock. This is often a sign of stress - the animal may be trying to wait out the bad environment in which it is held. But, of course, it won't be able to emerge one day and find the cage gone. Examples of these behaviours appear in the CAPS video 'Sad Eyes & Empty Lives'.

Inability and disinterest in zoos to recognise and deal with behavioural/psychological problems in reptiles also causes them to get diseases and die. Reptiles need spacious environments not zoos.

When zoos say they are involved in 'conservation' it is generally a smokescreen - an attempt to sound important and acceptable. In reality, conservation in zoos is pretty much an enormous waste of time, money and other resources - and a few especially honest zoos admit it. Hardly any zoos are actually directly involved with reptile conservation projects and many are precluded from participating because the backgrounds of their animals are unclear. Should they successfully breed reptiles, they do not have a safe natural haven to return the animals to anyway.

Despite all the zoo propaganda, the number of reptile species actually 'reintroduced' by zoos can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And because these animals have only been 'put back' a few years ago, the projects themselves haven't been tested by time.

There is also the serious matter of introducing diseases to nature. It is not possible to reliably screen captive reptiles, or other animals, to ensure they are disease free.

Disease
Frequently diseases only appear when triggered by some particular stressor or cue. Worse, so common are pathogenic (disease causing) microorganisms in reptiles that probably every zoo in the world has some. Zoos know this, and also know that they harbour well known virulent forms which have been passed from one zoo to another as they exchange animals. Therefore, any and every individual animal that might be or is sent from captivity to the wild is a potential 'germ warfare' time bomb. What's more, when this happens, because it is a statistical probability, zoos cannot claim it is an accident, because they have for some time been warned.

For a fraction of what zoo projects cost, huge areas of natural habitat could be purchased and wildlife left to exist in natural balance. Indeed, if zoos were to be decent, they could voluntarily sell many of their assets and use the money raised for habitat and wildlife protection. All that is needed is a little generosity. Instead it seems that they can't even let their zoos go.

Education
Zoos say they educate people about reptiles. Yet a reptile in an artificial environment presents just a rough caricature of how those holding it think it lives. Because so little quality information exists on the way reptiles live in nature it simply isn't possible in a zoo to show what reptiles are all about. Instead numerous studies of zoo reptiles show that their lives bear little resemblance to what we do know of them in the wild.

There is no way of providing much information on the scantily written cards we find on animal cages - much of which is often inaccurate anyway. Putting loads of information about reptiles on zoo cages doesn't resolve this. People don't wait around to read it. Zoo studies of visitors to the 'reptile house' have concluded that, regardless of how much effort went in to trying to make the cages 'informative' the public spent only a few seconds at each cage learning little if anything.

What do zoos actually convey? Many people are given the impression that animals in cages are acceptable. Misinformed zookeepers tell the public the animals don't notice the cages. Most may now reject this, but others leave believing that if they brought an iguana and kept it like the zoo does, all would be fine. It wouldn't.

Research
Few zoos are actively involved in research programmes run by scientists with particular objectives. Very few indeed. In the veterinary and anatomical fields it is true that some work has led to discoveries in disease diagnosis, treatment, surgery and problem prevention. But almost all of this energy addresses problems caused by keeping animals captive in the first place. It is said that 'research on captives is for captives'.

Zoo research also addresses subjects such as genetics and husbandry - projects which serve zoos. And because of the very nature of zoos, the tiny amount of true research that goes on has to be viewed sceptically at best.

Entertainment
Entertainment was pretty much why zoos came about in the first place back in Victorian times. They were 'freak' shows of the worst kind. Then, few questioned animal suffering in zoos and even less was known about nature and animal needs. The challenge for zoo keepers was often one of 'will the animal survive at all', let alone be remotely comfortable. Exotic animals were in crude cages, and the education policy was basically to exhibit unusual life forms, snatched from their homes in nature. This was just a very brutal sideshow.

A hundred years on, it is tempting to ask how much has really changed?