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IELTS Topic: ENVIRONMENT
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Zoos: safe for animals?
Original source: The Sun
THEY have been a favourite family day out for generations of Britons – but the animals themselves may be far from safe in their supposed sanctuary. Here are some of the serious incidents involving apes and big cats …
Apes
• A FAULTY thermostat which sent temperatures in the chimpanzee enclosure soaring to 43°C was blamed for the death of two chimps at Twycross Zoo in September 2015. As a result of the “heat stress” chimpanzees Kip, 39, and Jolly, 32, suffered fatal heart attacks, and their bodies were found with burns.
… nine macaque monkeys escaped from Belfast zoo within two years
• “AFTER much soul-searching”, Newquay Zoo put down two healthy, endangered crested black macaques in 2007. Venus and Ia were killed by lethal injection because they kept fighting. The zoo argued that culling them was more humane than forcing the social animals to live alone.
• In 2014, Damian Aspinall, boss of Port Lympne and Howletts zoos, both near Canterbury, attempted to return a family of ten gorillas to the wilds of Gabon in central Africa. Almost all of the animals were killed – most likely by other gorillas – in an incident described as a “bloodbath”.
Although zoo-raised gorillas learn to fight, they are easily killed by wild gorillas if they are released back into African forests.
Source: Alexandra Giese/Shutterstock
• In 2015, Belfast Zoo announced that it was reviewing the construction of its macaque enclosure after nine animals escaped from it within two years.
March of that year saw one of the monkeys get out just weeks after two others had made a break for it. And in October 2013 six of the animals got loose after scaling an electric fence.
Big cats
• In August 2016, lions at Bristol Zoo were caught on film pacing up and down due to anxiety brought on by a £15-a-head late-night bash held at the zoo, where punters drank and partied to loud music. Zoo workers confirmed on the night that the animals were experiencing “stress”.
• A four-year-old Indian tiger called Sariska was shot dead after breaking out of its enclosure at Howletts in Kent in 2001. A spokesman said they had to shoot the tiger as it was heading for an open area, and a tranquiliser dart would have taken 15 minutes to work.
Five lions that had been born and raised at Longleat Safari Park had to be killed due to serious genetic defects caused by inbreeding.
Source: Dave Smith/Shutterstock
… a jaguar was put to sleep after it chewed off one of its own paws
• South Lakes Safari Zoo in Cumbria has been the scene of several incidents in the past few years – including a jaguar which was put to sleep after it chewed off one of its own paws and a monkey whose decomposed body was found behind a radiator.
• Five lions were destroyed at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire in 2014 because they had serious genetic defects caused by inbreeding. Longleat boss Viscount Ceawlin Thynn admitted there had been a failure to control the lion population.