Another 'zoo' bites the dust

The last few days, I've been following the saga of some unfortunate inhabitants of the now-defunct Las Vegas Zoo (also called the Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park). This 'zoo' (and I use those parentheses purposefully) was a roadside enterprise for visiting tourists, headed by a perhaps once-well-meaning man named Pat Dingle whose love for exotic animals grew greater than the size of his pockets.

The LasVegasZoo.com website is now shut down, like the entire organization, but basic online searches reveal less-than-stellar reviews from people who were very concerned about the animals' welfare at Dingle's facility.

This article from local website LasVegas CityLife quotes a Humane Society officer who claims that her organization was aware of animal welfare problems at the Las Vegas Zoo for at least five years.

This September 30th article from local news source Contact13 explains that the tiny operation grew completely unmanageable after all of its employees (all three of them) suddenly quit in protest of (what they believed to be) substandard animal care.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the government body responsible for inspecting and licensing facilities who keep primates (and other species) in captivity,  stepped in to help when the zoo shut its doors, but was unsuccessful in placing all the zoo's inhabitants in a timely fashion. Thus far, an otter and three baby agoutis (large, guinea-pig-like rodents) have died in the weeks since the zoo's closure.

When the USDA placed an SOS call to the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance, a quickie rescue was thrown together for the primates who had lived at the zoo: Terry, a 33 year old male chimpanzee, and four Barbary macaques. Terry is destined for Save The Chimps in Florida (the world's largest chimpanzee sanctuary) and the macaques are headed to Primate Rescue Center, an equally stellar organization that is home to both apes and monkeys in Kentucky.

So, the nonhuman primates at Las Vegas Zoo have been saved. Good.

Why am I writing about this now? For a few reasons...

I have been lucky to know some of the heros (or heroines, as the case may be) of this story, two ladies who gave up their plans for this week to ensure these primates would get to their forever homes: April Truitt runs the Primate Rescue Center and was kind enough years ago to invite me to intern there when I first became interested in pursuing a career in the nonhuman primate world. Her advice in the years since then has been invaluable. Jen Feuerstein is Sanctuary Director of Save The Chimps, and is someone I was lucky to spend a lot of time with at last month's Great Ape Summit. I respect that these two women have not only dedicated their careers, and their lives, to nonhuman primates but also were able to throw together these cross-country rescues when primates needed them the most.

I also write about this because I think it's important to expose the often-shady side of the zoo industry. I'm not going to debate the merits of the entire zoo industry, because I don't think this is the proper forum, and there are some people working for zoos who truly do care about the animals in their facilities. There is information in my book, Monkey Business, about the ethics of zoos, and there are other animal rights books out there that discuss this topic at more length. However, there are zoos and there are 'zoos'... 

These 'zoos' I speak of, often referred to as 'backyard zoos' are most usually not in the best interest of the animals. While some saving graces of accredited mainstream zoos involve education and conservation efforts,  backyard zoos exist to turn a profit. Their substandard care quite often involves things like normally socially, active animals being housed independently, small, dirty cages and enclosures, unnatural diets, malnutrition, a lack of exercise and little to no mental stimulation for beings that may spend their entire lifetimes in this prison-like atmosphere. 

Watchdog organizations in the United States are overburdened as it is, and although the USDA stepped in to help place the suddenly homeless animals from the Las Vegas Zoo, this was too little, too late. Thankfully, organizations like Save The Chimps and Primate Rescue Center are so dedicated and quickly made room for some new inhabitants.

Nevada is one of only six US states without a law prohibiting the ownership of exotic animals. If such a law were in place when Pat Dingle started his 'zoo', none of this would have happened in the first place. Primate sanctuaries that are already full of inhabitants and strapped for cash wouldn't need to be scrambling this week-long rescue and figure out how to provide lifetime care for yet another chimpanzee and four more macaques.

I'm glad the employees of the Las Vegas Zoo were willing to sacrifice their jobs for the safety and future well-being of animals like Terry. They have made a difference for Terry the chimpanzee and the four barbary macaques headed to sanctuary. 

The four barbary macaques can now make their own social group at their new home in Kentucky. They will live in peace and get the medical attention and species-appropriate emotional stimulation that, most likely, was denied from them thus far.

Terry may live to be fifty years old, as chimps often do. He may have twenty more years ahead of him! Instead of the confines of a cage, where his every move was tracked by gawking tourists, he can spend those years, instead, in the Florida sun, joining a social group like he would have in the wild. He can sit on a hill of tall grass that is gently blowing in the wind, and, hopefully, forget why he was rescued in the first place.