The dreaded "E" word

You know, that horrible decision people like to dress up under a multitude of guises to mask the subconscious ghastly reality of euthanasia.

Now don't get me wrong, animal euthanasia has it's place, and it's very, very important. People often get me down as a softie bunny hugger because of my views on the topic, but the fact is, I once was in the same camp that can base such decisions on financial of convenience grounds alone, but over the last few years (and a lot of thinking about the subject) I have come through the other side and now find myself strongly disagreeing with the idea of convenience euthanasia.

I feel there are a lot of MASSIVE contradictions in zoo circles which really need to be addressed, now I don't mean to throw a lion among the ostriches, but some of these issues, I feel, are stunting the progress of zoos and are ticking timebombs of PR waiting to be grasped by those who'd wish to see zoological collections consigned to history.

Now granted, there are many people who feel zoos have no place in modern society and will grab at any opportunity to disrupt our progress and indeed there are a few within the zoo fraternity who blur the lines and sow confusion for reasons of their own I can only presume. To protect ourselves from these individuals we must use every possible opportunity to show our conservation contributions, we need to wear them proudly. Too many zoos (in the UK at least) have made enormous contributions to in-situ conservation and continue to do so, but evidence of this in your average zoo day out is seldom forthcoming in any obvious way and this just aids these sorts of people in creating a negative image.

And this is where we come to the euthanasia connection. To avoid any undue connections I'll set up an example to illustrate an idea, which is open to critique (I'm just putting forth my thoughts here).

Situation 1.

Hans is a male unicorn. He has sired 33 foals (that's a baby unicorn right?) the entire studbook population for this species is 255 and his genes are over represented. Hans is a very popular animal at the zoo and visitors really love to see him. A new stallion will be coming to the collection as a replacement for Hans but there is currently no suitable collection for Hans to move to, therefore he must be put to sleep as he's eating another unicorn's hay so to speak.

Situation 2.

Hans is a male unicorn. He has sired 33 foals, the entire studbook population for this species is 255 and his genes are over represented. Hans is a very popular animal at the zoo and visitors really love to see him. A new stallion will be coming to the collection as a replacement for Hans, meanwhile word has spread amongst the public that Hans will be leaving the zoo (maybe with a little extra media help) and attendance numbers have risen slightly with visitors wishing to see Hans off before he leaves, bringing in a little extra revenue to pay for the extra expenses involved. Thankfully for Hans, the collection had priced his transfer into a long term plan for him when he was initially aquired, this means he can be safely returned to Xanadu (or wherever unicorns come from) and be placed into a rehabilitation  programme and eventually re-released, this of course being done in the media eye and raising more positive PR for the collection and the studbook as a whole.  Also all this media attention has drawn attention to Hans replacement too, extra visitors come to see if the new guy is as cool as Hans

Let's not be naive, not all of this is possible straight away nor will it be applicable to all species, but with careful planning, media support and a bit of luck, the extra revenues and PR will easily pay for any expenses incurred during the transfer back to the wild. That's not all either, Overall, if this scheme could be refined there are a multitude of benefits...

- Hans lives beyond his useful lifespan within the zoo, a retirement of sorts for his contributions to his species.

- All of the obvious PR benefits involved with re-release of animals into the wild

- Hans could be castrated before release (providing it wouldn't effect his survival chances) and act as a test dummy for in-situ research and potential re-release of animals in future, further assisting his species and providing a reliable plan to follow when the time comes to re-release further specimens.

- The issue of convenience euthanasia could be entirely removed from the equation, smoothing out another chink in the armour of zoos and putting us all in a stronger position than before.

- We're contributing even more to a bigger picture globally and making that role in conservation crystal clear to our visitors and critics alike.

Granted, it's not the easiest plan, but with co-ordination costs could be cut, plans and protocols put in place to reduce complications and turn the process into routine.

The way things are in some places now, not only are the animals missing out, but in some cases, we could be too.

If anyone's remotely serious about practicing what we preach, we must surely do more to move in this direction and ostracise those that choose to take the easiest/cheapest options.

Bottom line for me is, I think that there are many salvageable situations of this sort which we let pass us by, we owe it to the individuals within our care to do the best by them too, it's easy to pipe up with the old "species over individual" jive, but in reality right now we have many generations of individuals being born and euthanised in collections without a reasonable re-release plan in sight to justify such ideologies. When do we make the call? when is it time to start releasing?? presumably when we have too many in zoos right? 

That's my 2 cents, feel free to comment, I'm always open to debate. Hans and I will be waiting in the stocks for the rotten produce!