RELEASE
News from the Captive Animals' Protection Society (Winter 2008)

Search for books on zoos and primarily you will find ones for young children which promote them as a fun day out, autobiographies of zookeepers and vets or scholarly volumes about captive animal management and environmental enrichment. Those books critical of zoos are usually of an academic nature, discussing animal ethics and conservation.

With zoos’ main target audience being young people, there is a surprising lack of books aimed at this age group which explain the reality of zoos: the suffering of animals and the conservation con of captivity. Finally, such a book exists.

Rob Laidlaw is well known and highly respected in the animal protection movement. A biologist who has spent the past 25 years campaigning to protect wild animals in captivity, Rob is a founder of Zoocheck Canada, an organisation CAPS co-operates with on issues such as zoos and circuses.

Aimed at 8 – 12 year-olds (but certainly appropriate for an older audience too), Wild animals in captivity is well laid out and thoroughly illustrated with photos that have great impact without being overly shocking. Discussing different types of zoos, animal behavioural problems and conservation, it looks in detail at specific species such as polar bears, elephants, great apes, dolphins and whales, focussing on why these species do particularly badly in captivity.

It is great to see a book aimed at this age group that challenges the whole concept of zoos. In addition, the examples are not all based in one country – Rob has travelled extensively in his work and there are case studies from Canada, North and South America, Europe and Asia, giving the book a wider audience geographically than one that focussed on the author’s own country. Most of the stories are personal ones, which definitely helps the reader appreciate the feelings of the animals.

If I had to name one downside of the book it’s that it does not take a 100% ‘anti-zoo’ stance. In the chapter ‘The future of zoos’, some zoos are applauded for their efforts to provide a more ‘natural’ environment for animals and for their captive breeding efforts. “A handful of progressive zoos” are described as “good models for the future.” Whilst no-one would oppose attempts to make the lives of the inmates more bearable, I would suggest that there should be no future for zoos – that, for the sake of animals and conservation, no more zoos should be built and current ones phased out. However, this distracts little from the overall theme of the book.

This is an important book on an important subject and is highly recommended – buy it for a relative and your kid’s school library. Ask your local public library to get a copy too. It deserves to be read by as many people as possible and should be on the reading list for students discussing the ethical and conservation aspects of zoos.

Even if its readers still visit a zoo afterwards, they will be armed with a checklist of things to look for and ideas on how they can help animals.

This is certainly a book that CAPS will be recommending to students, teachers and the general public.

Review by Craig Redmond, Captive Animals' Protection Society.