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Thank you all for joining this knowledge exchange session.

We will be discussing the implications of communicating population management euthanasia (PME) to the public, and consider ways in which this can be done.

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The link below will take you to a video that explains PME and introduces a few topics for discussion!

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Is it necessary to communicate PME to the public?

If not, why?

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If PME is communicated to the public, do you feel like it will negatively affect the positive role that zoos want to achieve?

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Inaccurate rumours circulate the media regarding PME. I have attached some articles below to look at. Do you feel it is critical to correct these views?

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Discussion how to's and do's and do not's! 

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Discussion how to's and do's and do not's! 

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Please comment on any topic that you wish to partake in.

Please click the "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" icons to agree and disagree with comments as they are posted!

All opinions and information on the topic is greatly appreciated!

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Cultural attitudes among countries and regions differ. Public positions towards critical issues vary with the underlying norms and values of respective societies. What approaches can zoos take in order to communicate PME effectively to everyone?

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Can zoos incorporate PME in their educational programmes?

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When we capture animals from the wild and put them in zoos, these animals become commodities. They are stripped of their ability to display natural behaviors and lead a stilted existence filled with stress and boredom. Despite the harm that life in captivity does to zoo animals, both mentally and physically, many zoos run captive breeding programs. As such, zoos can sustain their captive animal populations and the draw of a new baby animal is a great way to get paying visitors in their doors. A big downside to captive breeding is the occurrence of "surplus" animals.

Unlike the many sanctuaries that take in abandoned and abused animals to live out the remainder of their lives, zoos don't always take care of their animals for life. According to the Species Survival Plan (SSP) programs, a surplus animal is one that has, "made its genetic contribution to a managed population and is not essential for future scientific studies or to maintain social-group stability or traditions."

For the sake of minimizing any confusion, we're speaking here specifically of surplus animals found in zoos. However, surplus animals are just as easily disposable when they're coming from the pet trade, circuses and other roadside attractions.

What Happens to Surplus Animals

These animals can be adult animals who have been bred with a number of partners and are no longer needed to produce offspring for the zoo. Basically, any animal that does not "fit" into the zoos breeding program can be considered a surplus. Surplus animals can also be animals that the zoo no longer finds profitable, cubs that were a big hit the year before might be replaced by newer, younger animals. Since zoos are not responsible for the lifetime care of animals, they can get rid of the animals who are no longer profitable or useful.

Many zoos have SSP programs in place that are designed to manage populations and keep them genetically diverse. Although these plans are often formed years in advance, there is no way to completely control how many surplus animals there may be.

Zoo animals are often given names, placed on small plaques displayed in front of the exhibit along with a short history overview or a few key personality traits for visitors to read. Anthropomorphizing these animals allows the public to feel connected. After all, we all have our favorite animals; but don't allow this smokescreen to fool you: the animals are expendable. Breeding programs are set in place to benefit the population as a whole, not the individual.

Most AZA-accredited institutions would dispute any claims that they don't care for their animals, but one can't help but question an institution's motives when, upon further investigation, the business transactions that often take place are questionable.

The World of Online Zoo Animal Exchange

These surplus animals are often sold and traded through an online database: the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Animal Exchange. A password-protected database that AZA-accredited institutions, certified related facilities, and approved non-member participants are able to access. Although zoos frequently promote the Conservation of endangered species through their mission statements (which many do), animal welfare often takes a backseat when the monetary value of a particular animal is no longer worth the time and energy the zoo is investing in them.

Unless you're someone who purchases seasonal zoo memberships visiting numerous times throughout the year, animal trading and transactions are usually overlooked because the public doesn't notice when an animal goes missing or is replaced.

As an allegedly reputable source, zoos maintain that they only deal and broker with institutions that are accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association that value the welfare of the animal. Throughout the years, however, many claims have been made against a number of institutions that have sold animals, whether directly or indirectly, to individuals or establishments that do not have the animals' best interests in mind. Some animals are sold directly to game reserves while others are brought to auction. The paper trail following where the animals go is not always easily accessible and most cases exposing these transactions have been through undercover work.

According to Alan Green of Animal Underworld, "It's a long-standing nod-and-a-wink arrangement meant to provide the zoos deniability: They hand over their unwanted animals and hope that the dealers' misdeeds aren't traced to the source. It's a sorry game of don't-ask, don't-tell, and it's conducted in a way designed to bury the truth. If these publicly funded institutions have nothing to hide, why won't they provide a full accounting of where all the unwanted animals went?"

According to Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue,"if the animals are lucky, they may be traded or sent to another zoo or accredited facility. Some get transferred to multiple zoos throughout their lives. But a large number of them go to private breeders, pet owners, circuses, roadside zoos, and canned hunting ranches."

Once the animals are sold to other owners, the people who purchase them can do what they please with the animals. Baskin asserts that this often ends with the animals being sold to taxidermists or the seller will take the animals to auction where anyone can buy them. Given the lose regulations surrounding purchasing exotic animals in the U.S., animals can be traded far and with little thought or concern.

If animals are not being traded out, another option that zoos consider is euthanasia. U.S. zoos favor the use of contraception to limit the number of unwanted pregnancies amongst animals, however in Europe, killing surplus animals is standard practice.

This past year, the world cried for an 18-month old giraffe named Marius who was shot and killed at the Copenhagen zoo in front of a group of students. Marius was killed because, as zoo officials stated, his genes were already well represented enough amongst the remaining giraffe populations. Despite breeding programs set in place meant to maintain genetic diversity, Marius was still born. In a failed attempt to justify the killing, the Copenhagen zoo scientists performed an autopsy on Marius in front of onlookers, all in the name of education. A few weeks later, four lions were killed in the same fashion at the Copenhagen zoo because officials had hoped to introduce a new male with the remaining breeding females.

What Can We Learn

These acts are not justifiable. Although euthanasia is inherently cruel, trading or loaning animals can sometimes lead animals to the same sad fate, or worse.

If the quality of life of each individual animal was as important as AZA accredited institutions say, they would ensure the survival of the animal to the best of their capabilities and acknowledge the role and responsibility that they have to care for the animals they breed for life. The reality is, these animals don't need to be in zoos. We put them there for our entertainment. Very few of the zoos who claim to keep and breed animals for the purpose of " Conservation " actually do so and if they did, there would not be "surplus" animals, because they would be returned to the wild.

Seeing what happens to surplus animals just further validates the fact that zoos view their animals as expendable commodities, not the living, feeling beings they are.

Knowing this, we urge you to be a Green Monster and stop paying to Support these institutions. Zoo captivity can only end when people stop paying to prop up this archaic industry.

Check out these animal-friendly alternatives instead.
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The Shocking Truth About What Happens to 'Surplus' Zoo Animals

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Unlike sanctuaries that take in abandoned and abused animals to live out their lives, zoos don't always take care of their animals for life.

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I'm always thrilled that major media are carrying stories about all aspects of animal behavior, including their fascinating cognitive, emotional, and moral lives. There also is increasing global attention to the myriad ways in which nonhuman animals (animals) are abused at the hands of humans, or as some may say, "in the name of humans" or "in the name of money."

Along these lines, a recent essay by Ian Parker in The New Yorker called " Killing Animals at the Zoo" caught my attention. His eye-opening and utterly depressing essay is available online, so here are a few snippets. I'm sorry for the gory images that accompany his piece, but that's the real-world of zoos, and I can only hope that people will take action because, as the late Gretchen Wyler aptly noted, " cruelty can't stand the spotlight" (please also see).
Marius: The poster corpse for killing otherwise healthy animals in zoos
Mr. Parker's essay focuses on the Copenhagen Zoo in which animals are shamelessly and unapologetically killed willy-nilly when they are no longer needed. The poster corpse for this practice, and the focus of Mr. Parker's essay, is Marius, a young giraffe who was killed, dissected publicly, and fed to the zoo's lions because he couldn't be used to make more giraffes who would live the rest of their lives behind bars (please also see " Healthy Young Zoo Giraffe to be Killed: 'Zoothanasia' Redux," " The Marius Effect," and " Marius the Giraffe: Zoo Should Have Covered up Killing Him". Soon after Marius was killed, two adult lions and two cubs were killed at the same zoo to make room for a new male the zoo had purchased. Zoo administrators thought this was just fine and dismissed worldwide criticism of these killings. Clearly, the zoo's institutional needs came first and the individual animals' needs were thoroughly ignored.

Some people regrettably don't have any problem with killing animals such as Marius. Indeed, Bengt Holst, the Copenhagen Zoo's scientific director and chair of Denmark's Animal Ethics Council, thinks it's just fine to kill animals like Marius. Please also keep in mind, that while it appears the practice of killing healthy animals is rarer in zoos in the United States, thousands are killed in European zoos (please also see " Zoos 'Zoothanize' Many Healthy Animals According to BBC"). So, while cute and charismatic Marius became the "poster corpse" for animals needlessly killed in zoos, the routine slaughter of thousands of other healthy sentient beings goes unnoticed as business as usual.
Words matter: There really are no "surplus" animals, and killing otherwise healthy animals at zoos is not euthanasia, but rather zoothanasia
The use of certain words by zoo workers and Mr. Parker stand out. First, is the word "surplus," and second is the misuse of "euthanized" or other forms of this word. The subtitle for Mr. Parker's essay contains both: "At Danish zoos, surplus animals are euthanized-and dissected before the public," contains both.

Of course, there are no surplus animals if you consider each and every individual to have some value. Any definition of "surplus" indicates something along the lines of "more than is needed." In the case of zoos, "surplus" boils down to animals who can no longer be used for breeding or for show -- in other words, they can't make money for the business. For more on the notion of surplus animals please see " SURPLUS ANIMALS: THE CYCLE OF HELL: A Study of Captive Wildlife in the United States," and also click here for additional discussions.

Zoo administrators try to sanitize the downright killing, some say the murder, of so-called surplus animals, by calling it " management euthanasia" (please see "' Zoothanasia' Is Not Euthanasia: Words Matter" and " WHAT ZOOS NEED TO DO FOR ZOO'D ANIMALS" and links therein), but the public is catching on to the deception implied in this term. Marius and other animals who zoos consider "surplus animals" are killed, despite being healthy, but they are not euthanized. I coined the term "zoothanasia" to refer to these unnecessary killings because killing these healthy individuals is not euthanasia, or a mercy killing, as zoo administrators suggest it is. It's about time people who misuse the word "euthanasia" for their own self-serving benefits be called to the table.
The future: Zoos should stop playing musical animals and stop captive breeding
One thing zoos can do right away is to stop playing "musical animals" or "musical semen." Zoos commonly move animals around as if they're objects, taking individuals far from families and friends they care for and upon whom they rely. The animals are often used as breeding machines, like dogs in puppy mills. When zoos need more animals, potential parent animals are shipped here and there and expected to breed as assigned. Of course, one can ask, why do we need even more animals to spend their lives locked up in cages of various sizes? Large enclosures are still cages that restrict movement and an animal's freedom to do many things he would otherwise do in the wild. For more discussion please see " Why Was Harambe the Gorilla in a Zoo in the First Place?"

Zoos, as long as they exist, must be for the animals who are forced to live there, not for the people who visit or run them. We really need some radical changes now that emphasize how important the life of every single animal living in captivity is. Glib excuses for killing any individual must be countered and zoo personnel (and others including those who write for mass media) must refer to the animals as who they really are, not as disposable, unneeded, or surplus objects "that" don't, for example, fit into their breeding programs, programs that don't really do much if anything for the individuals themselves or for others of their species.

Stopping captive breeding and phasing out zoos in favor of sanctuaries where individuals can live out their lives with respect and dignity should be the focus of future efforts to enrich and honor the lives of the numerous animals who find themselves languishing in captivity. Allowing animals to be treated and then killed as if they're mere objects should not be tolerated and each of us must work to end this egregious practice. The rapidly growing international and transdisciplinary compassionate conservation movement is one such move in the right direction.
Bengt Holst's so-call shit storm
Mr. Parker quotes Mr. Holst as saying, "The Marius affair started as a shit storm, and we turned it around." No they haven't. Millions of people worldwide were, and continue to be, outraged by Marius' unnecessary death. The heartless accounts and support of killing animals like Marius show just why global humane education is sorely needed.

I urge you to read Mr. Parker's essay and to get involved in stopping the slaughter of animals in zoos. As long as people running zoos think it's just fine to slaughter otherwise healthy animals, zoo'd animals need all the help they can get right now.

Note: For wide-ranging discussions about zoos, please see this collection of essays. Whether zoos truly do anything meaningful for education or conservation is still being debated. Indeed, the evidence is rather scanty that they do.
Marc Bekoff's latest books are Jasper's Story: Saving Moon Bears (with Jill Robinson), Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate Conservation, Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed: The Fascinating Science of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, Friendship, and Conservation, Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence, and The Jane Effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall (edited with Dale Peterson). The Animals' Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age (with Jessica Pierce) will be published in April 2017 and Canine Confidential: An Insider's Guide to the Best Lives For Dogs and Us will be published in early 2018.

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Killing Healthy Animals in Zoos: "Zoothanasia" is a Reality

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I'm always thrilled that major media are carrying stories about all aspects of animal behavior, including their fascinating cognitive, emotional, and moral lives. There also is increasing global attention to the myriad ways in which nonhuman animals (animals) are abused at the hands of humans, or as some may say, "in the name of humans" or "in the name of money."

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A global uproar has followed the deaths of two African lions and their two ten-month-old cubs. Their lives ended because the zoo wants to introduce a new male to the remaining females to bear more lions.

The same outcry was heard when a healthy young giraffe named Marius, who had the wrong genes for the facility's breeding program, was killed with a bolt to his head-so as not to contaminate his body with poisons. The giraffe was publicly dissected and then fed to the zoo's carnivores, including lions.

None of the deaths were euthanasia, which is a mercy killing when an animal is suffering or lingering near death and must be "put down," as zoos always refer to such situations.

Rather, it was "zoothanasia," or killing done by zoo workers because an animal is no longer needed for one reason or another and is deemed to be a disposable object rather than a sentient being. (Related: " Opinion: Killing of Marius the Giraffe Exposes Myths About Zoos.")

Many people around the world were outraged by Marius's death. I call this the "Marius Effect."

Many of them had never previously voiced their opinion about the common killings of what are disparagingly called "surplus animals" by zoos, or had spoken out about other animal issues. (See " National Zoo Deaths: 'Circle of Life' or Animal Care Concerns?")

While some workers at the zoo and elsewhere said the giraffe had to be killed because he didn't fit into the zoo's breeding program, and therefore couldn't be used as a breeding machine (like dogs at a puppy mill), countless others disagreed. An online petition asking the zoo to hold off on the killing until another home was found received tens of thousands of signatures.

Marius was killed despite the fact that another facility had offered him a home in which he could live out his life in peace and safety.

Many others and I figured that the negative attention that the late Marius brought to the Copenhagen Zoo would serve as a catalyst to change the breeding policies of zoos in Europe. We thought those responsible for killing him would reassess what they did and question their killing ways-even if such killings were required by existing regulations put forth by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). ( Read more about zoos and saving rare species in National Geographic magazine.)

We couldn't have been more wrong. Now, with the deaths of the four lions, the Copenhagen Zoo wants to become a lion mill, I would argue, and still seems to think killing healthy animals is perfectly okay.

All of the newborn lions whose kin died to make way for them will spend their lives in captivity, and some will undoubtedly be "zoothanized" in the future because they, too, will be classified as disposable "surplus" animals without the right genes to pass on to future captive lions.

The zoo also argued that the new male lion brought to the zoo would kill the youngsters and the captive group, and thus the group wouldn't resemble a wild pride of lions, as if it previously had.

Of course, there is nothing natural about the cage in which they are kept. While some might call it an enclosure or pretty it up by calling it "lion habitat," it is still a cage in which future lions will be mercilessly crammed, from cradle to grave.

I see heinous acts like killing Marius and the four lions as a perfect subject for study for researchers in the field of anthrozoology, the scientific study of human-animal relationships.

These easily avoidable deaths, perversely justified "in the name of conservation," are horrible lessons for youngsters. They run counter to global programs in humane education and compassionate conservation, in which the life of every individual animal is valued-and not just because they can serve us in any number of ways, such as by making more of themselves for future captive breeding. (See " Is Breeding Pandas in Captivity Worth It?")

Zoos need to change their ways and respect the caged animals for whom they are responsible as long as an individual is healthy.

Surely, people who choose to go to the Copenhagen Zoo can find other ways to spend their time and money.

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Opinion: Killing Healthy Zoo Animals Is Wrong-And the Public Agrees

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A global uproar has followed the deaths of two African lions and their two ten-month-old cubs. Their lives ended because the zoo wants to introduce a new male to the remaining females to bear more lions.

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Hello everyone!

First and foremost: is it necessary to communicate PME to the public?

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I have appreciated everyone's contributions to the knowledge exchange session! I hope we can all gained new information and thoughts on communicating PME to the public!
Thank you again!