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Show .4 report that challenges the way animals are kept in America Gan Zoos Be Humane? A ZOO ANIMAL NEEDS luck. It can live in a zoo that treats it with respect . and dignity and permits it to roam in spacious, comfortable surroundings reminiscent of its natural habitat. Or it can be confined in cramped, squalid, inhumane conditions that break its spirit, dull its instincts and impair its mental state. Both types of zoos exist in America today, and the Humane Society of the United States and several professional authorities contend that too many are little more than animal slums. The basic problem is too many zoos close to 450, ranging from major big-cit- y zoos to small, privately owned roadside collections operated strictly for profit and too few qualified zoo professionals. Money is often short, federal prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act has a low priority, and the public remains largely indifferent. "Bad zoos serve no purpose and should be shut down, says Sue Pressman, director of captive wildlife for the Humane Society, who has inspected more than 300 zoos. They harm the animals and the public too, because its a negative experience. You come away either brutalized or anti-zoChildren may get the impression that wild animals are something you put in boxes and stare at. What kind of an experience is it to see a lion or a bear jammed into a tiny, barren cage, or a chimp wearing underwear and sucking on soft drinks?" Some of the nations better zoos do provide a refuge for wildlife, which is disappearing at the rate of one species or subspecies each year. They try as finances permit to recreate natural animal habitats; they cooperate in programs for research, conservation and breeding; and they make a major effort to educate the public. The inferior zoos, however, arent so much zoos as they are random menageries. Armed with a checklist, I set out on a representative tour of large and small zoos in 15 towns and cities in the U.S. Catoctin Mountain Zoo in Thurmont, Md. , near the Presidential retreat at Camp David, typifies our small, private zoos. Its welcome sign. Education Conservation Propagation, soon rang hollow. The first animal I saw was a tiger cub of crushed ice and a trough with a few inches of water are how the zoo simulates Andys natural habitat. When 1 visited, a female Kodiak bear was trapped at the bottom of a dry moat into which she had fallen. Water trickled into the narrow concrete trench, and keepers tossed food down to the bear. The accident kept recurring, said Dobbs. No one seemed able to prevent it. That day, I watched the massive creature pace mournfully up and down the trench as a companion Kodiak bear, another female, peered down at her. Eventually, the bears were relocated. Atlanta's apes and big cats live in cramped old dungeons with small interior rooms and outside cages common in many big zoos. Confined for years in these sterile cells, some animals develop severe neuroses. Dr. Michael Fox, the scientific director of the Humane Society of the United States' Institute for the Study of Animal Problems, explains this phenomenon: The animals have nothing to do, nothing to stimulate them; they are bored and frightened, and they want to escape. The result is extreme lethargy, or hyperactivity and sometimes bizarre things like Monkeys will tear out their fur and bite their fingers. I know of one bear that eviscerated itself and had to be destroyed. Putting wild animals in barren cages turns them into ot n. o. Like this gorilla, too many zoo animals are condemned to close confinement. dispenned in an old play case in the darkened entry to the reptile house. It had no water and sprawled listlessly on a pile of straw. The cubs parents scarcely fared better. d They were quartered in a barren compound in two wooden packing crates open on one side scant shelter from the broiling summer sun or from the winter snows. Other animals paced endlessly in small , circular com-cri- b cages the ki nd farmers use to store feed for livestock. On my trip, I saw dozens of these cages being used as cheap quarters for all but the biggest animals. Cohanzick Zoo, in the small town of Bridgeton, N.J., mirrored most zoos operated by local governments with scant community support. Cohanzick housed monkeys, raccoons, an ocelot, a skunk, a jaguar, two lynx, hawks, foxes and wood-and-gla- ss wire-fence- B Y M I C II pumas all but its bears and a leopard in small com-cri- b cages. A pair of lions lived in a area with stagnant water. At the Atlanta Zoo-- one of the worst of the y zoos director Steve Dobbs admitted unthat his derfinanced institution has major problems. Said Dobbs: I'm far too removed from the animals; theyre the last thing I worry about with all the other problems." Even one of the zoo's stars, Andy, a polar bear named after Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, must live in a com-cri- b cage on a concrete base. A few pounds wire-fenc- half-cover- ed ed 0 crazy vegetables. It's morally rep- rehensible to treat them this way." Still, the overall zoo picture in the U.S. is by no means gloomy, and efforts at improvement were evident throughout my tour. The Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb, though something of a zoological disaster area, is making efforts to modernize and is campaigning to attract community supporters. Baltimore, saddled with many old, badly designed buildings, has a splendid new lion habitat that puts the viewer nght into the African veldt, and new elephant quarters are under construe- - ur better zoos pmvide big-cit- nfinje, but some me metv run-dow- n, animal shuns A E L S A T PAGE U G II FEBRUARY 19, E 1984 L L PARADE MAGAZINE |