A LEADING international wildlife charity has criticised Irish zoos for not doing enough to conserve threatened species and, in a small number of cases, for putting the public at risk of injury.
In a report published yesterday in the European Parliament, the Born Free Foundation said Irish zoos generally fail to meet their minimum requirements on conservation and biodiversity under EU and Irish law.
The report also criticised the Department of the Environment for failing to ensure all operational zoos were licensed in accordance with EU regulations.
Daniel Turner, a biologist who is leading an inquiry by the foundation into zoos throughout the EU, described conditions in many European zoos as “appalling” but said Irish standards were much better than that.
Born Free’s 36-page report on Ireland said, however, that design flaws in zoos and a shortage of available staff “allowed direct and unsupervised or planned contact to take place and, in some cases, placed the public at significant risk”.
Specifically, it criticised the Eagles Flying centre in Co Sligo as well as Lahinch Seaworld in Co Clare and Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium in Co Kerry.
“At the licensed Eagles Flying centre birds of prey including eagle owl species, black vultures and Himalayan vultures were tethered to a fixed point and were only separated from the public by a knee-height cord that offered minimal public protection from these potentially dangerous . . . hazardous animals,” the report said.
“At the licensed Lahinch Seaworld and Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium, the public could have unlimited and unsupervised access to Standards of Modern Zoo Practice-listed hazardous animals.
“Both species, thornback skate and undulate ray, were exhibited in unsupervised, open ‘touch-pools’ that permitted and encouraged direct contact.”
Best practice rules state that such pools should be continually supervised and that animals be allowed a quiet period to minimise stress, the report said. “At no time was this observed during the assessment in either of the licensed aquaria.”
Mr Turner stressed, however, that “conditions were not appalling in Ireland, they were much better than in other zoos that we visited”.
Spokespersons for most of the Irish organisations reacted with shock to the report. Biologist Lothar Muschketat of the Eagles Flying centre said the centre was inspected twice in the last year and was found to be compliant with EU regulations required by licence conditions, by the Department of the Environment.
He said birds were allowed to fly free once or twice a day – “the choice is theirs and it is their choice to come back”. He said the birds were well fed and not kept hungry in order to keep them coming back.
He said tethering so the birds would be visible to visitors from a distance was “state of the art” across the world.
Máire O’Shea, general manager of Dingle Oceanworld, said she was unaware of the fish, thornback skate, referred to in the report. She said she had heard of a thornback ray, but the facility did not have one of these.
She said the aquarium kept starfish in the “touchtank” which could be touched by visitors but added the touchtank was operated on an hourly basis, with breaks and could not be considered to be unsupervised.
Attempts to secure a comment from Lahinch Seaworld were unsuccessful.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said the report was being studied. “We are generally compliant with the appropriate EU directive and are not aware of any communications from the commission to suggest otherwise,” he said.