Born Free USA’s new report, Confined Giants: The Plight of Giraffe in Zoos, explores the lives of these huge mammals when held captive for entertainment. The research makes clear that zoos are doing little, if anything, to protect giraffe in their natural habitat. In addition, Confined Giants spells out the extensive suffering that individual animals experience in zoo enclosures around the world. In this blog, we explore the specific welfare concerns that support our argument to end giraffe captivity.
Social Deprivation
Giraffe, like elephants, primates, cetaceans, and others, are profoundly social animals. They live in herds of up to 175 individuals and actively choose friends and mates. Youngsters have strong bonds with their mothers and remain together for many years. In zoos, these opportunities are cruelly denied. Perhaps the most memorable example of this denial can be found in the, now infamous, case of Marius the giraffe, who was killed by staff ay Copenhagen Zoo in 2014. Despite being deliberately bred; despite his mother having carried him for over 14 months and endured childbirth; and despite the fact that he was his mother’s precious child; he was callously killed by the zoo when he was deemed “surplus to requirements.” Not only was he killed, but his young body was publicly butchered before being fed to the zoo’s lions. The story captured the attention of the world, and yet the zoo industry called Marius’s ordeal acceptable “management practice,” further confirming that thousands of healthy “surplus” animals are similarly killed each year.
In other zoos, social groups are tiny, with over one third of North American zoos housing just three individual giraffe.
Enclosure Size and Environmental Restrictions
Free-living giraffe range over large areas. On average, they spend approximately one third of their day walking, and reported mean home range sizes vary between 1,326 acres and 127,012 acres. This contrasts starkly with the shockingly small enclosures that house giraffe in zoos. In a study conducted by the Animal Protection Consultancy, which calculated the absolute minimum home range size based on body mass in several animal species, it was determined that this area for giraffe is 19,200 acres. Among the 35 North American zoos that have their giraffe enclosure sizes publicly available, the average enclosure size is 1.2 acres, or less than 0.01% of the minimum home range size calculated for giraffe. This is the equivalent of a human living with a home range size of 247 football fields being confined to a telephone booth for their entire life.
Given the limited size of zoos, it is not possible to provide these wide-ranging animals with the space they need to perform natural ranging activity. Restricted space impacts negatively on health: insufficient exercise has been linked with overgrown hooves in zoo-housed giraffe and stereotypic pacing is more likely if indoor enclosures are smaller.
Compromised Health and Injury
Giraffe in zoos suffer from multiple health issues including, but not limited to, fractures, overgrown hooves, and arthritis. Importantly, because of their great height and the inability to create enclosures that would safely contain them, there are multiple instances of giraffe being injured or killed as a direct result of their captivity. These include:
- November 2010: A three-year-old female giraffe named Akilah died at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Ohio after her horns became caught in netting.
- June 2010: A three-year-old male giraffe died at the Peoria Zoo in Illinois in front of visitors after his head and neck got caught in the fork of a tree. He flipped over in attempts to free himself.
- July 2015: A three-month-old giraffe died at the Dallas Zoo in Texas when she ran into the perimeter of the enclosure and broke three vertebrae in her neck.
- October 2015: A one-month-old giraffe died at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo in California from neck trauma after becoming entangled in a wire barrier.
- January 2016: An eight-month-old giraffe named Wesley was euthanized after getting his head lodged between two posts at Zoo Miami in Florida. When he realized he was stuck, he panicked and his legs bucked from under him, causing a spinal injury.
- March 2017: Jamili, a nine-year-old female giraffe, was found unresponsive at the North Carolina Zoo after becoming entangled in a toy-like piece of equipment.
Giraffe in the wild live up to 40 years. Of the 8,605 individual giraffe for whom data is available from the American Zoo Association (AZA) the average lifespan of captive giraffe is just 8.3 years old.
Giraffe in the wild live up to 40 years. Of the 8,605 individual giraffe for whom data is available from the American Zoo Association (AZA) the average lifespan of captive giraffe is just 8.3 years old.
Mental Distress
Like so many other animals held captive in zoos, giraffe suffer mental distress, which manifests in abnormal behaviors known as stereotypies. Stereotypic behaviors are repetitive behaviors observed in captive animals that are induced by frustration, repeated attempts to cope, and central nervous system dysfunction frequently linked to poor animal welfare. In a survey of AZA zoos, 79.7% of 214 giraffe showed stereotypic behavior, most commonly repetitive licking of non-food objects and pacing. Other reported stereotypic behaviors were self-injury, head tossing, and tongue playing.
Captivity Kills
It is clear from the data in Confined Giants that captivity does nothing to serve conservation of giraffe in their natural habitat. What is also clear is that captivity is harmful to the individual animals subjected to a life on display. At best, giraffe in zoos live a miserable, foreshortened life in a small herd. At worst, they are killed for being considered surplus, or they meet a violent and frightening death as a direct result of their poorly designed enclosures. Many live alone, many develop stereotypies, many experience lifelong health issues. Like so many other species of animal held captive in zoos, they suffer so that zoos profit, and we get the opportunity to catch a fleeting glimpse of an animal we want to see.
Are their lives worth so little to us? If we truly care about giraffe, or any other animal species, we should not be supporting their misery. We should not be going to the zoo.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Liz
