Millionaire zoo boss urges parents to stop taking their children to see wild animals in captivity – including his own
- Damian Aspinall chairs the foundation that runs Howletts Wild Animal Park
- He says that hybridisation at zoos make claims of conservation worthless
- Called zoo keeping ‘barbaric’ and wants cash spend on poaching crackdown
A millionaire zoo heir has pleaded with punters to stop paying to see animals in captivity.
Damian Aspinall – who chairs the foundation that runs Howletts Wild Animal Park – wants every zoo phased out within 25 years.
The conservationist, who runs the site with his wife, Victoria, hopes to see London Zoo shut within the next decade and wishes closure on his own venue in Kent.
Mr Aspinall told The Times that zoos exaggerate their conservation benefits and hide the severity of disease on site.
Pictured, Victoria Aspinall at Howletts Wild Animal Park in Kent with one of the zoo’s leopards
He said that the scale of hibridisation is also hidden from the public and pointed out that it renders the preservation efforts worthless.
Some zoos even have a breed and cull policy so that children can delight at the sight of baby animals.
He told the paper that he s a hypocrite for welcoming people to Howletts which was founded by his father, John, who created the Aspinalls casino empire.
But he says that he needs money from customers to fund the returning of animals back to the wild.
Mr Aspinall (pictured, left, and, right, with Victoria) is calling for parents to stop taking their children to zoos
And he has returned dozens to their natural habitats, including black rhinos and Western lowland gorillas to Africa. Mr Aspinall has also returned clouded leopards to their natural homes in Cambodia.
He has ambitions to turn his zoo into a rescue centre and says parents should not be taking their children to such places.
‘Parents should not be taking their kids to zoos,’ he said. ‘I know that would hurt me as much as anyone else but that’s my honest answer. There’s no excuse for any zoo today. Because parents take their kids to zoos when they are young by the time those young grow up they are culturised that zoos are fine.’
He says that zoos are educating youngsters that it’s okay to keep animals as prisoners for entertainment and said animals at his site have hybridised.
Victoria Aspinall is pictured as her husband demands an end to people using zoos, calling the practice ‘barbaric’
Only five per cent of the mammals kept at Europe’s zoos are critically endangered, he said, and only the Eastern black rhino, gorilla and orangutan are in viable breeding programmes.
Mr Aspinall slammed the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) and accused them of running an unnecessary breeding scheme for elephants as there are still 400,000 in the wild.
He believes that the real reason they are caged is because the public enjoys seeing them.
Supporters of zoos claim that they preserve at-risk species but Mr Aspinall pointed out that there are 20,000 elephants in large fenced Africa reserves.
He says that £15million is spent annually at European zoos keeping elephants and rhinos and he wants to cash to be spent on stopping poaching in Africa.
Mr Aspinall believes that having millions of animals kept in poor cages makes humans a barbaric species.
Simon Tonge of Wild Planet Trust, which owns Paignton and Newquay zoos, said captive breeding programmes take time.
He says that waiting until a species was critically endangered might be leaving it too late. Mr Tonge added that there is an educational value to family visits.
Malcolm Fitzpatrick of ZSL, which runs London Zoo, said that the conservation skills its staff learn on captive animals are also used in the wild.
He cited examples such as administering anaesthetic to tigers to free them from hunters’ snares.
A spokesperson for the EAZA said that phasing out elephants in zoos would not help conservation efforts in the wild.