A recent comprehensive study of mobile zoos told many people what they probably already knew – that these events, often sold as “mobile live animal experiences”, “animal educational visits”, “travelling animal shows”, “animal workshops” or “animal education events”, may be new words on the street in animal entertainment, but spell misery for the creatures involved. Indeed, the latest study identified at least 14 areas of concern with animal welfare and public health and safety implications and eight common areas where mobile zoo promotional and educational materials were false and misleading.
Have unusual animals, will travel
Pretty much anyone with a collection of animals can start up a mobile zoo, and that’s more or less what they are. The number of mobile zoos is difficult to estimate due to a lack of formalised record-keeping. However, in the UK, for example, there appear to be 187 operators using about 3,500 animals.
Pretty much anyone with a collection of animals can start up a mobile zoo, and that’s more or less what they are
Diversity includes all animal classes (invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) and involves at least 341 species. Spiders, sharks, bullfrogs, giant pythons, eagles and horses are among the many animals readily advertised and transported on demand to schools, hospitals and children’s parties. Of the 74 countries or regions studied, the UK used the largest contingent of 141 species, of which the majority – 51 – were reptiles.
An allied assessment regarding the suitability of mobile zoo species using the EMODE (easy, moderate, difficult, extreme) algorithm, which scientifically scores animals according to the challenge involved in keeping them, found that 196 types were rated between “difficult” and “extreme” yet were being promoted as amenable to captivity and handling.
Animals on the move, leaving welfare and public safety behind
Among the list of animal welfare and public health and safety concerns identified in the new study were:
- Use of exotic species
- Poor housing of animals
- Lack of food and water
- Invasiveness of repeated handling
- Light, noise, vibration and disturbance of nocturnal behaviour
- Repeated transportation
- Dissemination risk for zoonotic diseases
- Poor knowledge base of speakers or operators
Although alarming, those results are not entirely unsurprising given that among the surveyed governments, actual monitoring and control of mobile zoos were found to be minimal or absent.
Most human diseases, as well as almost all global pandemics, are known to have links to wild animals. There is no quarantine or other risk prevention for the public health or agricultural sectors endemic to mobile zoos. In fact, operators can and do acquire animals, such as invertebrates, amphibians and reptiles, directly from the wild and undeclared sources, which can be shipped from Africa, China, Indonesia or elsewhere to the UK – and right into the entertainment business – within just 48 hours of capture. Any one animal can be harbouring a raft of potentially pathogenic microbes capable of causing the next COVID-type pandemic. What better way to start a new outbreak than at a school of immune-sensitive humans?! Add to that delivering 100kg pythons into the arms of five-year-olds, and things could go crushingly sideways in no time.
Miseducation – the blind leading the blind
Despite the frequently pushed educational value of mobile zoos, their information content is, at best, often dubious. Common false and misleading claims among mobile zoo promoters and speakers are that:
- Animals such as captive-bred reptiles are now domesticated
- Exotics are easy to keep and require little space
- Stress is rarely seen, otherwise animals wouldn’t feed or grow
- Handling exotic animals is safe
- Reptiles are good for people with allergies
- The animals in the mobile zoos are rescues and love being handled
Mobile zoos are places where misinformation meets corrupted indoctrination. With information like that, who needs an encyclopaedia? Well, they do!
Despite the frequently pushed educational value of mobile zoos, their information content is, at best, often dubious
Moving forward
Mobile zoos may function under the guise of being well managed, welfare conscious, safe and educational, but could be more accurately called out as cottage-industry entertainment run by opportunistic animal-keeping enthusiasts making a buck out of their hobby, using bad practices to exploit animals in yet another commodification of wildlife. While the transportation, display and handling components of mobile zoos are highlighted as especially hard for animals to endure, nowhere in the system is likely good for them: not even their “home” conditions of diminutive enclosures with plastic plants and artificial stone walls – animals caught between a rock and a hard place. Yet, worryingly, mobile zoos appear to be increasing.
The lack of regulation is certainly an issue when it comes to acquiring data regarding scale and distribution, but as with many sectors, formal monitoring does not translate to meaningful change
The lack of regulation is certainly an issue when it comes to acquiring data regarding scale and distribution, but as with many sectors, formal monitoring does not translate to meaningful change. Hence, the main conclusion of the new study was that, in particular, exotic species should not be part of mobile zoos. Essentially, the very hands-on experience of mobile zoos should actually get a thumbs-down for animals and people, and they should be stopped in their tracks by governments.
