The unrelated deaths of two of the North Carolina Zoo’s gorillas in December illustrate a growing concern for zoos in America and throughout the world: captive animals are living longer and their extended care into old age has become a growing concern for most zoos and other institutions housing animals.
Just as with humans, animals are living longer because of such things as improved nutrition, better veterinary care and medical breakthroughs.
Also, as they age, animals in the wild usually die off naturally or are killed by other animals. But in zoos, they have no predators, so they live longer.
One of the December gorilla deaths was Katie, a 36-year-old female that had arrived at the N.C. Zoo in 1989. She had undergone more than seven months of cancer treatment before veterinarians had little choice but euthanization due to a non-operable cancer in her reproductive tract and the extreme deterioration of her quality of life. Similarly, Donna, the second gorilla that died in December, had undergone more than 2 1/2 years of cancer treatment before her death.
While most of the N.C. Zoo’s more than 1,100 animals are in the prime of their lives, others – like Katie and Donna – are approaching the end of their life expectancies. This has created the need for zookeepers to learn how to accommodate these aging populations.
Although zoos have always faced the problems of aging animals, today it has become an evolving part of their animal husbandry – learning how to care for older animals and to meet their needs. Similar to human populations, it’s not that zoos have never dealt with aging animals; it’s that aging animals are now in greater numbers proportionally.
Animal welfare groups would say that it’s good that animals are living longer in zoos and facilities – it illustrates how zoos are doing their job well. But it also means zoos must now deal with increasingly difficult aging problems.
Although zoos could simply move the aging animals off exhibit, it is often necessary to maintain diversity in the ages of animal collections. Younger animals are typically more active and are of more interest to visitors, but older animals are necessary, too, particularly in species that develop social groups.
The older animals are, in a sense, role models for younger animals, teaching them proper behavior within their social groups.
Often zoo animals, just like household pets, grow weak with age but are not old or sick enough to be euthanized. Suffering from typical aging maladies such as hearing and sight loss, cancer and dementia, zoo animals often have to be treated with expensive painkillers and other medications. Often, zoos simply have not budgeted for these higher, long-term health-care costs.
It is a policy that all members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, of which the N.C. Zoo is a member, commit to the long-term care of their animals. It would be easier for zoos to euthanize aging animals once they become too old to be exhibited, but as long as their quality of life is good, zoos have a moral obligation to care for their aging animals.
Adding to the aging dilemma is the emotional complexities brought on when both visitors and keepers grow to love the institution’s animals over the years and decades. And, as with companion pets, the choice to finally euthanize a zoo animal can be difficult and emotional. Keepers often receive letters of condolence when one of their animals dies or it becomes necessary to euthanize.
Simply put, zoos and other animal institutions are responsible for the well-being of their animals for as long as those animals live – no matter how long that might be. But the new problems facing zoo staffs are taking them – and the animals – into an area of limited experience and many unknowns.
Tom Gillespie lives in Trinity and is a journalist and public affairs specialist at the North Carolina Zoo. For more information on the zoo’s plant and animal collections, special events and education programs, go to their Web site at www.nczoo.org
Tom Gillespie
Zoo Tales - Aging animals
- Tom Gillespie
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