You do not have to be a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or any other of the extremist animal rights groups to be appalled by the idea of putting sting rays in a petting pond, as the Calgary zoo and other such North American institutions across the continent have done in recent years.
The very idea seems to defy the justifications for zoos that are most commonly given in their defence in these days when public entertainment is no longer explanation enough -- that they aid in the conservation of species and promote education about animals among the general public.
A small disaster at the Calgary facility this week resulted in the deaths of 35 sting rays that lived in a shallow petting pool where visitors could immerse their arms and hands and touch the creatures as they swam about. Sting rays are not usually for petting -- they are called sting rays, after all. But the stingers on these rays had been trimmed so that they could be safely touched.
What exactly killed the stingless rays remains uncertain pending the return of toxicology reports -- it seems most likely that it was some sort of accidental problem with the water but deliberate poisoning has not been ruled out. There was easy public access to the pool and a zoo veterinarian openly speculated on the possibility: "I don't think that there is anything innocent that would be able to kill that many rays in a tank that size."
Regardless of the cause of death, there does not appear to be much that is truly innocent surrounding the whole display. The mass death of the sting rays makes conservation claims as a defence for the zoo seem rather feckless; and an education that teaches children to pet normally poisonous creatures -- don't try this in the wild -- appears to lack any real educational value about nature or wildlife as it exists in the real world.
Even so, petting pools for trimmed sting rays are something of a fad in zoos across the continent right now -- the Toronto zoo has one opening on Friday and will not be deterred by Calgary's unfortunate experience. But they take zoos in a wrong direction.
Zoos have in the last few decades come a long way in providing their tenants with a habitat that is closer to nature rather the simple cages that were once common, and in providing their visitors with a far superior and more valuable experience than they ever previously could. Petting pools for stingless rays, however, are akin to declawed tigers, defanged polar bears or kenneled timber wolves -- unnatural aberrations and the worst expression of the kind of artificial and inhumane experience that zoos once offered.
They may help bring in crowds, but they undermine the very real justifications for continuing to support and improve zoos in an increasingly urban world, as well as provide ammunition for the misguided killjoys of the animal rights movement.
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