Please understand: I am not afraid of animals. I don’t flinch when a bat brushes by or panic at the sight of a prowling bear or growling dog or avoid snakes or spiders. I have, unarmed, explored the realms of jaguars, lions, leopards, and sharks. But, after a lifetime of association with animals, I know that there are risks to avoid, precautions to be taken, and, in an imperfect world from which hazards can never be entirely removed, there are chances that need not occur.
I mention this as prelude to describing an extraordinary sight that greeted me last week, near the tiny town of Morpeth, in rural southern Ontario. Rob Laidlaw, of Zoocheck, and I were walking around an attraction called Greenview Aviaries Park and Zoo. It’s a combination roadside zoo, children’s playground, and a restoration on a one to ten scale of 15th century Stratford County, England.
An eclectic range of animal species, wild and domestic, were featured. There was neither educational material nor any pretense at conservation objectives: this was strictly an entertainment center, a diversion for families with kids… and kids there were, all sizes.
My mind flashed back to 1985, when a six-year old boy had to have his arm amputated after being mauled by a wolf at Toronto Zoo. The child was where he shouldn’t have been, but the fact is he could reach the wolf, and the zoo had to pay a settlement. And, there was Patricia Wyman, a biologist in her mid-twenties when, in 1996, she entered the pen at the Wolf Center in Haliburton, Ontario, and, although the staff thought the wolves were safe and tame, she was later found dead, clothes torn from her lightly mauled body. The wolves were killed and checked for rabies. They had none and it is believed that when she was in the compound she tripped, trigging an attack response.
I spend much time assuring people that they need not have the fears so many have around wild animals, but this is the opposite. Yes, the wolves are tame and friendly, but they are not domesticated, like dogs. And, ironically, this province bans certain breeds of ordinarily harmless dogs precisely out of fear of what they might do. And, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, which licenses the keeping of native wildlife, puts absurd restrictions in the way of wildlife rehabilitators in the name of public safety.
Why is this dangerous double-standard?
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry