Where did those cubs go ?

A) The cubs you saw frolicking in that zoo or safari park last summer in Britain were almost certainly all shot in their pen in September, just after the schools went back, when they were about twenty-odd weeks old.

Q) Surely, you're mistaken, I saw them on TV; they wouldn't do that !

A) They are relying on you not believing or even imagining that they could do such a thing. They are also relying on the (your) ambient assumption that our animal laws are so tight now that no such thing could be allowed to happen. If you noticed at all that the cubs were missing when you re-visited, you probably unconsciously thought that they must have moved them on to somewhere "with a bit more room" - and that's exactly what they are relying on you thinking.

Q) Ok then, maybe there was some mix up and they had to bump a couple they couldn't outplace.

A) Wrong. Entire litters are routinely killed every year without any more serious attempt at outplacement than just adding an entry to the zoo surplus "animals available" list which circulates in the zoo industry (only)

Q) But how can that be legal.

A) Despite appearances, animal laws in Britain are actually quite ineffectual (ask any RSPCA inspector how many times they've tried to nail some individual for neglect or cruelty). In essence, animal welfare laws covering zoo animals require little more than that they are fed, sheltered and given provision for exercise. There are various "advisory" "guidelines" concerning enrichment and psychological welfare but the whole subject is very complicated and vague and almost nobody wants to get involved in trying to prove things and build up evidence.

Q) Why can't they be outplaced ?

A) Wolves are relatively easy to breed and zoos which have wolves usually always have enough already and are actually looking to outplace themselves. They rarely want anyone else's surplus.

Q) Ok then, why can't they go somewhere else ?

A) This will take a while to explain. (Before I begin, I need to explain that zoos and safari parks are all licensed under the same zoo-license scheme. There is no difference between a zoo and a safari park so the word "zoo" in what follows applies to any organisation licensed to keep animals covered by a zoo license). Up until about five years ago, most of the zoos and safari parks in Britain that have wolves routinely allowed their packs to breed cubs that they had no homes lined up for in advance. Controls on the distribution of what are termed "dangerous wild animals" were in place but, on average, there was enough slack and goodwill in the system to allow surplus wolves, big cats etc. to find their way into licensed, good homes outside the zoo industry - and many did (ok, some didn't) - the problems have, for several reasons, got worse since about the year 2000. Here is a list of the reasons that, when brought together, conspire to prevent surplus animal finding their way out of the zoo industry.

1) Just before the year 2000 a zoo was caught selling tiger cubs as pets to private and less than responsible owners. The newspapers got hold of the story and whipped it up into a major scandal and the politicians had to be seen to be doing something. Animal rights and anti-zoo activists,  for their own political ends, used the whole thing to beat zoos over the head and discredit the whole keeping of wild animals in captivity. Pressure was put on the zoo industry to tighten existing controls on the distribution of these kinds of animals and to introduce new voluntary regulations (note, not laws) to ensure that they didn't find their way out of the tightly regulated zoo industry and into the back streets.

2) Starting around the millennium, many zoos caught "qualified-itis" - the assumption that to be respectable, a zoo has to have managers with BSc's and PhD's instead of the old school, hands-on animals people. Up until then, zoos were mostly run by practical and pragmatic people who had spent their lives working hands-on with animals in many contexts. Not all were good at the job by any means but on average, they understood them as well as anybody and they had all the practical skills and knowledge to look after them. Broadly, these kind of people cared about the animals they were in charge of and new them by name and the arrival of surplus young would usually spark a quick search among known contacts to line up a few possible homes both within and outside of the zoo industry. If they finished up having to knock a few off then they weren't going to shed any tears but that outcome was, at least, a low desirability option. New management gradually crept in in the form of young graduates with little or no practical experience of keeping animals and heads full of ideological and political notions concerning what the concept of captive wildlife was all about. In its attempt to justify the increasingly politically incorrect pastime of keeping of wild animals in captivity, the zoo industry followed the academic lead and played hard upon words such as "conservation", "education", "environment" etc.

Attitudes veered with the prevailing political wind and the meaning of the word "welfare" began to change. (As example: before the year 2000, the idea of leaving an abandoned wolf cub to die of hyperthermia and starvation in its pen in full view of the public would have been an outrage and few zoo managers would have permitted such a thing. Since the year 2000, exactly that scenario has come about and was justified by the woolly, academic notion of "wild" - "well, they're wild animals; we're concerned with conservation of populations here, not individuals; cubs do die in the wild". The answer to this is that they are not "wild" they are captive and dependent upon their captors for their welfare. Leaving an abandoned cub to die in public is not "wild" it is neglect.). A two way rubbing off of academic snobbery began to see the zoos preening themselves in the role of offshoots from the respectable world of science and research where only qualified professionals dare to tread and amateurs are contemptible and unreliable. The dialogue between zoos and non-zoo animal owners began to wither.

3) Until very recently, a lot of surplus large carnivores, such as tigers, lions, wolves etc. found their way into the circus and performing animals scene. It has to be said that not all use of these animals was "bad" but enough of it was to have led the public to believe that using of them in any performing roles anywhere is, by definition, bad. The zoos, sensitive to public opinion on this issue and constrained by laws restricting such activity, ceased to be willing to outplace to such owners.

4) There is no law that says zoos can't sell or give animals to places that are not zoo-licensed. The person receiving the animal simply has to have whatever other license is necessary to keep whatever it is they want. The zoo industry has, effectively, voluntarily closed ranks and ceased any dialogue with organisations which are not zoos.

Q) But surely, there are some well-known, absolutely respectable and responsible, non-zoo, good homes that will take surplus wolves ?

A) Yes there are; there are at least four organisation in Britain that will offer homes to surplus zoo wolves. With one slight exception, they are absolutely ignored by the zoo industry and regarded by the zoos as an inferior bunch of dangerous amateurs. The zoo industry sticks to its own internal code of not sending these animals anywhere except to another zoo in order to protect their political asses. The reasoning is that if you didn't give Fred a wolf then he can't have an accident with it and nobody can say that you were irresponsible to give it to him.

Q) No, no, no; you must be wrong; Maybe there was some bother with one place a few years ago. They can't all be like that.

A) Wrong. It is standard zoo practise to shoot surplus wolf puppies without making any attempt to outplace outside the zoo industry. Most or all zoos and safari parks which have wolves will have shot puppies regularly that were offered (good) homes for life before they were even born. There is no worst offender.

Q) Why can't they release them into the wild ?

A) Cost and practicality. It would cost a fortune to fly surplus wolf cubs to some suitable place of release - assuming that you could find one. Most of the wolves in Britain are currently North Americans and flying them across the pond would be pointless and expensive as the Americans can breed all the (few) wolves they need for release themselves, on the spot. For European wolves, the air fare might be cheaper but the big problem is finding somewhere where anyone wants wolves released. Again, in most such places, any captive breeding that is necessary will be done more cheaply and effectively on the spot. There is also the consideration that wolves need to be paranoically afraid of humans in order to survive in the wild and you can't just tip a wolf out of a jeep and expect it to know how to hunt the local game, keep out of the way of the local farmers and stay out of rifle range. Captive bred wolves are not the best candidates for this kind of thing.

Q) Is there any end to this practise in sight ?

A) At the time of writing, most wolves in Britain are North American and they are rapidly becoming un-cool as academic led thinking now dictates that European zoos should be doing things with European wildlife. For this reason, many zoos are arranging for their North American wolves to conveniently disappear. Surplus cubs are are neatly vanished away and the older animals, stubborn enough to live for many years yet are being gently encouraged not to. There are a range of dodgy tricks for shortening an adult wolf's life and I have heard of all of them in current use in British zoos. These include tricks like sending old males off for vasectomy operations - safe in the knowledge that quite a few won't survive the anaesthetic - and then putting them straight back in their paddocks, semi-recovered, vulnerable and at just sufficient risk of being attacked by others or dying of shock or hyperthermia. When this covert, sweeping under the carpet of unwanted packs is finished, a new, politically correct pack of European wolves will suddenly appear - Iberian wolves are currently all the rage. For the first few years, surplus cubs will be easy to outplace and culling will probably be very limited as more zoos, eager to get on the politically correct band wagon, seek to acquire them. Eventually though, when they all have enough, the whole business will start again. More zoos are now using contraception so that surplus litters are a lot less common and this will to some extent lessen the problem in years to come. There are problems with contraception though and not every zoo manager will opt for it. There are plenty that don't regard killing an entire litter of puppies that they knew they would have to cull, even before they were born, as wrong.

It is a sobering thought that on a canned hunt ranch in the USA you might expect to pay anything up to a couple of thousand dollars to shoot a wolf in a cage - and you can expect to keep your activity secret for fear of predictable public opposition and disgust. In Britain, you can do it for free with the full approval of the authorities and the personal attendance of a vet. Everyone concerned, even peripherally, will keep their mouths shut so that you, the public, don't get to hear about it.

Q) Ok, it's a dirty business short-term but is there a long term, global species benefit in all this.

A) Undoubtably, there will be some kind of long-term benefit - even if it is simply the old favourite (fact) that most people need to see a lesser-spotted widget to care about lesser-spotted widgets; Where are most people going to see one ? - in a zoo! There is also the argument that zoos do provide something of a backup gene pool for endangered species and of course, long-term benefits have a habit of not all being visible at the start of something so maybe there will be others nobody has thought of yet.