Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

Sun, May 4, 2008

Toronto Zoo brass say ... Rudolph must die!

Wait until Santa finds out. Toronto Zoo starts killing male baby reindeer to manage the herd. Staff are heartbroken -- and furious

By MIKE STROBEL

Dear Santa: I hope you are sitting down. The Toronto Zoo is killing baby boy reindeer.

Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer... The first was dispatched shortly after his birth April 8.

His mom, Hayzel, bellowed mournfully for two days. You could hear her from Meadowvale Rd.

The second met the same fate at the point of a hypodermic on April 22. His mom, CUPE, is named for the zoo staff's union.

Both little gaffers were chocolate brown and gangly cute. They had barely begun to nurse. Both were perfectly healthy. "Euthanized due to being male," says the keepers' report, terse and angry.

The keepers were so upset they left as the vets moved into the reindeer enclosure and refused to take part. "This is wrong," the keepers told the vets, who were none too happy either.

TINSEL AND RHONDA

Three female babies have been spared. Tinsel and Rhonda delivered theirs the same day as CUPE. Lucky for them, they had girls, now prancing about the paddock in the full flush of spring.

Girl European reindeer are less hassle. Easier to sell or trade to other zoos. I'm told they're even better at hauling a sleigh.

Two years ago, zoo execs gave approval in principle to the euthanizing of male reindeer.

This spring is the first time it's been executed, so to speak. Remarkable, eh? I wonder if anyone considered how this looks.

Call it herd management, or whatever. They're snuffing Rudolph. They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.

Never before has the zoo imposed a euthanasia order on a breed of large animal. The only precedent I can find, about five years back, is the mara, a sort of jumping guinea pig from South America. The zoo euthanized male maras to cap the population. Later, it sold off the whole lot.

Many staff wonder: Why kill the boy reindeer? Why not just neuter them?

True, this can cause atrophied antlers. Big deal. The kiddies who visit will still ooh and ahhh and hum Jingle Bells.

Or, staff wonder, if you're going to exterminate every male, why breed the eight females in the first place? Seems rather cruel. Reindeer roulette. Female, you live. Male, you die.

Says one staffer: "This bothers me more than anything I've ever experienced here. "Many of us feel these are not our animals and not management's animals, but belong to the city, to the people of Toronto. "And they should know what's happening."

Says another: "I'm sick to my stomach. This is the beginning of a road we don't want to go down."

Funny, I thought zoos love baby animals. There's always a fuss when a cute little snow leopard or polar bear comes into the world, out in the wilds of northeast Scarborough.

Two days before Hayzel's son was put to death with sodium pentobarbital, a press release announced the arrival of a baby gaur. Congratulations to Flower and Hercules. Gaurs are huge, wild Asian cattle. The baby? A bouncing boy. Doing fine.

Need I add, a week from now is Mother's Day at the zoo. Given what's transpired, I hope they have the sense not to showcase the reindeer moms. Two of them aren't celebrating.

Maria Franke, curator of mammals, tells me the decision to euthanize male reindeer calves was made by something called the Animal Care, Research and Acquisition Committee. "It was a gruelling process," she assures me. "We do not take this lightly. There is science behind it."

It's especially hard to sell reindeer because of disease fears. There's no room. Too expensive to release in the wild. If they keep the males they'll be lonely. They yearn for their own harem. We can't even sell the two bucks we have now. No one likes this. It's a necessary evil. Blah, blah, blah.

YOU'RE KILLING BABY REINDEER.

So why breed the herd, knowing half the babies are doomed? "If we did not, we would end up with no reindeer," says Franke. "We aren't just an entertainment facility. We're a conservation facility and our goal is to manage genetically viable populations of animals.

"I know some keepers are upset. I know it's a sensitive subject." No kidding. Just wait'll word gets back to the North Pole. And it's not over. One more calf is due any day now.

We're all hoping for a girl.

http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/05/04/5466151-sun.html

May 4, 2008 

Toronto Sun,

Editor 

The senseless killing of the baby male reindeer is both heartbreaking and outrageous.  Birth should be a happy event, and for these poor mothers to have their newborn taken from them and killed is murder.   Maria Franke says there's "science" behind the decision and goes on to give inexcusable reasons for the Animal Care, Research, and Acquisition Committee's decision.  Perhaps we can use the same rationale to start "euthanizing" all those involved in this act, and what the heck, why not use it as a means of human population control?  

Carmina Gooch

North Vancouver, BC

May 6, 2008

Will there be blood?
Zoo board to decide fate of reindeer calf

By BEN SPENCER, SUN MEDIA

A reindeer and calf rest in the field at the Toronto Zoo's Eurasia exhibit where, for the first time in the zoo's history, newborn calves were euthanized for being male. Rural Ontarians have been offering their farms ever since the story broke, but the fate of the new male reindeer has yet to be decided.

Stop the slay ride. The latest addition to the Toronto Zoo's death row could soon be on the end of a lifesaving call from the warden.

The fate of the tiny baby boy reindeer -- born late Sunday night -- will be decided at an emergency meeting of zoo officials within days. Here's hoping Christmas comes early for little Rudolph.

"We are once again looking at the options," Robin Hale, acting CEO at the Toronto Zoo, said. "That fate has yet to be determined," he said yesterday.

Heartbroken Ontarians have been offering their farms to the baby reindeer since the Sunday Sun revealed on Sunday that the Toronto Zoo had euthanized two healthy baby bulls.

Pooran Singh, who owns a six-hectare hobby farm in Castleton, said he will happily take the reindeer if it means him being spared a date with Dr. Death.

But Hale said while the relocation of the reindeer is always the first option, finding suitable farmers with the necessary permits is nearly impossible.

ADVERTISED FOR 3 YEARS

Two 4-year-old male reindeer have been advertised on a surplus list for the past three years.

"It is our responsibility to ensure that any animals are only transferred to authorized accredited facilities that satisfy the standards of animal care," Hale said.

City Councillor Michael Thompson, who is on the board of the Toronto Zoo, is rooting for little Rudolph. He is not surprised by the outpouring of sympathy from the public.

"If there are people out there who are willing to take care of these animals, I don't think that we should be looking at any other options," Thompson, who represents Scarborough Centre, said.

Councillor Raymond Cho, chairman of the Toronto Zoo board, admitted the policy is upsetting but is confident the zoo is acting in the reindeer's best interests.

Another alternative to euthanizing the calves might be the Bergeron's Exotic Animal Sanctuary at Picton, in Prince Edward County. "It made me sick to the stomach when I read in the Sun that they intended to kill these animals," Pat Bergeron said.

ROOM AT THE SANCTUARY

"Can't they neuter the males? Keep them separated from females? Their only solution seems to be to put them down." She and husband Joe said they'd make room for the reindeer at the sanctuary. "They are herd animals, and we have goats and could manage them."

In the past, Toronto Zoo gave the Bergerons a blind lynx rather than have it put down. "Our animals live a long time," she said. "They have good lives -- which Premier McGuinty recognized when he gave us a certificate thanking us for humane treatment of animals." This winter, a wolf, Akila, died at the ripe age of 15, as did a black jaguar, also age 15.

"Always sad, but they died quietly, at a good age after a long life," Pat said. "Some people seem to think killing unwanted animals is more humane than letting them live peacefully with those who want them."