Pets & Animals

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― Zoo experts invited by animal welfare activists to visit the San Francisco Zoo said Friday that they found outdated, cramped exhibits and stressed out animals.

"Of the major zoos that I've seen, over the last 10 to 15 years, San Francisco's the worst," said former Melbourne, Australia Zoo Senior Curator Peter Stroud at a City Hall news conference. "Too much has been outdated for too long."

Stroud and two other former zoo curators were asked by the Marin County-based group 'In Defense of Animals' to tour the facility, which is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture following a Christmas Day tiger attack that left one dead and injured two others.

During their tour this week, the trio said they were shocked and saddened by the conditions and found more problems than expected.

The exhibits showed an overall "lack of understanding of animal behavior," said Stroud.

They observed the giraffes at the zoo's African Savannah exhibit displaying "excessive, aberrant behavior," chewing the walls of their barn because there wasn't enough tree-top greenery for them to munch on.

The zoo managers—which included former Los Angeles Zoo curator Les Schobert and a former top British curator, Dr. Robert Atkinson—also said that the African Savannah exhibit didn't do enough to protect the animals from the cold ocean winds and allowed visitors to surround the exhibit, potentially creating stress for the animals.

The three men described a lack of proper shelter and food for other animals too, and talked about the "third world" conditions of some exhibits.
 
The exhibits for the chimpanzees, polar bears, gray seals and river otters were small, drab and barren, they said. Polar bears were seen abnormally pacing, according to the trio.

"The zoo of this century should be one of compassion," said Schobert. "A place that truly teaches the public about the needs of animals."

Schobert charged that San Francisco Zoo officials' "long-term focus has been on the front gate."

"It's a sad place, compared with the rest of the city, which is so progressive," added Atkinson, who claimed that much of the recent upgrades to the zoo were "cosmetic."

"The zoo is always in transition, it's always the old versus the new," Zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca responded when asked for comment. She praised the new African Savannah exhibit and lemur forest, as well as the zoo's renovation of the gorilla preserve and participation in a bald eagle breeding program.

LaMarca said zoo officials were not informed of the curators' visit.

"What leads them to be the experts to come to the zoo and say that?" she asked, adding that the group was "very well intentioned."

"For them to come and say that we have inhumane conditions at this zoo, that our priority is not on the well-being of the animals, and that we do not teach the public to respect animals and the environments in which they live, could not be more wrong and inaccurate," LaMarca said.

But the activist group contends that the trio's findings show the conditions in which animals are kept are clearly inadequate and called for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to hold an independent hearing on the animal welfare issue.

Activist Deniz Bolbol said the group had been in contact with some members of the Board "who have expressed interest in the issue."

On Monday, the Board's Government Audit and Oversight Committee held hearings on safety issues at the zoo following the fatal tiger mauling.

Originally prompted by the death of three zoo elephants in 2004 and 2005, 'In Defense of Animals' officials are now calling for the San Francisco Zoo to be transformed into an "animal-focused rescue zoo."

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