Allegations of neglect against Dublin Zoo found to be untrue

Dublin Zoo says it has been vindicated by an independent report which suggests allegations that it had mistreated its animals were unfounded.

A report by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) arose out of allegations made by an anonymous whistleblower which were raised in the Seanad by Labour’s Senator Annie Hoey in July.

The whistleblower listed 23 allegations of mistreatment of animals, and the allegations were made by way of protected disclosure.

The NPWS concluded that the whistleblower’s claim that he or she had “exhausted all options with the Dublin Zoo grievance procedures” and that Dublin Zoo facilitated a culture of “hiding wrongdoing and lacked transparency” was untrue.

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We are pleased that the good name and reputation of Dublin Zoo and its highly committed team of employees and volunteers have been upheld

Instead, Dublin Zoo “is an organisation with an outstanding track record in animal welfare management”, the NPWS stated.

“We are pleased that the good name and reputation of Dublin Zoo and its highly committed team of employees and volunteers, who live and breathe Dublin Zoo’s mandate, animal welfare, on a daily basis, have been upheld.”

Of the 23 allegations, the NPWS considered 17 to be “unfounded with no evidence supplied to support the narrative of the allegation”.

A further two were found to have “no basis or evidence to even substantiate the allegation”. Three were classed as having “some evidence supporting a historical allegation, but Dublin Zoo had already resolved the case” with changes in “process, facility or management”.

Only one was upheld. It related to the red panda enclosure which the whistleblower maintained was not built to the best practice guidelines of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). However, the report also noted that Dublin Zoo’s enclosure is consistent with other zoos in Europe and North America which house the species.

An allegation that no post mortem was carried out on Harry, the western lowland gorilla, was found to be false as the post mortem even featured on the RTÉ series The Zoo. Records going back to 1980 were studied and there was no case of a oryx calf starving to death, as had been alleged in the protected disclosure.

Similarly, an allegation that the Scimitar horned Oryx population in the zoo were inbred proved to be untrue.

The NPWS investigated a claim that a female hunting dog was severely injured on April 21st this year and did not see a vet for four days. The whistleblower alleged the dog died three days later from neglect.

In reality, the dog was male, was injured on April 19th, saw a vet on April 20th and had six vet visits, two general anaesthetics and surgical management of the wounds before dying on April 29th.

In the Seanad, Senator Hoey referenced the treatment of Maeve the giraffe, who was euthanased at the age of almost 24 on June 28th last year. She stated the giraffe had been mistreated as she lay dying and that the animal had a gaunt frame with her bones sticking out when she died. The NPWS investigation found Maeve was one of the oldest giraffes in Europe at the time of her death, and that she was in reasonable condition given that she was suffering from longstanding degenerative joint disease.

The NPWS stressed there were incidences where Dublin Zoo had made mistakes in the treatment of its animals, but it had responded with robust assessments of the cases and the introduction of measures which ensured that it would not happen again.

This happened in the case of some California sealions which the report team found were being fed fish of questionable quality in the years between 2018 and 2020, but this was not a “continuous issue, but one of intermittent incidents”. The zoo learned from the process and currently the systems employ best practice in terms of the feeding of sea lions, the NPWS inspectors stated.

They concluded: “In the investigation team’s opinion, this demonstrates that Dublin Zoo is only human and that mistakes can happen, but where Dublin Zoo shows its true values is how and when it responds to these failures. These were single isolated cases, rather than ongoing representations of chronic welfare problems at the zoo.”