The EU zoos directive was developed in 1999 to define what constitutes a zoo, and to emphasise the role of the zoo in conservation of biodiversity.
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| Image taken from EU Zoo Directive |
A zoo was defined as “all
permanent establishments where animals of wild species are kept for exhibition
to the public for 7 or more days a year, with the exception of circuses, pet
shops and establishments which Member States exempt from the requirements of
this Directive on the grounds that they do not exhibit a significant number of
animals or species to the public”
However no EU-wide legislation or directive currently exists
to safeguard the welfare of zoo animals. To date, member state legislation has
had only the guidance from Article 3 of the directive to guide their
responsibilities to safeguarding animal health and welfare: “accommodating their animals under conditions
which aim to satisfy the biological and conservation requirements of the
individual species, inter alia, by providing species specific enrichment of the
enclosures; and maintaining a high standard of animal husbandry with a
developed programme of preventive and curative veterinary care and nutrition”
The problem with this phrasing is that neither conservation,
nor biological requirements of zoo species are defined, and no guidance is
given as to what constitutes a high standard of animal husbandry, so the
spectrum of husbandry actually delivered can be very variable.
To address these gaps, the EU Commission recently
commissioned the production of a guidance document to standardise
interpretation of the EU zoos directive. The welfare section of this document
was primarily constructed by Leonor Galhardo, a graduate of the University of
Edinburgh’s MSc Applied Animal behaviour and welfare programme, in partnership
with Heather Bacon of the JMICAWE.
“Zoo animal welfare is
an exciting and rapidly developing field of research and practice” said
Heather, “positive engagement with the
zoo community is essential, not only for to deliver effective guidance on
improving zoo animal welfare, but also, for helping us to understand the
challenges faced by the zoo community”
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