The Truth About “Top” Zoos: Dr. Liz Tyson of Born Free USA on Animal Captivity, Happy the Elephant, and Why No Zoo Is Good for Animals

Liz Tyson: Thank you. I'm really happy to be here

Jasmin Singer: Lots to catch up on. It's been a hot minute. But before we do, I just wanna remind our listeners and our viewers that Our Hen House has multiple podcasts that come out each week, which is something that's, I think, new from when you were last on, Liz. Uh, we broke up our very long episode into smaller episodes.

So for those of you, uh, who don't know what I'm talking about, or even if you do, Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays, The Hen Report on Thursdays, and the long form interview, that's this, on Fridays. Bonus for our Hen House Flock members comes out on Mondays. Don't forget we're on, we're on any podcatcher where you like to listen.

We're also on YouTube. Uh, so hit subscribe and like and comment wherever you listen. Okay. Let's get back to our interview now, because there's a lot to cover today. So Liz, I wanna start with the recent death of Happy the elephant at the Bronx Zoo.

Ugh, it has brought the topic of zoos into the news. rhymed, uh, which is a nice way of starting an interview.

Uh, m- a- actually, if you could do the rest of the interview in rhyme, that would be... Okay, cool.

Liz Tyson: Yeah, I will.

Jasmin Singer: So many of, uh, many of our listeners are probably somewhat familiar with Happy's story, but can you tell us a bit about her?

Liz Tyson: Sure. So, um, Happy died, uh, literally just a few days ago. Um, she was housed at the Bronx Zoo for almost 50 years. We know that she was captured from her wild home, and has been held in captivity since she was a youngster from, I think 1971. Um, and then she was brought to the Bronx Zoo in 1977. So throughout the years she did have some company.

Um, of course, an elephant in a zoo is never gonna live the life that they, that they should live, but at the very least, these profoundly social animals need to have company of their own kind. And various things happened over that time, um, and her companion Grumpy passed. And since that time, with a, with a-- the exception, I think, of a very short period where they tried to socialize her with another elephant, she's been on her own or she was on her own until her death.

So that's 20 years in essentially solitary confinement in a city center zoo in the US, having been taken from her wild home, which somehow, uh, somehow feels crueler than, um, had she been born. The-- her experience is exactly the same but there's just that element of, you know, she had the opportunity to have that free living life and it was just taken from her to turn her into an exhibit for people to gawk at, at the zoo.

Mariann Sullivan: And, and of course, people know her because she was the focus of the Nonhuman Rights Project, um, lawsuit. Unsuccessful in the courts, but really very successful in a lot of ways in the press that really brought a lot of these issues into focus. But it didn't get her out of the zoo. And, and the other thing I think she's known for, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't she the first elephant to do the mirror test?

The self-recognition mirror test?

Liz Tyson: To my knowledge, yes.

Mariann Sullivan: I noticed in The New York Times that it kind of portrayed her as exceptionally intelligent, but that's not true. Like, she was, she was exception- she was extremely intelligent, but so are all elephants. But they happened to do the test first on her that, that sh- I think they put something on her, her head and she, uh, uh, she looked in the mirror and instead of touching the mirror, she touched her own head, which is a way of demonstrating that an, an animal understands what's, who they are.

Liz Tyson: Yeah. A sense of self. Yeah. They've, they've used it on, on many different animals in the past. But yeah, she became, she became famous for that, and it's interesting to see that play out now after her death because you're seeing the headlines, you know, the, the, elephant who could be a person, the, um... And really highlighting that.

But like you say, she, she, wasn't exceptional in that sense because elephants are hugely intelligent. Um, I think one of the things, so obviously the Nonhuman Rights Project brought the case to try and grant her personhood, which is a, a concept if, if your listeners don't know, then, um, a legal person is something different than property.

And animals are generally classed as property, which means they don't have the same rights as us. But a person in kind of normal, in normal life, we refer to a person, we often mean a human. But actually a legal person is somebody who has rights, and it can apply to human beings, it can apply to companies, it can apply to, inanimate objects, but we haven't yet got to a point where it has been successfully applied to non-human animals.

So the case was really interesting. Like you say, it wasn't successful. They didn't manage to get her personhood with the idea of if she had those rights, she had a right to freedom, and therefore she had a right to be moved to a more suitable environment.

But like you say, we're seeing this come out again. It started a conversation which was incredibly important, and I know the Nonhuman Rights Project didn't do that with the sense of it just being a messaging exercise. There's a genuine, a genuine, uh, desire to get her out there. But it, it, it has been a really interesting messaging, um, subject because it was something that really got people to think about that and, you know, what it means for animals to be property and what it might mean for animals to be classed as persons.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah exactly. That's really true. And, uh, and I mean, while they didn't do it just as a messaging effort, they did do it, I think, understanding that they probably weren't gonna win right o- right out of the gate, and this is part of a long-term effort. And you saw, you know, if you're familiar with the cases, it's, they're fascinating to read the, the, how the court struggled.

They did not want to do this because the implications were enormous. But, but they struggled and said some pretty odd things in the process. So it's all... Like she was, she was the focus of a lot of attention. But, uh, you know, there are many, many animals in zoos, and, uh, she was just one of them. And a lot of the activism around zoos involves, of course, the horrors of roadside zoos, which still exist, and, and, and that's a big project also in the legal world.

But you've been focusing a lot, if I understand, on these top zoos, quote-unquote, top zoos,

and I imagine that includes the Bronx Zoo, which has really a very, very high reputation among zoos. Um, so can you tell us about that investigation and, and just the overview of what you found, and then maybe we can go into some details?

Liz Tyson: Sure. And I think that's-- I'm, I'm really glad you raised the, the kind of roadside zoo and, uh, what we're looking at is AZA accredited zoos because it's, it's kind of interesting. So I come from the UK, and we have, uh, zoos are zoos. You know, they're, uh, they're, they're not under different kind of licensing, um, anything like that.

They're not... Um, we do have an accreditation system, but generally speaking, there's not the, the kind of division between a good zoo and a bad zoo. So here you hear a lot about roadside zoos, and I think everybody can conjure up what that means. You know, you're thinking tiny enclosures, you're thinking inadequate, um, living environments.

You're thinking, you know, petting opportunities, you know, commercial operations that don't, that don't benefit the animals in any way. And then we have the AZA zoos that the, the kind of higher end zoos that talk about, you know, we do this for conservation, we do this for education, these kind of much higher level, goals and objectives.

But from our, our point of view, yes, there are, there are really bad zoos and there are better zoos, but they're on a spectrum, you know, they're not apples and oranges. Um, they're on a spectrum and there are really bad zoos, and there are better zoos, but there are no good zoos. And the reason that we wanted to do this really, uh, ambitious project where we're visiting and investigating 10 of the, quote, "top zoos" in the country over, um, two-year period, and we're gonna be pulling together everything at the end of that.

But in the meantime, we're doing these kind of individual investigations and releasing things as we go along. And really our, aim with that or guess our hypothesis, is that the experience of the animals is not significantly different in an AZA zoo than it is in a roadside zoo because they're still having, um, few or none of their needs met.

They're not able to live in the right climate, in the right social group. Um, they're obviously denied their freedom. They are put under stress because of their living conditions, because of the visitors, and that applies to zoos across the spectrum.

So we have already released three of our reports. One, uh, the Audubon Zoo, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which we just released this week, and as you say, the Bronx Zoo. Um, and I was actually the one who visited the Bronx Zoo. So like I say, we wanted to highlight that even the best zoos don't serve animals, and we see the same thing over and over again. Zoos claim that their purpose is conservation and education, but we see the vast majority of animals who are housed in zoos are not threatened in the wild.

So the idea that keeping them captive is somehow creating this insurance population simply doesn't fly. Um, we see animals like, uh, Happy, like Patty, the other solitary elephant, housed in places with these great reputations like the Bronx Zoo. Um, and just over and over again, animals held in inadequate enclosures, being subjected to raucous crowds.

Um, yeah, so the, the Bronx Zoo was one of the most recent ones we did, and we're just seeing this pattern repeated over and over again. There's no zoo that I've walked out of in the 22 years I've been working in kind of animal rights and animal protection, thinking, "Actually, that one's okay, that one's good for the animals."

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, and, uh, just s- sticking with the Bronx Zoo for a minute, I know that, you know, zoos, in particular the Bronx Zoo, have really tried to recategorize themselves as primarily devoted to the conservation of animals in the wild. Can you expand what's wrong with that picture?

Liz Tyson: Sure. Um, I think there's a couple of things. So the, the messaging of the zoos is, like you say, it's conservation of species. There's this kind of very vague references to insurance populations, which when you dig down into it just fall apart. So this idea of we need to breed animals in zoos because they can act as insurance populations to be released into the wild if and when that species goes extinct.

What that completely ignores is that the conservation of species in the wild is not simply a lack of animals. It's not like, oops, they, you know, they're no longer there. We can just drop some new animals in there. Extinction happens because of a multitude of reasons. So it will be politics, it will be habitat degradation, it will be, um the geographical region, it will be climate change, it will be all of these conflicting and challenging and moving, um, elements that leads to species disruption.

And if those conditions don't change, you can drop as many elephants or gorillas or chimpanzees into a free-living environment, and the same thing is gonna play out over and over again if you don't address the source. The idea that we can replace animals when a species goes extinct isn't practical, nor has it really happened.

There's been- I've referenced this an awful lot, um, I should be getting commission on it, but there's a, there's a great book called, it's in my bookshelf, uh, Ethics on the Ark. And there's a great chapter in that, it was from the late '90s, but interestingly, it still applies, by, um, someone called Benjamin Beck.

And he talked about, uh, release programs and the, the impact of them, and there are probably nine species. So you see the black-footed ferret, you see the American condor, you see the golden lion tamarin, and then there's kind of a few other species. They are rolled out by zoos even today, decades afterwards, saying, "These are our success stories."

Um, but then when you look into it, and what was interesting about this chapter in this book was that it was looking at the different elements that played into those releases. Um, and for example, the golden lion tamarin, if I remember rightly, a lot of the released animals didn't survive. And in fact, it was attributed far more to local education programs that saved that species, and the zoos played this kind of tiny part in it, but yet claimed the success.

So the... and animals don't get released from zoos. You know, there, there's probably millions of animals in zoos around the world, and they're not getting released. They're just-- it's not happening. So, you know, um, I think the other issue is, as I say, most species in zoos are not threatened in the wild, so that, that argument doesn't fly for them.

Then now, it used to be that a lot of animals were taken from the wild in order to stock zoo exhibits, um, that pretty much stopped, uh, with the introduction of CITES back in the '60s and '70s. So it now means that these animals who are being bred in zoos are bottlenecking, and there will come a point where by default we're gonna see inbreeding.

It's already happening with some species. And so that means that the, the kind of pure species could potentially be released no longer exist because we're looking at hybrids. Um- So all of that on one side, the claims I think are really problematic because they don't really play out in practice. And then the other side to that, I think zoos have rebranded themselves as a result of criticism from animal advocates and, and people like us.

I don't think the general family cares. I don't think they're going to the zoo because they want their children to learn about conservation. I think they're going to the zoo because they want something to do on a Saturday afternoon, and going to the zoo is one of those options for, like, a family day out.

And we are seeing that play out in our investigations.

Mariann Sullivan: Wow. The- there's a lot to unpack there,

and I wanna get to

Liz Tyson: super

Mariann Sullivan: all of it.

Liz Tyson: Sorry.

Mariann Sullivan: But no, that's okay. That's okay. There's just so many issues floating around here, and so many of them cut to, like really deeply to our relationship to animals. But one thing I wanted, I wanted to talk about, 'cause it's always struck me as, as, as so compelling, and it might have had to do with why the, um, tamarins didn't succeed, uh, but I don't know.

But that people have this idea that animals just are automatons, and if they're bred and they grow up, they will be the same as the animals in the wild. But they haven't spent their life learning all the things you need to do. It's like if you put me in the wild, I would probably die within a week, uh, and they're probably similar, I would assume.

I mean, they have cultures as well as, uh, as well as biology, right?

Liz Tyson: Right. Right. That's right. and you know, there's health things as well. You know, there's, there's the potential for transfer of pathogens, of illnesses, of all of these things. You know, we, we see this, we run a sanctuary and for, um, rescued primates in, in Texas, and we don't want them to be in our enclosures even though our enclosures are, are as big as they can possibly get.

We know they're not meant to be in captivity, but we're seeing animals come from these tiny cages in people's homes, and then they need to figure out, hey, don't go mess with that rattlesnake. Don't... you know, figure out, you know, you've got to figure out, you know, what food is good, what you can eat, what you can't eat, and they learn that from one another, which is really interesting to watch.

But like you say, they're not, they don't just know this. Uh, they don't have the knowledge. But interestingly, they do have particular needs which are hardwired. So the need for, you know, the need for space, the need for, um, others of their own kind, because that's-- if they lack that, that's when we see the stress behaviors like stereotypies, repetitive behaviors coming in.

But like you say, there is, there's the kind of ingrained needs of the animals, which would exist with us. You know, that's the reason that incarcerated people, the, the incarcerating people, period, but also incarcerating people in solitary confinement is, is widely considered one of the cruelest things you can do to a human.

And not getting into the incarceration of, of humans 'cause that's a whole other thing that, um, we probably all have thoughts on. Um, yeah, there, there are the, there are the general needs, but like you say, they, they don't learn that. They wouldn't know how to survive, um, in a completely alien environment to them.

Jasmin Singer: I'm really fascinated by the marketing, and I know I, I, I appreciate what you just said about how, uh, you think people just want something to do on a Saturday afternoon. I totally agree with that. And yet even now, like, as things are changing so much, I think in terms of cultural attitudes about certain types of exploited animals, like fur, you know, uh, animal testing, I still hear regularly, you know, "But, you know, they're doing such a great job taking care of the animals here."

Can you talk about, like, different ways that zoos market themselves and how they're deceptive, besides what you've already gotten into?

Liz Tyson: Sure, yeah. I-- One of the, one of the big things for me is the education side of things. You know, we educate, we educate particularly young people. There's a lot of kind of co-opting of, like, class-based arguments. So, you know, inner city with in, in inverted comments and all of the kind of often classist and racial tropes that come with that phrase.

Um, you know, we're treating inner city kids who don't get to see animals, and these people can't afford to go on safari to Africa. How else will they learn, you know, compassion for animals if they don't see them in person? And it's like, well, how do-- how does my toddler daughter, why is she obsessed with dinosaurs?

Like, she can't go see a dinosaur in person, but my goodness, if she could be a dinosaur, she would be. Um, you know, and, and really... Oh, hi, puppy. Sorry. Um, a dog just came in.

Jasmin Singer: No, this is Murray and he needed to be with me. It was extremely important that he is touching me 100% of the time.

Liz Tyson: Was, uh, super unprofessional for me to interrupt that, but he's gorgeous. So yeah. And, you know, zoos are kind of like, well, you know, how do we encourage conservationists, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, pretty much every young person or a huge, huge percentage of young people in, you know, in the Western world will have been to a zoo at some point in their lives, yet we haven't seen, you know, just millions and millions of conservationists being born and, you know, and the zoos bringing them into that.

We're just not seeing what the zoos are claiming kind of play out. Um, there was a really interesting study a couple of years back, um, which was interestingly commissioned by the, by the zoo industry, and then the data was kind of flipped in the, in the reporting of it. But essentially what it looked at was, I think, three and a half thousand young visitors to London Zoo in the UK.

Um, and the learning outcomes and the, and the paper that was published by the zoo industry was like, "Look at these opportunities we have." But when you looked at the data, it was something like 60 something percent. So the majority of the kids either neutral learning or learning. So they came out with understanding that was incorrect or they didn't learn anything.

And in that as well, they were, there were, was feedback that the children didn't feel that they had the knowledge to, um, you know, contribute to conservation. So it was just one zoo, and it was just one sample, but that doesn't surprise me at all. We've been, you know, we've been watching, uh, people in zoos.

You know, during this investigation, we see school groups come through, and they are not learning. They're, they're having the time of their lives. They're having a day out from school, but, I wouldn't call it a learning, a learning experience. You know, we looked at, at the Bronx Zoo, there were-- they have gorillas there, and the gorilla exhibit was really, really popular, but people were just moving through it.

Lots of shouting, lots of screaming, lots of laughing because you could see his butt. But the, the amount of time, the average amount of time that people spent at the enclosure was one minute and nine seconds. So what, what are people learning from that? It's not, know, it's not possible to learn in that window of time.

So people just don't actually seem that interested, even when they're at the zoo.

Mariann Sullivan: Uh, every once in a while you hear somebody, a defender of zoos, who's a scientist or whatever, who said that their first exposure to animals was at the zoo. It's such an unscientific way to say it. It's just like, maybe, maybe that person would've been fascinated by animals no matter where their first encounter wa- You know, like, it, it's just because someone, uh, once, once, uh, when all the kids around him, was that really a, a way to keep, um, animals in prison, a reason to keep animals in prison?

I, I, it, I probably said this the last time we interviewed you, because I say it every time we talk about, uh, zoos, and it's a little provocative, but, I, I heard Jim Mason speak many years ago, and he said, um, "Teaching kids about animals by taking them to z- to the zoo is like teaching them about sex by reading them pornography."

Like, you learn a lot about sex by reading porno- or I shouldn't say reading, you know, I'm living in the past, by watching pornography. Um, and you do learn a lot about sex, but you learn all the wrong things, and this reductive, stupid, uh, use- well, not useless, but interesting in some ways, but you don't really...

Is that, is that how we wanna live on this planet? Like, just learning the worst aspects of everything and noth- not, not any of the heart and soul? And I, I, it really struck me, and I think of it every time I think about zoos, 'cause I think there's a lot of truth in it.

Liz Tyson: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: So I do wanna cover, in addition to this, my favorite topic, but I do wanna cover the whole story because I'm not that on top of what's going on in the zoo world.

When I first got i- involved in animal activism, I think I, I, uh, I was reading more about what was going on with zoos and canned hunts and, and, um, where the zoos got the animals and how zoos ended up, started out in a good zoo and ended up at a roadside zoo. It's a whole, this whole business. Is that still going on?

Has... 'Cause I know there have been efforts to sort of reform that, and a lot of the issue had to do with they always want babies because babies bring in the crowds, Um, and they don't need babies 'cause babies, you know, they live 20 years and, uh, they only, they're only babies for a year. So is all of that kind of scandalous stuff about sourcing still going on?

Liz Tyson: Um, I think less so now. There have been stricter measures put in place. So for example, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which was introduced at the beginning of 2022, that essentially cut off zoos', um, ability to have cub petting operations, um, for the, for the big cats. They can still have it with, with kind of smaller cats, um, which doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

But I think a couple of things that the-- that was the perfect storm because, of course, there was Tiger King and the absolute chaos that that was. But that brought the issue, like, really to the fore, and people understood just, yeah, the chaos of it, the cruelty of it. And so the Big Cat Public Safety Act, in theory, ended things like cub petting.

Um, there are still interactive opportunities with other animals. of the things we do know is that there is a, there's a specific phrase in zoo studbooks. So the zoo studbooks are essentially the, the record of births, deaths, um, moves, all of this between zoos. And in theory, the studbook is supposed to monitor all the animals who are in a, in a breeding program, and it's to help ensure genetic viability and just to know where all the animals are.

And there is a specific phrase, "lost to follow-up," which is entered into those studbooks where the animal essentially disappears, and they don't know where the, where the animal went. And I can't give you exact figures, but we find in, in our species research, we found lost to follow-up in big cats. We found lost to follow-up in primates.

We found lost to follow-up in giraffes and cheetah. So some animals are, quote, "going missing" from the studbook, but it's-- we don't have information on where they're going or, or the reasons behind that. But it's, it's common enough that it is a category in these studbooks.

Mariann Sullivan: I- Is there a fear that they're ending up in cantons after many transactions that can't be, uh, can't really be followed? Yeah.

Liz Tyson: I don't know. I

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah

Liz Tyson: there was a, there was a great documentary called "The Conservation Game," which was, was largely focused on the Big Cat Public Safety Act, but that did actually follow some of the animals, um, and, and found that, you know, some of them were ending up in roadside zoos. Um, yeah, I'm not sure the extent to which that has been curbed now with that legislation and I really don't know what that might look like.

Mariann Sullivan: And I just want to mention, 'cause this actually, I'm so glad I have you here to ask you this. I saw on, um, Instagram or whatever that Representative Gosar from Arizona is introducing a bill to get rid of the, um, the, the ca- the Big Cat Act. Is that, uh, true and are, should we be worried?

Liz Tyson: Um, I'm gonna... And this, you may have to fact check me on this. I think that the Gosar Bill was to water down the public contact element of the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Um, if it wasn't the Gosar Bill, there is a bill out and about at the moment which is talking about giving particular designated people access to be allowed to, to pet the cubs.

There was also some issues with, that had been raised about the ability for zoos now to do kind of cross national border trading of animals. Um, that is the extent of my knowledge. So, um, I don't think we need to be particularly worried about either of those, but we're definitely keeping an eye on them.

And like I say, I, I may be taking Gosar's name in vain because it may not be that particular bill, but there is one out there that

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I,

Liz Tyson: is, trying to and yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: I, I think that was what I saw in my vegan stories, so I'm, I'm hardly a reliable source here. So yeah, a- anybody who's really, uh, passionate about that, please do a little extra research.

Jasmin Singer: So let's talk about some specific species and tell us who is most disadvantaged by being in a zoo and how limited their lives are.

Liz Tyson: Um, so we've done, we've done a lot of research, particularly on the kind of large-bodied mammals. I'm not sure that any species does particularly well in zoos, and I think we've talked about messaging. Um, and the reason we're looking at large-bodied mammals, so we've done reports on giraffe, on elephants, on big cats, on great apes, and we did one on, on marine animals, not marine mammals, we looked at fish, which I was very excited about that we could do that because, you know, they're so overlooked.

But we really focused on the large-bodied mammals and the kind of, you know, charismatic megafauna because those are the animals that people really care about in theory. Um, people understand when you talk to them about elephants, you know, traversing miles and miles and miles every day in these matrilineal groups and these huge herds, and they have these complex practices.

They mourn their dead. They, you know, they form these great alliances and friendships and families and all of that. So in some ways, we've looked into these species because, A, we know what we're gonna find. We know that a concrete, cell essentially cannot provide the needs for elephants, um, or giraffe or great apes.

Um, but we see it across all species. So for example, with, with fish, there's a lot of preconceptions. They have a three-second memory. Absolutely not true. Um, research and invasive research on fish have, have shown that they respond to pain stimulus. It's shown that they can problem solve. It's shown that they can use, uh, teamwork to achieve a goal.

What you see in zoos is you will see fish pacing. Now, when we think about pacing, we think about, you know, the, the big cats wearing a, wearing a path in their enclosure, but fish also pace. So you'll see a fish swimming exactly the same route and over again, and that is a sign of stress. But we don't necessarily recognize it as such because they are so other to us.

They are so different. Um, whereas with great apes, for example, I think we can empathize more. So for us, talking about great apes, talking about, you know, um, what was her name? And I've forgotten her name. There was a, there was a great ape who ha- a gorilla who had essentially been forced to carry, I think, 17 pregnancies, um, and most of her children died before they reached adulthood. Um, know, all of these things that I think we can really connect with and understand. Like imagine sp- I think she spent like 12 years of her life pregnant in captivity, and then many of her, you know, many of her children died and the ones who didn't were moved away from her.

So, you know, those experiences are something that we can relate to, I hope, as humans, and that helps us understand just what that experience might feel like.

Mariann Sullivan: That was really moving. Um, so my understanding is that architecture has a lot to do with this too, because zoos design enclosures to make sure the animals don't leave, but create the illusion that they have some sort of freedom. Is that, is that true?

Liz Tyson: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Can you go into that a little bit?

Liz Tyson: Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting and that's something that has changed, and that's something that I think visitors do care about. people do understand now that an elephant in a tiny cage is, that elephant is gonna be miserable. Um, so in the kind of '60s and '70s, there's actually a really great book on that, um, called, it's right here, A Different Nature by David Hancocks, who used to run a zoo.

It might have been a Sydney zoo in the US. So he's a, he's a zoo person, but he's written this book which looks at changing architecture in zoos. And so initially it was, you know, just contain the animals, who cares what it looks like? Who cares what space they have? it went into this kind of, you know, let's make interesting architecture which just kind of looks cool but doesn't meet needs.

And then it moved again in the '60s and '70s as people started to feel uncomfortable about the idea of animals in captivity. It moved to these open spaces, um, but you know, you see zoos calling them savannahs.

Mariann Sullivan: Right

Liz Tyson: And they have these bigger spaces that they can traverse, but there's a lot of very clever and really kind of cynical design features.

So it looks as if the animals can roam anywhere, but there's a moat which prevents them crossing. Um, using a lot of glass now, using a lot of, quote, "natural features," which are actually just kind of construct, human-made features made to look like a tree, made to look like a rock. and then you have kind of spaces, if you think of a kind of grotto style enclosure now, which will often house a bear or house a big cat.

Then you have the backdrop, which is the kind of mountain with the rocks, and then you have the moat, so they can't get out, but then you just have a fence. So you're looking at this, it feels like you're closer to them. It feels like they have this expansive space. There's also, again, really cynical kind of landscaping tools that are used.

So you'll see kind of lots of plants and, and greenery, but often they will be inaccessible to the animals.

Mariann Sullivan: Right

Liz Tyson: Uh, for example, at the Bronx Zoo, you know, the giraffe enclosure has these really high trees, but when you look closely, the trees are meshed and there are sometimes hot wires around them, so the animals can't actually access them.

Mariann Sullivan: They're in such a small enclosure, the, the the foliage would just dis- they'd eat all the foliage, right, like, if they could.

So you have to keep it actually away from them, but tempting. That's diabolical

Liz Tyson: And the other thing that was, that was done was, um, you know, these kind of expansive enclosures where you could see beyond the enclosure, but the barriers were not obvious. So again, it just gives this, this idea that the animals have a much more expansive space than they actually do, and that in turn makes visitors feel better because they're not seeing them, you know, in these really tiny spaces.

But what's really interesting, and this happens across the board, exceptions to that to be seem bodied monkeys, um, birds of prey and, uh, reptiles, amphibians and, uh, fish because they, for whatever reason, still seem to be kept often in similar housing that they would've been in, in many years ago.

So, again I the Bronx Zoo or it could be San Francisco. One of them has this really old, um, aviary system, which is just cage after cage after cage. And it cage, hasn't

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, wow

Liz Tyson: in, in more than a century. I have to check which one it is. I think it might have been San Francisco. And they've got birds of prey in there.

You know, birds of prey who would, are the very kind of epitome, the very symbol of freedom. Um, smaller monkeys who are housed again in these kind of old monkey houses, often without any outside space. And that's when you start seeing like the really kind of, um, honestly offensive l- landscaping and decoration where you've got, you know, a, a monkey sitting in front of a painted rainforest backdrop and they actually have no outdoor space and it's just, you know, it's somebody...

They're-- There's a mural on the background and they're just a living element in this kind of, you know, diorama.

Mariann Sullivan: Wow.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Oh, God Do you ever just stop and say, "This is so fucked up"? I mean, Like or--

Mariann Sullivan: Every day?

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, Yeah I, I, that, that wasn't actually a question we had for you, but...

Mariann Sullivan: There's some, there's something, I mean, this, a little h- like, there's hope in the fact that the reason they're doing this is because people now care.

I mean, pe- like 100 years ago when they built those zoos, people thought that was fine. People don't think it's fine anymore, so their, their solution is not to stop doing it, it's to deceive people into thinking they're not doing it.

Liz Tyson: Right. yeah, I, I do think this is so effed up all the time. I remember one, one thing that's really stuck with me. Uh, years ago, I was at Dublin Zoo in Ireland, there was a, a woman and her young daughter stood next to me, or her child who was with her, I'm not sure if it was her daughter.

Um, and the mom was saying to the, the child, "Look at the funny monkey. He's swinging." The animal they were, they were looking at was a chimpanzee, which I'm not gonna be that person who's like, "Oh, it's an ape, not a monkey."

Um, but the chimp was, uh, regurgitating and reingesting her food, um, which is a, a really serious stereotypy, which is generally seen in great apes who are very stressed in captivity. She was obsessively swinging backwards and forwards on this hammock, I'm looking at the same animal as this woman and, and the child, and the woman was interpreting it as, "Oh, look at the funny monkey playing, having a great time."

And I'm looking at the same animal and thinking, "Wow, she is stressed and so unhappy."

Um, and it's just not recognized. I think one of the-- there is hope definitely that people feel uncomfortable about zoos now and they, they don't really agree with them. But I think one of the challenges is that nobody's, like, super invested in zoos. It's not like, you know, you, you go vegan because you really care about animals and there's this, you know, real deep understanding that you need to make a lifestyle change, um, in order to, to make this contribution.

You know, to-- you really understand that you don't wear fur because it's so cruel. But I think with zoos, people are not there yet where it's seen as, like, really cruel, and so they're like, "I don't really like them, but do you know what? My, my kid wants to go, so, you know, I'll feel uncomfortable, but I'll just go."

And one visit, but when millions of people are doing that one visit feeling a little bit uncomfortable, they're still funding this, this continuation of it. So I think that's-- it's a challenge because it's hard to get people to care about something that they don't see every day. Like, what harm would it do?

You know, the, the niece or nephew's in town, what harm would it do to go and see the bears at the Bronx Zoo, you know?

Jasmin Singer: Right. I feel that same way, uh, that story that you just told where you were looking at the exact same thing and seeing it so differently, when little children run into a flock of pigeons who are, like, eating and they like, you know, their feet and trans- oh my God. Like, what is ... And also

Mariann Sullivan: And their parents think it's cute

Jasmin Singer: exactly, like what a perfect teaching opportunity. You know? Like it, it's ...Yeah

Liz Tyson: so

Jasmin Singer: that's one of my I things.

Liz Tyson: I've complained to, like, friends of mine about that. You know, we're, we're in a, you know, we're in a square and there's loads of pigeons, and some kid is just running at them, and I'm like, "Why is that parent not doing anything?"

You know? That-- So I'm so glad you said that 'cause I could not agree more on that.

Jasmin Singer: Oh, God. It's just, it, it's, you know, starting them so young with the, this speciesist mentality and it's so weird because could start them so young with an anti-speciesist mentality. It feels like it would be even easier because we're sort of born with an anti-speciesist mentality and it's just society that's, you know, putting it on us.

Mariann Sullivan: And the kids don't even realize they're being mean.

Jasmin Singer: Right exactly

Mariann Sullivan: They have to be told that like, that birds are real And have feelings. They, they don't know. they, just think it's, you know, like, I don't know, any- anything exciting that might happen.

Liz Tyson: And they, you know, they mimic us so much. Like, I'm learning this. I've-- I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, and she, know, she knows to be gentle with the dogs 'cause mom told her that she needs to be gentle with the dogs. She knows that, like, if she sees a bug, like she wants-- but she'll like pull it, like literally like stop herself.

She's like-- she knows that she doesn't touch it. and if she sees a dog she doesn't know, then she knows that she's not to, you know, she's not to approach without asking if she can say hi, and that's so easy to teach a child. It's really not that hard. Um, but people choose not to do it, I guess 'cause they don't see it as an issue.

Jasmin Singer: Well, you just, Mariann, you just said they, they don't e- kn- they don't know they're being mean unless someone tells them, and I just feel like that about the adults too, you know? I mean...

Mariann Sullivan: Well, by the time you're adult, you should have figured it out.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, you should've, you should've. All Right

Well, speaking of kids, let's stick with that subject for just a second because, uh, a lot of people when, you know, well-meaning people when, whenever I get to talk to them about zoos will be like, "Well, don't you think that kids need to be around animals in order to appreciate them?"

And the- and they'll go so far as saying, uh, and maybe even growing up to fight for them like you do. I, I just wanna talk about that and also sanctuaries and how sanctuaries differ from zoos and, and your thoughts about them.

Liz Tyson: Sure.

Jasmin Singer: Just threw a lot out at you, so just take whatever you want and run with it.

Okay

Liz Tyson: Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, zoos-- I think people co-opt the messaging of zoos so easily because like I said before, you know, how many kids do you know that are obsessed with dinosaurs? How many kids do you know who are obsessed with like outer space? It's, it's so easy to learn in different ways, we do learn in different ways in every other situation.

In schools, we teach children using, you know, multimedia formats. Um, and going to the zoo is actually just, you know, a fun day out. It's not really a learning opportunity. So kids can learn through so many mediums, and I think what's really interesting now is that we have access to such, you know, amazing nature documentaries.

There are now cropping up these kind of really interesting interactive experiences. Um, I took my, my daughter when she was 18 months old to this hologram zoo in Austin, near where we live. And she was just blown away 'cause she got to be under the sea, and she got to like, look at the fish, and she got to touch the fish because, you know, no, no one was gonna get, get harmed.

And there was this giraffe who like put his 3D head down and said hi, and she reached out to touch his nose. It was just, was fantastic. And you know, we have so much opportunity now and so much interesting technology that even if we, you know, even if we're like, "Well, kids can't learn from books," which doesn't fit with any other educational messages we have in the world.

But, you know, there are physical experiences that children can have which don't involve seeing captive animals. You look at these animatronic displays. You know, I recently went to the National History Museum when I was home visiting in the UK, again with my daughter, and they've got these moving dinosaurs.

And she was just blown away because, you know, she had dinosaurs in front of her. So yeah, I think with, with children, are far more imaginative than we give them credit for. And yeah, you don't have to go and see unhappy animals in captivity in order to develop a love for them, period.

Jasmin Singer: I just wanna, um, I ju- I just wanna share something, Mariann. You probably forget this 'cause it was such a tiny little thing, but we went to the planetarium with, uh, Mariann recently. In the lobby of the planetarium wa- there was a, you know, a fish tank, but there was also... Or may- no, you know what? It, it was the children's museum.

We went to the children's museum.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, 'cause I was thinking back to the planetarium. and I did not remember a

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. We, we go on, like, a little,

Mariann Sullivan: There's a very famous children's museum

Jasmin Singer: in

Mariann Sullivan: in Rochester. where we live called The Mus- Strong Museum of Play. It's, it's, it's, it, it's a big deal.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. So we, we went, uh, the only group of adults with no children, but whatever. Um, there was, like I said, there was a fish tank, but there was also, like like what you just described, animatronic fish as well, like both of them in the same room.

And I s- I said to Mariann like, "Why?" Like, you- you're actually literally looking at the alternative to cruelty right here, you know? And so I, there's no, I have no point to that story. I just wanted to share it. Uh, Mariann, I think you were... Were you about to ask something?

Mariann Sullivan: Well, I, I mean I, I think that you kinda asked it, but I don't think Liz actually got to it, because it was two completely separate questions together, and that's about sanctuaries. I think that you, you are very, very affiliated with Born Free Sanctuary, and but can you just talk about that sanctuary and sanctuaries in general, how they differ from zoos, and why they are okay?

Liz Tyson: Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm-- I get to work. I just have my dream job. I get to work across our advocacy work, and I'm also the director of the, the sanctuary. Um, so we have a, we have a primate sanctuary. Uh, we have 208 residents right now, uh, rescued from the pet trade, from laboratories, from zoos. Um, and we offer them a home for life.

So sanctuaries are-- a difficult thing because everybody who works in the sanctuary world wants us to be able to close our doors. Like, we recognize that monkeys don't belong in enclosures, however big they are, in South Texas, period. Um, but sanctuaries exist to kind of give a better, if not perfect life to animals who are suffering worse conditions.

So would a rhesus macaque, Gambit, who we, we rescued a few years back, is he better off at the sanctuary, or is he better off staying in that four-by-four cage that he's been in for the past four years? I think, you know, no one would argue that the sanctuary isn't better for him. Um, but sanctuaries have as their aim lifelong care, so there's no such thing as surplus animals in sanctuary.

We do not allow breeding because it is not our job to perpetuate further captivity. Um, and generally speaking, sanctuaries do not open to the public. The animals are not exhibits. Now, some sanctuaries have limited opening to donors, and as, as, long as it's done ethically, that can be argued for.

But our sanctuary, for example, does not open to the public, um, so that we can just really focus on caring for the animals. They are our priority. They've come from often very traumatic backgrounds. They-- Some-- They have specific members of staff on our team that some of them do not like. Like Lila, I'm... I rescued her.

I literally went into the house and rescued her from her, you know, three foot by two foot cage, and my goodness, she hates me. But you know, all joking aside, you know, there are members of our team that they find stressful, so I couldn't imagine subjecting them to crowds of people every day. So sanctuary, I think everyone can recognize it's, it's not the best thing for them, but it is a much, much better thing for them than where they were.

And you know, I'm very proud of our sanctuary. We offer as much space as we physically can. We have one enclosure that's five acres. We have 40 monkeys living in there. And then we have kind of progressively smaller enclosures really based on, um, the social capabilities of the individual monkeys. So we'll-- a lot of them wouldn't be able to live in, you know, massive groups of, you know, 20, 30 monkeys just because of their past.

They find it difficult to associate with others. But we might be able to get them living in a group of six or seven. So they'll have, you know, a quarter, a half acre, an acre enclosure where they can, you know, live with their friends. Um, and then we accommodate, of course, those monkeys who, you know, were just potentially too traumatized to really be able to live in social groups at all.

Um, our golden rule is that no one ever lives alone. And so sometimes the best we can do is have guys live in pairs so that at least they've got companionship.

Um, we only have one monkey currently who lives on his own, but he's a pretty new arrival, and we're in the process of, of socializing him with, with another monkey.

Mariann Sullivan: I hope it works

Liz Tyson: Yeah, I think it will. I think they're, I think they're gonna be pretty well-suited.

Mariann Sullivan: It's hard to imagine a monkey living alone.

I mean, I know they do all over the place in, uh, labs and whatever, but that seems wrong.

Liz Tyson: It really is. It really is. And when you see them, you know, the best thing for us is when you see them just start ignoring us. So I lo- I love Lila, who hates me, because when she first arrived, she was so desperate for attention from us, and now she's just like, "I live with my friend Eddie, and you better back off 'cause he's my friend, and you're not allowed to look at me or him."

So yeah, I think the difference with zoos and sanctuaries ultimately is sanctuaries are built on a very different foundation. Um, we are there purely for the animals with no balancing act between what our visitors might want or need from us.

Mariann Sullivan: Do you find that the word sanctuary is getting thrown around a lot in careless ways?

Liz Tyson: Yeah, and I think there is an issue-- there's been an issue forever that there is no legal definition of sanctuary, and I'm not sure that there, there needs to be, but that's one of the problems, that sanctuary is very poorly defined. One of the ways in which that's been combated is there's GFAS accreditation, the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries, and they accredit kind of legitimate sanctuaries that meet the criteria that I think we on this call would understand to be a sanctuary.

So it doesn't stop people referring to their work as rescue or sanctuary or whatever, but if they're not accredited, then that raises questions.

Jasmin Singer: I have an 18-year-old chihuahua who hates me more than anyone has ever hated me in the history of the millions of people and animals I've known, and I too am responsible for rescuing him at six- at age 16.

He has y- like, uh, I mean, like literally I-- every, every hatred moment he gives me, which is every moment of my life, makes me love him more.

Liz Tyson: Unbelievable.

Jasmin Singer: Your story.

Liz Tyson: absolutely

Jasmin Singer: that would, that would piss

Mariann Sullivan: He doesn't really like me either, I have to say. When I visit, he's like, "Ugh, no, not her."

Jasmin Singer: Well,

Mariann Sullivan: He has one person he likes, that's it

Jasmin Singer: not the vitriol that get.

Mariann Sullivan: No, no, it's not the same

Jasmin Singer: No, Um, d- you know, I, there have been sanctuaries that have been, like, fundamentally against visitor programs.

What are your thoughts on that?

Liz Tyson: Um, I, I, I actually kind of straddle those two worlds. Um, I run the Born Free Primate Sanctuary, but I sit on the board of a, of a primate sanctuary in the UK that does have limited opening. Um, I think a lot of the time the opening is very tied to funding, um, and those, and that opening will support the funding and the, the ongoing operation.

It's not something that sits hugely comfortably with me because when I see our monkeys, uh, we would have to make very, very careful choices about who we even allowed people to see. You know, we do the occasional visit and there are areas of the sanctuary we just don't even take a single visitor to. You know, our board members come down and, and they don't meet some of the monkeys because they are so stressed with, with people being around them.

So I very much prefer the completely closed because it just allows us to honor, honor their recovery and not add in an extra element of stress. But I do also understand why some sanctuaries have partial opening. I, I would much prefer that all sanctuaries were closed, but yeah.

Jasmin Singer: I think I, I agree with that.

Mariann Sullivan: I assume they're really helpful in fundraising, which, you know, that may sound venal, but it definitely isn't. Without the funds,

Liz Tyson: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: you can't take care of the, the animals. Yeah.

Liz Tyson: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: So I, I have a kind of huge question for the, for the ending, um, but it is kinda what it's all about. Can you just kinda sort, tie it together?

Because we do wanna protect wildlife and we do want species to survive, obviously captivity is not the answer.

Liz Tyson: No

Mariann Sullivan: So what's the answer?

Liz Tyson: Do you know, I think the m- some of the most effective conservation efforts are via community conservation. So all too often the, the conservation movement has been top-down with essentially white Westerners going to, um, the range states of animals who we're particularly interested in and acting as "the scientists," I put that in air quotes, with, uh, local people being characterized as the guides or the field assistants or the poachers.

Um, and it

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, the problem.

Liz Tyson: And it comes from, you know, the initial conservation movement from the West comes from empire building and colonialism, and it's still, it's still very much that way, you know, to... I'm digressing slightly, but the, at the Bronx Zoo, which does do the, you know, the, the organization does do meaningful conservation work.

But when I went into the, the kind of room talking about the history and, and their work in gorilla conservation, the same trope comes up every single time. You see a photograph, there is a white man in the middle, he is a scientist, he is named in the photograph, and behind him there are three or four people of color, local people, Indigenous people, and they're not even named.

There is this power dynamic, um, which is still perpetuated throughout Western conservation. And in fact, local people inevitably every time are interested in the conservation of, of their own habitats and their, the species that they share, they share their, their environment with. And community conservation, which is led by local people, is the only way that that's gonna be successful.

You know, time and time again, people doing meaningful work, facilitating work with local communities find that there is buy-in, there is interest, and this idea of the white scientists having to go and educate the people, um, on the ground just, it's outdated and honestly it's, it's racist. So focusing,

Mariann Sullivan: And, it's, it's bad science too. I mean, people who have been living amongst these animals for a long time

Liz Tyson: Yep

Mariann Sullivan: know. I, I remember hearing a stor- a story, I guess it was from some guest, which I don't know who it was, but in India, um, you know, there are areas where there are tig- like wild tigers still. Like it's...

I'm sure it's getting smaller and smaller. And, um, and people get killed by tigers. It's not a non-issue, and people are worried about it, but they know so much about tigers that I think Western scientists don't, uh, 'cause they've been figuring this out for 1,000 years to try to avoid getting killed, if not, uh, for any other reason.

Liz Tyson: Yeah, absolutely. And this idea of, you know, in, say, Indigenous knowledge or local knowledge being somehow lesser than Western science, um, is just really, really prevalent. And I think, you know, there is definitely a role for, uh, Western conservationists to involved in conservation efforts.

Of course

Mariann Sullivan: Absolutely.

Liz Tyson: know, but it has to be as facilitation or really meaningful collaboration with local people, because we're not gonna get anywhere without that.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm. Well, I am very grateful for the work you're doing on many different levels with Born Free USA and, and would love it if you would just tell our, our audience what you're excited about and how they can stay on top of your efforts.

Liz Tyson: Of course. Um, I, uh, I'm always excited about our sanctuary. You know, we're alwa- we just, um, brought in two new monkeys last week, Mina and George, and they're settling in. So just the, there's always, there's always someone coming down the pipeline who we're gonna be helping, so we don't know them yet, but that'll be, that'll be continuing to happen.

And I think, you know, we're working on really interesting legislative change, the Captive Primate Safety Act, which kind of follows on the coattails of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which would ban primates as pets. You know, we're continuing this work on zoos, which I think is really important 'cause as we've talked about today, it's not something that is necessarily well understood.

Um, yeah, we- we've got a lot going on. It's a, it's a really, really busy time. But, um, folk can find us and follow us on our website and on all the socials. We're Born Free USA.

Jasmin Singer: Amazing. Dr. Liz Tyson, Born Free USA's Director of Animal Welfare and Advocacy. Definitely come back and keep us posted as things continue to evolve, and they are, they are, evolving indeed. I'm hoping that, I'm hoping that, like, this is one of those issues that in the near future society looks back on with horror that we ever normalized it.

Uh, and I, I'm, cautiously optimistic that can happen.

So thank y- and thanks largely to your work. So thank you again for joining us today on Our Hen House, and thank you our listeners and viewers. Don't forget you. can donate and become a flock member at ourhenhouse.org/support. Thanks to Vicki Beechler and Jen Riley for their work in producing this episode and keeping Our Hen House running. And we'll talk to you next time.

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