Offspring is always a big event in zoos and animal gardens – employees and visitors alike eagerly await the baby animals. Most of the time, the little ones are given names, sometimes even with the participation of the public, and then become an attraction: polar bear “Knut” from the Berlin Zoo is probably the most famous example.
However, the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna has decided to proceed differently in the future. Animal babies should no longer be given names there, zoo director Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck told the “Tiroler Tageszeitung”. At least these should no longer be communicated to the public. The Austrian zoo is thus playing a pioneering role. “We are deliberately taking a new path here for the German-speaking region,” explained Hering-Hagenbeck.
The reason given by the zoo director for the decision was that they no longer wanted to draw attention to individual animals, which were then ascribed almost human characteristics. “It was a sensation when a director held a young animal in his or her arms. Of course, this was accompanied by a humanization of the wild animal,” said Hering-Hagenbeck. “For a long time, the focus was on the display of a single individual.”
So now the paradigm shift in Schönbrunn Zoo: In the future, “the preservation of a population should be more important there – and not the individual”. In this way, the protection of species should be better guaranteed, which is the focus of zoological work today. Nevertheless, zoos continue to be regularly criticized by animal welfare organizations for not allowing wild animals their natural habitat.
Source: “Tiroler Tageszeitung” / Tiergarten Schönbrunn
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