Animal News
New Milk, Meat Labels Give 'Humane' Seal of Approval to Target Concerned Consumers
BUCKEYSTOWN, Md. May 23
Contented cows can now offer proof: labels certifying their milk and beef came from livestock raised under what several animal welfare groups consider humane conditions.
The rectangular labels reading, "Certified Humane Raised & Handled," should start appearing in about a month on meat, poultry, dairy and egg products, Adele Douglass, executive director of Humane Farm Animal Care, said Thursday.
The program, backed by 10 animal welfare groups, certifies producers and processors who meet certain standards for animal treatment.
Participants are charged modest royalty fees 50 cents a pig, for example and pay for annual inspections at $400 a day.
Humane Farm Animal Care will pay the U.S. Agriculture Department to check some farms' documents to verify that the group is meeting its own certification standards.
"This is not necessarily an approval of these marketing claims or handling techniques," said Randall Jones, an associate deputy administrator in the agency's Agricultural Marketing Service.
The program reflects a growing movement in the United States and abroad seeking better treatment of farm animals. On May 1, KFC announced new standards to ensure humane treatment of its chickens. A Gallup poll released Wednesday found most Americans support passing strict laws for farm animal treatment.
"The consolidation of the agriculture business and the creation of industry farms means too many farm animals across the country are treated inhumanely," Douglass said.
While the certification coalition aims to encourage humane practices, other animal-rights groups have drawn attention for tactics including sneaking onto egg farms to document poor conditions and staging protests dressed as crippled turkeys. Last November, Florida voters became the first in the nation to ban the confinement of pregnant pigs.
The Humane Farm Animal Care certification standards prohibit keeping pregnant pigs in metal "gestation crates," confining egg-laying hens in cages and tying dairy cows in stalls. They bar using growth hormones and turning animals too sick to walk into food.
A similar labeling program sponsored by the Denver-based American Humane Association in 2000 failed after receiving little funding. Douglass said the new program's broader base should ensure its success.
Douglass said consumers who buy foods bearing the blue, green and white labels will "send a powerful message to the agriculture industry that the humane care and treatment of American farm animals should be a priority."
National Pork Producers Council spokeswoman Kara Flynn said the labeling program is part of "an anti-meat agenda" with no scientific basis.
"It's saying if you don't adhere to this, you're going to be seen as someone who's not rearing or treating animals humanely, and that's false," she said.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, based in Denver, disagreed with the program's ban on feeds containing antibiotics, but said many of the standards are similar to guidelines it is developing.
"I see this program to be very compatible and very consistent with our desire to see that cattle are cared for in a humane manner," said Gary Weber, the association's executive director of regulatory affairs.
Douglass said five producers have been certified, and her group, based in Herndon, Va., is inspecting slaughterhouses for compliance with the American Meat Institute Standards, a higher standard for slaughtering farm animals than the Federal Humane Slaughter Act.
One certified producer, Hedgeapple Farm of Buckeystown, raises black Angus beef cattle on 250 acres about 40 miles north of Washington. The free-ranging animals eat as much fresh grass, rather than grain or hay, as the seasons allow. They are protected from disease by vaccinations, not feed additives that could accumulate in their meat.
"It just makes good sense to treat your production animals right," said John Jorgensen, president of the family foundation that owns the farm.
He said the techniques cost no more than grain-feeding the animals in crowded feedlots, and he charges about 25 percent more for the beef, which is available only at the farm.
"You can market your product at a premium because people are willing to pay for that type of certification," Jorgensen said.
The Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are among the program's supporters.
The Gallup poll released Wednesday was based on telephone interviews May 5-7 with 1,005 adults nationwide. It found 62 percent in favor and 35 percent opposed to passing strict laws concerning the treatment of farm
animals. The poll had margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Source: ABC News/Associated Press
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Manatee May Be Taken Off Florida Endangered List
May 25, 2003
By Jim Loney
MIAMI (Reuters) - Even as an endangered species, with protections afforded only a handful of other creatures on Earth, the Florida manatee loses up to 10 percent of its number every year, many crushed or slashed by boats.
Now a move is afoot to "downlist" the manatee from "endangered" to "threatened" in Florida, heightening a long battle between the marine industry and conservationists.
A decision on downlisting by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission this week would have little practical impact on manatee protections because the lumbering marine mammal would remain on the federal endangered list.
But manatee advocates say it would send a dangerous message to the public that the sea cow is safe from extinction.
"The outlook for manatees is still dire," said Patti Thompson, director of science for the Save the Manatee Club, which fights to protect the estimated 3,000 manatees left in Florida waters.
Conservationists and boating interests have squabbled for years over how many manatees are enough and how manatees and boats -- there are nearly a million registered in the state -- can co-exist in Florida's crowded waterways.
The sluggish, herbivorous marine giants, which date back 45 million years and grow to an average of about 10 feet long and 1,000 pounds (454 kg), are frequently crushed by boats or gashed by propellers as they surface to breathe. Many adult manatees bear jagged scars on their backs.
SPEED LIMITS
Last year, the state recorded 305 manatee deaths, about 10 percent of the current population. Of those, 95, were caused by boats. Natural causes claimed 59. To protect the manatee, the state instituted speed zones on miles of Florida's waterways, forcing boaters to slow to as little as 5 mph to avoid hurting unseen manatees lolling at or just below the surface.
The Coastal Conservation Association of Florida, a fishers' group, petitioned the commission to reevaluate the endangered status of the manatee, arguing that it did not meet new criteria for that designation. It cited research showing manatees are not just holding on, but growing in number.
"We've never asked for rollbacks in protection measures," CCA executive director Ted Forsgren said. "We've only asked for some common sense ... We are seeing a recovery of manatees, and all the extreme measures are unwarranted."
The Commission, meeting May 28-30 in Kissimmee, Florida, is to decide whether to reclassify the manatee. Its research staff recommended downlisting on grounds that the manatee does not qualify for "endangered" status under current state criteria.
To be endangered, a species would have to face the possibility of an 80 percent decline in population in the next three generations, or 45 years. State scientists have decided the manatee could face a 50 percent decline in the next 45 years, making them "threatened," not "endangered."
Manatee advocates say the state criteria are all wrong for the manatee, a long-living creature that reaches sexual maturity late and reproduces slowly. Mature females generally give birth every 2-5 years and the gestation period is a year.
Source: Yahoo News/Reuters
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Two Americans Gored at Running of Bulls
July 8, 2003
By JULIANE VON REPPERT-BISMARCK, Associated Press Writer
PAMPLONA, Spain - Bulls gored two Americans and an Australian Tuesday
on the second day of Pamplona's annual runs with the bulls.
One of the gored Americans, Al Chesson, 57, from Pittsburgh, Pa., spent
a terrifying half-minute being thrown around in the narrow alley
leading into the bull ring that marks the end of the run.
"It was like King Kong tossing coins," the former U.S. Marine and
marathon runner said in the hospital, as he awaited surgery. Chesson was
gored twice in the right thigh and once in the groin.
The other gored American was identified as Dallas Hatchcock, 24, from
Los Angeles, with a jab in the left arm.
"I saw a bull throw some guy against the wall. I was trying to get his
attention. It worked, I guess," Hatchcock said.
The Australian was identified as Nicolas Headlam, 29, with an 8-inch
gash in the chest. His hometown was not immediately given.
None of the three had life-threatening injuries, the news agency Efe
said.
Two other men were hospitalized with lesser injuries, and 33 people
were treated on the street for bruises and scrapes.
Monday's opening run - the first of eight - was a cakewalk in
comparison. The only injuries were bumps and bruises from falls and minor
tramplings.
Since record-keeping began in 1924, 13 people have been killed at the
San Fermin festival. The last fatality was a 22-year-old American, gored
to death in 1995.
The fiesta, famed for its all-night street parties, dates back to the
late 16th century but gained world fame from Ernest Hemingway's 1926
novel "The Sun Also Rises."
Running bulls through the town began as simply the easiest way to get
them to the ring for bullfights, but eventually daredevils started
running in front of them.
Source: Yahoo News
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Rare Bears in Bind
Melting Ice and Chemical Contaminants Putting Kings of the Arctic at Risk
By Amanda Onion
July 21- The mightiest predator in the remotest corner of the globe appears to be falling prey to a double dose of environmental ills. The source: The far-away industrialized world.
The Arctic polar bear faces retreating ice packs at Earth's northern polar cap, which have jeopardized the animal's ability to hunt seal, leading to weight loss, studies show. And now a range of chemical contaminants blown in from industrialized regions appear to be collecting in the bear's remaining fat stores.
The combination, say scientists, threatens the animal's longevity.
"As the animals lose fat, the remaining fat has higher concentrations of pollution," said Andrew Derocher, a polar bear expert with the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. "When you start to add one stressor to another, the detrimental effect can become much greater."
Derocher, who has studied polar bears in the Arctic for the past seven years with the Norwegian Polar Institute, assessed recently that retreating ice flows at Earth's northern reaches could drive the polar bear to extinction within 100 years.
Melting Fishing Rafts, Giant Chemical Sink
The bears, whose Latin name, Ursus maritimus, means "sea bear," evolved about 200,000 years ago from brown bear and use sea ice as a floating platform to catch prey - mainly seal. Studies suggest this polar ice has been retreating at a rate of about 9 percent per decade.
Meanwhile, as the top predator in the harsh ecosystem at the top of the world, the polar bear is unusually vulnerable to ingesting a slew of chemical contaminants.
Weather mapping has shown the cool Arctic regions act as a giant sink for air streams flowing from all points south. In what is known as the grasshopper effect, chemicals repeatedly evaporate and condense, falling back to the ground.
Many end up at the Arctic, after rising and falling and riding thousands of miles on cool air streams. As air streams reach the frigid regions around the North Pole, moisture cools, condenses and falls to Earth. The chemicals then linger for long periods in snow and ice at the pole since low temperatures prevent evaporation. Here they can be ingested by wildlife.
The evidence can be found in polar bear fat.
A single bear can consume 100 pounds of blubber at one sitting — mostly from seals. For the bears, their generous bulk is critical for staying warm. But in a process known as bioaccumulation, each animal they eat can magnify the amount of toxins stored in their fat.
The chemicals are taken up by plankton (microscopic plants) and are passed along to copepods (microscopic animals), to fish, to seals and finally to polar bears.
"Most animals can't metabolize these chemicals so they tend to build up and increase 10 times at each step in the food chain," explains Ross Norstrom, a leading polar bear expert who has worked as a toxicologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service and is now a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. "By the time you get to the polar bear, you've got an intense concentration."
Chemical Cocktails
For just over 30 years, scientists have been tranquilizing polar bears in the wild and extracting blood and fat samples. Since polar bears can weigh up to nearly 2,000 pounds and have a mouthful of sharp, jagged teeth, the process of extracting samples must be delicately conducted.
These tests have shown that the bear, particularly those in the European arctic, have concentrations of chemical contaminants at levels as high as 80 parts per million.
Some of the contaminants include the industrial chemicals called PCBs, which were once used widely to insulate electric transformers and capacitors. They were banned in the United States and Canada in the mid-1970s but are still used in some parts of the Third World. The compounds are slow to degrade and float in the air and permeate water.
One recent study by scientists at the University of Lancaster, in England and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research calculated an estimated 1.3 million tons of PCBs were made between the 1930s and the 1990s and the majority of the contaminant remains at large.
"It was clear PCB levels were stabilizing in the 1980s and '90s," said Derocher. "But there are new leakages of the materials into the environment every day. And the vast majority is lying in wait to enter the environment."
Scientists have also found traces of DDT, another persistent chemical compound that was used as a pesticide and has been banned for about 30 years in the United States, Canada and Europe. But the chemical is still used in the equatorial zones where malaria, a mosquito-borne disease remains a serious threat to public health.
On the Contaminant Trail
Some contaminants appear to be from newer sources. Ross says that traces of fire retardant chemicals known as PBDEs have been found in the bears. These compounds are still applied to furniture and construction material in the United States.
Another group of compounds identified was, until recently, one of the key elements of Scotchguard. The parent company, 3M, removed the chemicals from their product in May of 2000, due to concerns about its effect on the environment.
"The problem is there are so many chemicals out there that the research hasn't been done on their effects," said Theo Colborn, senior scientist with the World Wildlife Fund, a nonprofit environmental group based in Washington, D.C. and co-author of the controversial 1996 book, Our Stolen Future, which detailed damaging effects from low-level exposure to chemicals.
The Chemical Manufacturers Association's literature suggests some positive news: the flow of chemicals into the environment is on the wane. Since 1987 the U.S. chemical industry reduced by 49 percent releases of toxic chemicals to the environment, according to reports for the Environmental Protection Agency.
As researchers try and keep track of chemicals entering the environment, biologists are struggling to understand their effects on animals like the polar bear. One effect may be a weakened immune system.
"It's a little bit like cancer," said Derocher about the chemicals' effects. "You don't see it and it's only evident once the symptoms manifest themselves."
Struggling for the Big Picture
To test the animals' resistance to disease, Derocher and colleagues sampled populations of about 30 polar bears in Norway and northern Canada and injected them with vaccines commonly used in farm animals. After five weeks, they recaptured the animals and measured the level of antibodies in their blood.
"The take-home message was those individuals with higher pollution traces in their blood had a lower response to the vaccines," said Derocher, who published the work recently in the journal, Science of the Total Environment. "They produced fewer antibodies."
Other work has suggested that cubs of mothers with high levels of contaminants in their fat are more likely to die during their first year than cubs of mothers with low levels. Ross explains that cubs may be particularly vulnerable since polar bear milk is about 30 percent fat so any contaminants stores in the mother's fat is passed down to nourish her young.
But Ross points out that, thanks to the Arctic's remote location and often hostile working conditions, research there is still young and it remains difficult to reach any solid conclusions.
So far about 24 years of data has recorded the receding ice levels at the polar cap, but a lack of long-term data limits researcher's ability to identify whether the melting is part of a natural, temporary cycle or a more permanent effect linked to global warming.
And even though early studies suggest contaminants may be weakening polar bear populations, more work needs to be done to be certain.
"There's a lot 'noise' in data from the Arctic," said Derocher, referring to multiple factors that must be considered when analyzing data. "And we very rarely have the full picture."
Either way, if both trends continue, Derocher fears the king of the Arctic could become mere legend.
Source: ABC News
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Iceland Braces for Censure as Whalers Ready Harpoons
August 15, 2003
By Gleb Bryanksi
REJKJAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - As Icelandic whalers ready their explosive harpoons to resume hunting after a 14-year break, the country is grappling with the question of whether whales are worth more to them dead or alive.
Iceland ceased whaling in 1989 under international pressure, but said this year it would catch 38 minke whales in August and September for "scientific purposes" as part of a plan to take 100 minke whales, 100 fin whales and 50 sei whales annually.
At the Marine Research Institute, scientist Gisli Vikingsson said on Friday three ships would sail from undisclosed locations at undisclosed times in coming days to avoid protesters.
"Norwegians do it, Russians do it, Japanese do it, Americans do it, why can't we?" Vikingsson said, adding that the explosive harpoons used were humane and killed instantly. "It's compared to hunting mammals on land, like moose, and it is far superior."
With seven of the 13 great whale species endangered, the International Whaling Commission has outlawed commercial hunting of the world's largest mammal since 1986.
Norway defies the ban and Japan uses a loophole for scientific catches. Indigenous people in Greenland, Siberia and the U.S. state of Alaska are allowed to continue traditional "subsistence" whaling.
THREAT TO FISH STOCKS
Iceland says it must control whales to protect fish stocks. An estimated 43,000 minke whales are believed to live in its waters, eating two million tons of fish and krill every year.
Minkes are much smaller than fins and seis, reaching just 10 yards in length. With black skin and white underbellies they are predators, feeding on fish as well as krill.
While the angry reaction from foreign governments and green groups has raised fears of a blacklash against Iceland's exports and growing tourist industry, polls show 75 percent of its 290,000 people support the returning to whaling.
"If the sea is full of whales, it is OK to hunt them," said Svanur Thorvaldsson, a 31-year-old salesman.
Fridrik Arngrimsson of the Federation of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners said whales diminish cod stocks by 10-20 percent.
"These 38 minke whales aren't going to change anything," he said. "We would like to see full-fledged commercial whaling."
Whale meat is served in restaurants in Rejkjavik, jarring with the success of the whale-watching industry which took out 62,050 tourists last year. Erna Hauksdottir, head of the travel industry lobby, fears a backlash: "History shows us discussion of whaling often lead to protests outside our offices abroad."
But Fisheries Minister Arni Matthiesen believes Iceland's "interests are better served with whaling than without it."
Source: Yahoo News/Reuters
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Federal Court Restricts Global Deployment of Navy Sonar
Conservation Groups Say Ruling Protects Whales and Other Marine Life From Injury and Death
SAN FRANCISCO (August 26, 2003) -- A federal judge ruled today that the Navy's plan to deploy a new high-intensity sonar system violates numerous federal environmental laws and could endanger whales, porpoises and fish. In a 73-page opinion, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte barred the Navy's planned around-the-world deployment and ordered the Navy to reduce the system's potential harm to marine mammals and fish by negotiating limits on its use with conservation groups who had sued over its deployment.
The sonar system, known as Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active sonar (or LFA), relies on extremely loud, low-frequency sound to detect submarines at great distances. According to the Navy's own studies, LFA generates sounds up to 140 decibels even more than 300 miles away from the sonar source. Many scientists believe that blasting such intense sounds over large expanses of the ocean could harm entire populations of whales, porpoises and fish. During testing off the California coast, noise from a single LFA system was detected across the breadth of the North Pacific Ocean.
"Today's ruling is a reprieve not just for whales, porpoises, and fish, but ultimately for all of us who depend for our survival on healthy oceans," said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney and director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC, the lead plaintiff and counsel in the case. "The decision recognizes that both national security and environmental protection are essential. It recognizes that during peacetime, even the military must comply with our environmental laws, and it rejects the blank-check permit that would have allowed the Navy to operate LFA sonar virtually anywhere in the world."
In her ruling, Judge Laporte found that a permit issued to the Navy by the National Marine Fisheries Service to deploy LFA sonar violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) because it did not adequately assess or take steps to mitigate the risks posed by the system to marine mammals and fish.
Judge Laporte found that, "endangered species, including whales, listed salmon and sea turtles will be in LFA sonar's path. There is little margin for error without threatening their survival…Absent an injunction, the marine environment that supports the existence of these species will be irreparably harmed."
In October, Judge Laporte granted a request by conservation groups for a temporary injunction to restrict deployment under the permit. Today's ruling orders the Navy to negotiate with NRDC and its co-plaintiffs on terms of a permanent injunction that would limit where, when and how the Navy can use LFA for testing and training. The injunction wouldn't prevent the Navy from using the system during war or "heightened threat conditions," as determined by the military.
Scientists have been increasingly alarmed in recent years about undersea noise pollution from high-intensity active sonar systems, which have been shown to harm and even kill whales and other marine life.
The mass stranding of multiple whale species in the Bahamas in March 2000 and the simultaneous disappearance of the region's entire population of beaked whales intensified these concerns. A federal investigation identified testing of a U.S. Navy mid-frequency active sonar system as the cause. Last September, mass strandings occurred in the Canary Islands as a result of military sonar, and in the Gulf of California as the likely result of an acoustic geophysical survey using extremely loud air guns.
Most recently, more than a dozen harbor porpoises were found dead on the beach near the San Juan Islands soon after the Navy tested active sonar in the Haro Strait in May. Videotape shows a pod of orca whales in the foreground behaving erratically as the Shoup, a U.S. Navy vessel, emits loud sonar blasts. Recent tests on one of the harbor porpoises revealed injuries consistent with acoustic trauma.
"The science is clear -- intense active sonar can kill whales, porpoises and fish," said Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist with the Humane Society of the United States, one of the co-plaintiffs. "The Navy must find ways to test and train with the LFA system that do not needlessly damage marine life."
"The public has a strong interesting in minimizing, as much as possible, any disruption or injury to these creatures from exposure to the extremely loud and far-traveling naval sonar system," Judge Laporte wrote in her opinion. "Public concern has been heightened by incidents where exposure to another kind of Navy sonar has led to lethal strandings of whales on the beach, as in the Bahamas in 2000."
"The court properly ruled that the permit to deploy the LFA system violates federal law," said Andrew Sabey, a partner with the international firm of Morrison & Foerster, which is representing the plaintiffs NRDC, the Humane Society, the League for Coastal Protection, the Cetacean Society International, and the Ocean Futures Society and its president, Jean-Michel Cousteau.
"The marine environment is an invaluable resource that we all must share," said Jean-Michel Cousteau. "I am very pleased that good sense has prevailed. The court has taken an extremely valuable step to protect a part of our life support system from destruction."
Source: The Natural Resources Defense Council
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SOS for 700 threatened species
Analysis maps unprotected areas around the world
DURBAN, South Africa, Sept. 11 — At least 700 bird, mammal and amphibian species threatened with extinction, and probably many more, have no protection in any part of their ranges, according to an analysis released Thursday. Another 943 species likely face similar situations since their protected areas are too small to be effective, said the study by Conservation International and the World Conservation Union.
PRESENTED AT the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, the study warned of a major wave of extinctions unless nations immediately open or expand protected areas.
If nothing is done, “we will probably see the disappearance of many of these populations in the next 10 or 20 years,” said Conservation International scientist Gustavo Fonseca. “This will represent extinction to the scale that we have not seen before as a human species.”
Building on existing work by thousands of researchers around the world, the study compared a map of protected areas to maps of more than 11,000 species ranges from bird, mammal and amphibian groups. They then identified key habitat that has no protection, and analyzed where the worst gaps exist.
FOCUS ON TROPICS
Of the priority areas, 80 percent are in tropical areas, particularly rain forests and islands. Tropical islands were found to hold nearly half of all species analyzed. Below is a look at the numbers by groups.
- Amphibians: 5,254 species were studied, of which 825 were found to have no protection over any part of their ranges. Of those, 346 are threatened. As a group, amphibians have significantly less coverage than mammals or birds, mainly due to their small ranges, but also because they have received much less conservation action, the study found. Critically endangered amphibians without current protection include the Bernhard’s mantella from Madagascar and the Wuchuan Frog, found only in a cave in Guizhou, China.
- Mammals: 4,734 species were analyzed, of which 260 were found to have no protection. Of those, 140 are threatened. These include one of the rarest fruit bats in the world — the Comoro black flying fox, found in the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean — and the Handley’s slender mouse opossum from Colombia.
- Birds: Of the 1,183 bird species assessed by BirdLife International to be threatened, 233 have no protection. The largest concentration of unprotected birds was found to be in the Andes and Indonesia. Critically endangered species without protection include the yellow-eared parrot — found only in Colombia’s Andes and of which fewer than 150 are known to remain — and the Cerulean Paradise-flycatcher. Found only on Indonesia’s Sangihe Island, fewer than 100 of those are known to exist.
INVESTMENT OPTION
Conservation International said additional studies were needed to better map unprotected areas, but noted that two-thirds of the unprotected species it documented could be protected by adding just 2.6 percent of Earth’s land area to protected status.
Around 12 percent of the world’s surface is officially protected but many reserves are so-called “paper parks” which in fact offer few safeguards to the resident flora and fauna.
And many protected areas are too small to be viable. In conservation, size counts, with one widely accepted school of scientific thought holding that the smaller the habitat, the fewer varieties of species it can contain.
The 10-day World Parks Congress, which ends next Wednesday, is focused on assessing progress on setting aside protected areas and mapping out future strategies for preserving the planet’s natural heritage.
A map of the unprotected areas and background are online at www.conservation.org.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: MSNBC News
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Study: Roaming Animals Not Good in Zoos
By ALICIA CHANG, Associated Press Writer
Animals that roam widely in the wild fare poorly when they are caged in zoos, according to a new study that calls for an overhaul of the way such animals are kept.
In captivity, nomadic animals like polar bears have a higher infant mortality rate and show more abnormal behavior than naturally sedentary animals do, according to British researchers who analyzed 40 years of scientific data.
The problem is so widespread worldwide that most zoos need to improve their confinement conditions by building larger, more complex exhibits for roving animals, said Georgia Mason, an Oxford University zoologist and the study's lead author.
Alternatively, zoos could phase out roaming animals.
"As their animals die and need replacing, zoos should just try replacing them with smaller-ranging species because they're more likely to be successful," Mason said.
Zookeepers have long known that confining wide-ranging animals can disrupt their natural lifestyle. In the last decade, British zoos have gradually stopped replacing polar bears when they die, because zookeepers found breeding difficult and noticed erratic behavior in captive polar bears, Mason said.
The study, published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, was partly funded by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare and six British zoos including those in Bristol and Edinburgh.
Zoos, particularly those in North America, have taken steps in the last few years to build more natural, spacious habitats, said Michael Hutchins, director of conservation for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, who was not part of the study.
Zoos now give animals variety in their enclosures such as borders for them to patrol and structures for them to climb, he said.
The British researchers studied 35 captive species and compiled data on infant mortality and on which animals paced back and forth from more than 1,000 scientific articles published since the 1960s. Pacing is usually a sign that zoo animals lack stimulation in their enclosures.
They looked at mortality data from over 500 zoos worldwide and pacing results from 42 zoos in the United States and Europe.
The study found captive polar bears and lions were the most at risk of infant deaths and pacing. Polar bears, which cover an average natural range of about 31,000 square miles, or the size of South Carolina, fared the worst. They showed an average 65 percent infant death and spent 25 percent of their time pacing in a typical zoo habitat one-millionth of their normal range area.
Stay-at-home animals such as the grizzly bear and American mink showed lower infant mortality and pacing rates in captivity.
The study did not address how zoo infant mortality compares to infant deaths in the wild or why wide-ranging animals show higher infant mortality than stay-at-home captive animals, although researchers suspect poor maternal care is a factor.
In New York City's Bronx and Central Park zoos, care is taken to ensure that polar bears have enough room and variety in their enclosures to prevent abnormal behavior, said Richard Lattis, senior vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which oversees the two zoos.
In Central Park Zoo, polar bears roam a 5,000-square-foot exhibit that includes a pool and gravel pits for them to dig for buried treats like frozen fish. An ice machine in the back generates a pile of ice to mimic Arctic conditions.
"We should really be aware and conscious in zoos that animals have requirements that we cannot match in space, but we can provide opportunities and challenges that both physically and mentally address those needs," Lattis said.
Source: Yahoo News (October 1, 2003)
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