In Jungle Cat World in Orono, Ontario, Shaka walks the four pacesto the top of the ramp in her enclosure. Once there,she turns around and repeats the activity. She is sointent that she doesn’t even glance at human visitors.

Shaka is a serval cat who is described as a “rescuedpet” by her keepers. The serval cat is a medium sizecat with extremely long legs that is native to theAfrican savannah regions. It is considered rare in thewild but is being bred across North America.

This breeding doesn’t alleviate the loneliness of anotherserval cat living 30 minutes away in Peterborough.While Shaka paces the length of her cage, theRiverview Park and Zoo searches for a companion. Zoocurator Jack Sisson says this process could take up totwo years. “I think any solitary animal is usually lonely,” hesays.

When asked why it would be so difficult for a zoo toobtain an animal that some are keeping as pets, hesays it is due to regulations. Zoos accredited by theCanadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums, such asthe Riverview Zoo and Jungle Cat World, buy animalsonly from other zoos.

“A private person has a lot more freedom to do it. Asfar as laws, there is nothing to stop them, as long asthey raise them humanely,” he says, referring tocriminal code legislation against cruelty to animals.

Ontario has more zoos than any other province. Anyone who visits the more than 100 zoos in Ontariowill see the same sight: exotic animals withlittle else to do pacing the length of theirenclosures and occasionally glancing balefully atspectators. The attitude zoos take to animalenrichment has improved in response to public concern,but many still see the lives of caged animals as bleak.

Pat Tohill of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is hoping the lack oflegislation to improve conditions for animals will change under the new Ontario Liberalgovernment. A proposed provincial wildlife act hasbeen sitting on the shelf since 1989. In the meantime,the Ministry of Natural Resources has been working onlegislation to regulate the keeping of native animalsbut nothing is planned to improve the conditions of exotic animals. The only regulations prohibitingownership of exotic animals are the internationalconventions against the import of endangered speciesand municipal bylaws. Tohill says anyone can set up azoo on the side of the road and animals are freelybought and sold by these facilities.

“The reality is that you can get a tiger for $500,”he says.

Campaigns Director Julie Woodyer of Zoocheck Canadasays these private roadside zoos account for 90 percent of the zoos in Ontario. Bergeron’s Exotic AnimalSanctuary in Picton is one of them. Owner Pat Bergeronsays her facility was investigated by the WSPA in2001.

“The WSPA doesn’t interest me at all,” she says. She says the comments they made in their report wereerroneous. The report stated the enclosures wereinsufficient and lacked suitable shade and barriersfor animals to hide from public view. Hiding placesare necessary to reduce stress.

She says, “One of the biggest complaints we get fromthe public is they couldn’t see the animals. What doesthat tell you?” She feels the WSPA unfairly criticizes private zoosand should be focusing on circuses where animals areforced to perform.

“You see the TV ads with the dancing bears. Thoseanimals are suffering. They’re wasting donations goingafter small zoos like ours. Why aren’t theyconcentrating on the problems?” she says.

Zoo animals aren’t forced to perform but many saythey face stress in other ways. The most obviousproblem is boredom which is displayed by behaviour such as pacing, swaying, biting or lickingbars, excessive grooming or self-mutilation. “By the time they start exhibiting stereotypicbehaviour, they’ve already gone insane,” says Zoocheck’s Woodyer.“It’s stress. You don’t see animals pacing in thewild.”

She believes animals should be provided with anenvironment that resembles their natural habitat asclosely as possible. However, for some animals, thismay be impossible in Canada. For a large cat a fivekilometre square area might help to alleviate theboredom that causes pacing.

“Of course, the public will never see the animal,”Woodyer says.

Jen Roswell is the wildlife educator at Jungle CatWorld. She says the zoo’s employees work hard to keepthe animals amused. Monkeys love watching insects sothe keepers provide them with pieces of wood crawlingwith them. The cats get large plastic barrels to rollaround as well as catnip. During the summer they getfrozen meat, “chickensicles.” She says the zoo isalways open to suggestions for activities.

Sisson says the Riverview zoo tries to pace feedingtimes to alleviate boredom rather than feeding animalsat the same time each day. They also try to make foodmore difficult to find and provide play structureswithin the enclosures.

Tohill says modern zoos have improved in theirattitude to animal enrichment. “At the minimum, we want the tiger to engage in someof its natural behaviours,” he says. He says it is unrealistic to be “anti-zoo”because of the large numbers of animals raised incaptivity that could not survive on their own.Instead, his organization would like to raiseawareness of the conditions in which the animals arekept.

However, Woodyer questions the need for breedingprograms and new acquisitions. She says someorganizations are breeding animals unnecessarilybecause they want young animals to please the crowds. “But what happens to the old ones? Some facilitiesare selling them out the back door,” she says. Roswell says breeding programs are necessary toprotect endangered species and to ensure species arenot taken from the wild. For example, Jungle Cat Worldhas four of the 200 Amur leopards living in captivity.In the wild there are only about 40 of the speciesthat live in a small area of Russia near the Chineseand North Korean borders.

Woodyer also questions the need to keep exoticendangered species in captivity in this country.“It’s not going to happen in Canada that you canbreed a cat and send it out into the wild. If there’sno feasible habitat in the wild that you can releasethem into, there’s no point in breeding,” she says.