#which brings in tonnes of tourism...give them something to do they will come to you

[wild-at-mind]

A notorious zoo in North West England is finally closing at the end of the year, long time coming as they've had severe publicised problems since 2017 including animals harming themselves on hazards in their cages, needless accidental deaths, and the zoo not paying for food for the animals. The last one was corroborated by a local supermarket who said keepers would beg unsellable or damaged fruit and veg for the animals. Recently there's also been allegations of abuse and bullying within the human team, which isn't surprising when you consider the strain on them.

I was extremely happy when I saw the news and have been keeping up with planned placements for the animals in the area's local paper. Made the mistake of reading the comments, which was a waste of time, turns out far from being concerned about the animals these weirdos are convinced a 'woke lefty mob' caused this? I get that animal rights activists who are anti all zoos are always the first to celebrate these things, and possibly could be described as a woke lefty mob if that's your bent, but in this case there's no way only fully anti captivity people would be against this place. It was SO bad. If you followed the case at all, pictures of the animals with sores and injuries were very hard to avoid.

As someone who visited the zoo c2007 before the publicised troubles when it got really really bad, and in that one visit witnessed an animal escape which I'd never seen anywhere before or since (and it seemed like it happened regularly at this zoo from the reactions of the staff), I have always been baffled by people defending this place, and I suppose it makes sense some of them have to use their fav words to justify it. I guess now it's a culture war whether animals in captivity should be safe from injury and death caused by negligent care. That's depressing.