Where are the Buffalo - Gone
The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land
How can you buy or sell the sky
The warmth of the land
The idea is strange to us
Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water
How can you buy them from us
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people . . . . . .
There is no place in the white man's cities
No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings
But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand - The clatter only seems to insult the ears
And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lovely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frog around the pond at night
The Whites too shall pass - Perhaps sooner than other tribes
Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste
When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view to the ripe hills blotted by talking wires
Where is the eagle
Gone
Where is the buffalo
Gone
And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival.
- controversial yet beautiful words attributed to Chief Seattle

Losing the Unseeable Animal

440 million years ago saw the first documented mass extinction on the face of planet Earth. The late Devonian period, 370 years ago, again saw mass extinction, then again 250 million years ago and 215 million years ago. Another mass extinction 65 million years ago saw the last dinosaur. Then, a few thousand years ago, the first Neolithic Homo sapiens began crossing oceans in dugout canoes, colonizing, using tools. Then sixth mass extinction in the history of Earth had begun.
Extinction, the yang of evolution, has always been a force shaping and affecting global biodiversity from the beginning of time. In fact, it is a normal and natural process. Species evolve, species go extinct. Scientists speak of a background level of extinction, the normal average rate at which species go extinct. Normally, only a few species of birds, a few of mammals and a few of reptiles, etc., go extinct every million years. At this rate, speciation, the complimentary yin of evolution, is able to counterbalance species losses to extinction. Through this balance of yin and yang, there is no net loss or gain of species. This is equilibrium, global species turnover, sustainability.
However, modern times are not seeing background levels of extinction. Mass extinctions, although open to some interpretation, historically can be defined as periods when extinction rates have exceeded twice the background extinction rate. To put the current situation in historical relief, some estimates place the current extinction rates among mammals and birds at around one hundred times beyond the normal levels. The current loss of reptiles in tropical forests is estimated to exceed its norm by 1,000 times--as a conservative estimate. By any definition, this is mass extinction.
These are all massive numbers. Massive numbers on a massive scale. A global scale. Really, an unmanageable scale. The dynamics of global extinction are mercilessly complex. But ecologists have found manageability in the study of islands. Famously, island biogeography was the academic backdrop in which Charles Darwin explored and formulated his theory of evolution. While insular speciation is always widely considered, some of us often forget that extinction is the necessary flipside of speciation, an integral piece in the puzzle of evolution. As we all know, insular speciation occurs rapidly and with dynamic results. Insular extinction does as well. The mechanisms and processes of insular extinction beg attention. They must be considered.
Although important, the significance of islands supercedes their roles as mini-mainlands, small-scale models, microcosms representing the larger evolutionary and ecological processes that occur on continents. Especially in the context of this modern mass extinction event. Islands are applicable, if not essential to our discussion because of the current condition of our mainland ecosystems. Human developmental activity has scarred the land; roads, farms, cities have sprung up, clearing natural ecosystems in even the most obscure corners of the planet. As David Quammen so succinctly and poignantly put it, "the world is in pieces." We have effectively created a world of insular isolates, a world of islands.
So how does this help us in our understanding of the mass extinction plaguing our times? As the species-area relationship of islands dictates, smaller islands can support less species richness than larger islands. Also, more remote islands support less species richness than less remote islands. In The Theory of Island Biogeography Robert MacArthur and Edward Wilson concluded that island populations are maintained by a natural balance, an equilibrium in the number of species existing, a set number of species, relative to the size and degree of isolation of the island. Species populations on the island locally go extinct and new species are established either through speciation or immigration. Although the identities of the species on an island are continually changing, the number of resident species remains constant. This is called turnover. Small islands harbor fewer species than large ones because small islands receive fewer immigrants and, for reasons we'll get into momentarily, suffer more extinctions. Remote islands harbor fewer species than less remote ones because they too receiver fewer immigrants and suffer at least equal numbers of extinctions. High rates of extinction and low rates of immigration yield impoverished ecosystems of few species, such as are common on islands. As human related ecosystem destruction creates smaller and smaller islands of natural habitat, farther and farther away from each other, biodiversity will decrease. The rule of small, remote islands applies: high extinction, low immigration, lower equilibrium threshold for species. Decreasing species richness. Local extinction. When the populations of species on all the isolates become locally extinct, you can say goodbye to another dodo.
So why is the rate of insular extinction so high? As everyone knows, there is safety in numbers. But large numbers is not a luxury many island species enjoy. Small populations are more prone to be affected by not only deterministic, or human factors such as hunting, pesticide usage or say, the introduction of exotic predators, but by stochastic, or random factors as well. Such stochastic factors include demographic, genetic and environmental events, as well as natural disasters. Demographic stochasticity involves changes in weather, food supply or population levels of predators, competitors, parasites or disease organisms. While large populations are able to accommodate such changes without cataclysmic damage, because an oscillation in the population size will not be substantial relatively speaking, populations of few individuals are highly susceptible to these changes, which often result in substantial population fluctuations such as doubling or halving the size of the original population. Or a fluctuation to zero. Well known genetic factors we've all learned in our high school biology class: genetic drift, the founder effect and inbreeding depression, also affect small populations with the possible outcome of a flux to zero. General change in weather pattern constitutes environmental stochasticity, disturbance enough to drive a small populations below their minimal viable population size . Natural catastrophes such as volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes also have the potential to wipe a small population to zero. Below a certain number of individuals, chance dictates extinction; the continued existence of a small population is lethally and continuously threatened by the inevitable forces of demographic, environmental and genetic stochasticity. Existence lies at the mercy of chance.
As well as explaining how and why this human-induced mass extinction of our epoch has come to be, a bit ironically, the theory of island biogeography also offers quite a bit of insight into conservation of the world we have begun to destroy--through the creation of biological reserves. Biological reserves, after all, are islands of sanctuary. And it seems that some patterns of insularity are less damaging to biodiversity than others. Applying the insular rules of MacArthur and Wilson, large reserves will sustain more species than small reserves and many reserves within close proximity will hold more species than remote reserves. Although scientists are not necessarily in agreement as to which reserve design (there are actually more than you might think) best maintains biodiversity, just think SLOSS: single large or several small. Round reserve over elongated. Large over small, clustered over remote, biological corridors over man-made barriers. This is how islands, "the places where species go to die," are helping us save our planet from extinction.
But are we really doing enough fast enough? Five hundred years ago, the Brazilian Atlantic Forest covered half a million square miles along the rugged Brazilian coast. It once supported up to 7% of the world's plant and animal species. Today, there is less than 2% of this ecosystem left, a sea of tiny isolated islands among a concrete jungle of urban sprawl and a patchwork of sugarcane plantations. Although there have been fewer extinctions than one might expect after such devastating habitat demolition, the area's myriads of endemic species (those not already extinct) are lethally endangered, existing marginally in small populations in remote islands of habitat that will be unable to sustain such biodiversity for long. As islands do, these forest islands will settle into equilibrium. Only a few representatives of the original ecosystem will be maintained. At least for some, extinction is eminent and at hand. Unless something changes--unless something changes quickly.
The Andean slopes of Ecuador maintain enough species diversity and endemism to bequeath Ecuador the number one ranking globally for biodiversity per unit area. However this area is being cleared and populated so rapidly and unconditionally that in some parts, exotics have entirely out competed native species. In some parts of the Intermountain Zone, it is not even known what types of woody plants are native. They are gone. Haiti in the Caribbean and El Salvador in Central America are completely deforested. "Okay," you say, "but why should I care? Why should I care about saving these ecosystems?" This is where many of us who are not postmodern global intellectual do-gooders get hung up. Does it really matter to us that the Brazilian Atlantic Forest is disappearing or that there are no more natural ecosystems in Haiti? I argue yes. Here's why: Rising carbon dioxide levels, loss of soil fertility, global changes in Earth's weather and climate pattern--these, among others, are results of widespread ecosystem loss that affect the entire biosphere. Do you live in the biosphere? I do. And I'm concerned. We have a lot to lose: organisms that can be used for medicines and foods, many of which may be destroyed before they are ever discovered, clean air which cannot be cleaned without the help of forest ecosystems, sections of coast which may be taken by the sea due to loss of coastal floral erosion control, keystone species such as coral and mangroves without which entire expanses of the most productive ecosystems on the planet, organically and inorganically, will collapse entirely. A favorite poem by Wendell Berry, a poet-biologist, entitled "To the Unseeable Animal" begins:
My Daughter: "I hope there's an animal
Somewhere that nobody has ever seen.
And I hope nobody ever sees it."
Perhaps more than anything, this poem epitomizes the final, unscientific, ethical/aesthetic conservational sentiment some of us embrace most. To know the wonders and mysteries of this planet, to wonder at the vast unknown wilderness, to marvel at the remarkable flora and fauna our world contains, to contemplate the unseeable animal: that is to live. But I fear we will drive the unseeable animal extinct long before it is ever seen. This fear is not empirical, but it is heartfelt. It is about the quality of the world and of life, a quality I do not want diminished for those who follow, those forced to brave our fallout. Perhaps, as humans who understand the unspoken, the unseen, you understand.
So what do we need to save Earth's ecosystems? Lots of undisturbed land. Hope, resolve, ingenuity. We need to spend money. No one ever said conservation would be cheap. But it can be made economical. And the results would be priceless. Sustainable, extractive reserves are one approach. Such reserves could only operate through treating the particular ecosystem, for example, a rainforest, as a sustainable resource from which extractives, usually foods, spices, fodder, palm oils, medicinals and biochemicals, etc., could be extracted continuously and with little environmental impact. However there are issues of economy: is it really more economical to practice environmentally aware, sustainable extraction or less responsible but far cheaper extraction of say, oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon? Long-term economical worth is hard to calculate. At least in the short term, of course it is more economical to drill without consideration for the environment. Additionally, some ecosystems sustain more economically lucrative resources than others. Although a good idea, extractive reserves are not a universal solution to saving our ecosystems.
Reclamation of degraded ecosystems by returning pasture to forest, converting slash and burn agriculture to sustainable permaculture, increasing ecotourism and creating more national parks and preserves are all viable alternatives for conservation, although none without its respective drawbacks, problems and pitfalls. However careful planning and management by both governmental and private groups could save even the most endangered ecosystems before its too late.
Perhaps the most important first step in the right direction is improving education. Undoubtedly you're all feeling deja vu at the redundancy of this statement but it must be made: it's so very true. Field-based opportunities for learning abound, as well as volunteer options and possibilities to take environmentally friendly, highly informative ecotours. Only a well-educated global society can make the environmentally responsible, ecosystem-saving decisions necessary in this age of mass extinction. A great deal of both basic and conservational research lacks, however, and is needed as well. There is far too little knowledge on far too many ecosystems, especially tropical ones. How do we save what we don't even know is there? You know the answer as well as I do. Additional studies on fragmentation and its effect on ecosystems also must still be done. Remember SLOSS? Single large or several small? Which is better for a reserve? No one yet knows. But this remains an integral question in the design of reserves and national parks everywhere. How do we best maintain our biodiversity? Only additional research will tell.
We, Homo sapiens, are living in an age of self-perpetrated mass extinction. We are living in an age of islands. We are responsible. David Quammen concluded his novel The Song of the Dodo with a message: "There is time. And if time is hope, then there is hope." It may be true that the song of the dodo is and will be forever unknown to the ears of human beings, that no human eyes will ever again behold the passenger pigeon. But perhaps, just perhaps, your child will someday softly pad through the tropical bamboo forests of Madagascar and catch one magical glimpse of the golden bamboo lemur, or on a small, Indonesian island, hear the call of the greater bird of paradise and smile without sadness. Without having to know that it was the last one.

Cruel and Usual
How some of America's best zoos get rid of their old, infirm, and unwanted animals
By Michael Satchell (U.S. News & World Report, 8/5/2002)

New Braunfels, Texas.

"Deep amid the weeds and trash alongside Interstate 35, rusty cages and flimsy wire enclosures hold what's left of a former roadside zoo: six primates, three or four New Guinea singing dogs, a few exotic birds, and several African meerkats. The saddest residents are two rare white-handed gibbons, small apes listed as an endangered species. But the male-female pair is imperiled for another reason. They are the neglected castoffs from one of the nation's top wildlife institutions, the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, N.Y.
The two gibbons were discovered by a reporter one recent broiling day in a filthy cage with no water and a few scraps of rotten fruit. Their plight points to a little-known practice by some of the nation's premier zoos: dumping surplus, old, or infirm animals into a vast, poorly regulated "and often highly profitable" network of substandard, "roadside" zoos and wildlife dealers who supply hunting ranches and the exotic-pet trade.
Though these small zoos, along with traveling circuses and other animal shows, are licensed and inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, their inhabitants often exist in cramped compounds and tiny cages with poor protection from the elements, marginal food, and spotty veterinary care. They typically get little psychological enrichment beyond a tire swing, a plastic ball, and a few dead tree branches. Half crazy from boredom and lack of exercise, the highly social primates and cooped-up predators often mutilate themselves and spend hours pacing to and fro and biting the bars of their cages.
With summer in full swing and people staying closer to home, Americans are flocking to the nation's big zoos. There are 205 such facilities accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, and they attract some 135 million people a year "6 million more than attend major-league sporting events. Most of these zoos provide spacious natural habitats and expert care. But when animals begin to age and become less attractive, and curators have to make room for the spring crop of new babies, many big zoos give the old-timers the bum's rush. "Dumping animals," says Richard Farinato, head of captive wildlife protection for the Humane Society of the United States, "is the big, respectable zoos' dirty little secret."
Zoos accredited by the AZA must abide by a code of ethics restricting animal transfers to other AZA members or to unaccredited zoos with the "expertise, records management capabilities, financial stability, and facilities required to properly care" for the animals. But a U.S. News investigation found that even some of the nation's most highly regarded zoos violate those mandates through transfers, sales, and loans of exotic animals to substandard zoos and to private animal breeders and dealers.
The magazine's inquiry is based on an examination of the tightly restricted, interzoo International Species Information System database, which tracks transfers of 129 species of mammals, as well as interviews with dozens of state and federal regulators, zoo employees, and animal welfare activists. Records show that some leading AZA members "including zoos in Washington, D.C.; the Bronx; San Diego; Honolulu; Memphis; Atlanta; Denver; Santa Barbara, Calif.; Buffalo; Phoenix; Montgomery, Ala.; and Kansas City, Mo. "have shipped mammals and exotic birds to roadside zoos that were below AZA standards. Some have also provided animals to dealers who reportedly sell to private hunting ranches, animal auctions, and exotic-pet owners.
Besides the AZA rules, a 1966 law passed by Congress specifies care, feeding, and other requirements for the treatment of exotic animals and mandates that the Department of Agriculture enforce the statute. But a reporter and photographer who visited more than two dozen small zoos around the nation found a pattern of callous treatment and government neglect. Some examples:
Four big cats died after the USDA recommended their owner place his two cougars, four tigers, two adult lions, and a young lion in Don and Dee's Exotic Zoo, a roadside facility in Manson, Iowa. The cougars died, apparently from malnutrition, and Steven Bellin, a USDA veterinarian, then inspected the zoo in November 2000. U.S. News obtained copies of Bellin's inspection reports and correspondence. "All but the young lion are on concrete flooring without bedding materials of any sort," Bellin wrote. "Ambient temperature was approximately 35 degrees. . . . There was no food on the premises for the large cats. . . . [Water bowls] were filled with either frozen or brackish water, carcass materials, and/or debris. Housing arrangements, lighting, and sanitation fail to meet the minimal federal standards. All seven of the large cats . . . appear thin/gaunt and somewhat emaciated. The female African lion recently failed to eat for three days. This animal might die if not treated."
Bellin gave the zoo owners six weeks to improve conditions. He apparently did not seek emergency removal of the animals or try to have the zoo closed down. A few days after his inspection, the female lion killed and ate the male. A male Bengal tiger also died after splintered turkey bones punctured its intestinal tract because it had no drinking water to flush them through its system. Before it expired, the tiger chewed its metal water bowl to pieces. "I believe [the bowl] that was torn apart . . . was a response by the animal to the deep, agonal pain [caused] by the tissue-penetrating bones," Bellin wrote. "I believe that the tiger was starving . . . and died in severe pain in the cold without a shelter or bedding."
The USDA fined Don and Dee's and revoked its license. The local county attorney, Ann Beneke, sought to prosecute the owners on cruelty charges but was forced to drop the case when the USDA refused to allow Bellin to testify. He failed to respond to a U.S. News interview request.
Before it failed financially, the New Braunfels Zoo obtained exotic mammals and birds from several AZA zoos, including the Bronx, Washington National, San Diego, Honolulu, Buffalo, and Santa Barbara. In November 2000, eight months after one of the zoo's two owners says he quit in disgust at the animal neglect and other deteriorating conditions, it received the two white-handed gibbons from Syracuse's Rosamond Gifford Zoo. "They would have a good home and be well taken care of in a warmer climate," Anne Baker, the zoo's executive director, said in explaining the transfer. "We got two AZA references, and New Braunfels described their animal collection, their staff, and veterinary resources. We would assume there is a level of honesty."
There wasn't. And Baker could have easily discovered the fact. A local U.S. Agriculture Department inspector, Elizabeth Pannill, had begun documenting many of the problems at New Braunfels and eventually filed seven detailed inspection reports. When a reporter told Baker about the declining conditions at the zoo, including the principal owner's selling loaned birds and mammals without permission, Baker replied that she had checked with Pannill and was assured that the gibbons were in good condition. The reporter told Baker he would visit the long-closed zoo and report back to her. "I'll be anxious to hear what you find," she said. "I'm concerned." After finding the gibbons in their filthy cage, the reporter left two telephone messages for Baker. She failed to return the calls. Pannill, the USDA inspector, was forbidden by superiors to discuss the matter, but U.S. News obtained copies of several of her E-mails. "The curator [Baker] that sent the gibbons to NBZ knows the situation out there," Pannill wrote. ". . . I have even suggested she might want to relocate them . . . [and] also told the curator of my concerns and problems. She told me they had been given to NBZ . . . so they would NOT take back. I really wonder why zoos don't ask for a copy of the last USDA report before they send animals out."
Baker is the current chairman of the AZA's animal welfare committee and is scheduled to become the organization's vice president next year and to lead the organization in 2004. When she was finally reached on the New Braunfels matter, she said: "This was a bad call on my part; I will readily admit that."
At the AZA-accredited Phoenix Zoo, director Jeff Williamson required non-AZA zoos and dealers to sign an agreement that his animals and their offspring would not end up "in animal auctions, canned hunts, the pet trade, invasive biomedical research, or any other situation contrary to the AZA code of ethics." In November 2000, Williamson sold 17 male ibexes "an exotic goat popular with trophy hunters" to a Texas wildlife dealer and breeder who reportedly supplies animals to hunting ranches. After U.S. News asked Williamson if he had ever checked on his ibexes, he made several attempts to reach the dealer and says his calls were ignored.
After several weeks, Williamson finally received a telephone message saying the ibexes were alive, but he has been unable to verify that. The experience has moved him to change the Phoenix Zoo policy. In future, no animals will be shipped to nonaccredited zoos or any dealers, and all old or surplus animals will be retired under the zoo's jurisdiction. Says Williamson: "We are not going to get ourselves into this situation again."
AZA Executive Director Sydney Butler acknowledges that member zoos have violated the ethics code in the past. "I don't think it happens anymore," he says. "People will know about these things. If it does happen, it's an innocent transaction." U.S. News showed Butler a series of American Association of Zoo Veterinarians inspection certificates that document AZA zoos' shipping of mammals and exotic birds to roadside zoos that fall below AZA standards and to dealers who reportedly supply animals to the exotic animal underground. Butler replied: "We always try to improve."
Even leading AZA members acknowledge the organization has done a poor job of enforcing its animal-transfer code. "Reputable zoos have written policies saying animals won't go to anything other than an AZA institution," says Ron Kagan, director of the Detroit Zoological Institute. "Numerous animals born in our institutions have . . . ended up in circuses, breeders, or private hands. We can't undo the past, but we can be a part of the solution."
The inherent weakness of allowing non-AZA disposal of surplus animals, as the Syracuse zoo's Anne Baker learned, is that a great deal must be taken on faith. Some 2,500 roadside menageries, safari parks, circuses, breeders, dealers, and other exhibitors are licensed and inspected by the USDA. But weak federal regulations and a crazy-quilt pattern of local and state wildlife laws leave only a thin skein of protection for the animals. Virtually anyone can obtain a permit to exhibit, breed, and sell exotics; no qualifications are required.
Slap on the wrist. Commercial animal exhibitors, dealers, breeders, and biomedical testing labs are governed by the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. The law sets minimal standards for food storage, housing, and veterinary care. It has no cruelty statute, has weak enforcement provisions, and provides for only token fines. On the critical issue of cage size, the law stipulates only that animals must have enough room to stand, turn around, and maintain a normal posture, making it perfectly legal to keep a chimp in a broom closet or a lion in a cage the size of a powder room. For years, leading animal welfare organizations have lobbied Congress for more humane standards and tougher enforcement. "There's no aggressive investigation and no consistent follow-up," complains Cindy Carroccio, director of the Austin Zoo, an accredited sanctuary that houses unwanted or confiscated exotics. "They're scared of litigation, they don't allow their inspectors to testify even in the worst cruelty cases, and they refuse to close the bad places down."
Often, it's not just a matter of will but of bodies. Last year, the USDA had fewer than 100 inspectors to keep tabs on about 9,000 licensed facilities from zoos to animal testing labs. In some years, the number of USDA inspectors has fallen as low as 64.
However much the numbers fluctuate from year to year, the agency's inspectors have not exactly established a reputation for rigorous enforcement. The department does not record the number of animals it has seized or zoos it has shut down. A USDA spokesman recalled five confiscations since 1997 in the western United States involving exotic animals in roadside zoos, and just one since 1995 in the eastern region. That's about one a year, nationwide. "We are not in the business of putting people out of business," says Daniel Jones, who supervises USDA animal inspections in three states. "The courts look at it as putting a man out of his livelihood."
Evidently, higher-ups at the Agriculture Department see little problem with any of this. Chester Gipson, the USDA's deputy administrator of animal-care services, declined a request by U.S. News to discuss the inspections process. His predecessor, Ron DeHaven, blamed "radical animal-rights groups" for exaggerating concerns about inadequate or abusive care of exotic animals. "We have taken very stringent enforcement actions against roadside zoos, [but] we can't be at every facility every day," he says. "It was never the intent of Congress to establish conditions [for appropriate animal care]; and for me to comment on the law is inappropriate and counterproductive to the way our system works."
Auction block. The way the system works would make many of the moms and dads and their bright-eyed charges who so enjoy a trip to the local zoo blanch. In some cases, animals from big zoos pass through places like the Lolli Brothers exotic animal auction in Macon, Mo., reputedly the biggest of its kind in the United States. At the recent May sale, the action was fast and furious with a veritable Noah's ark collection--monkeys, zebras, camels, wildebeest, ostriches, kangaroos, Russian boars, giant tortoises, parrots, peacocks, even boa constrictors--hustled through the auction ring. A 12-year-old female chimp drew a bid of ,500, a cuddly 3-month-old lion cub raised just , and a baby wallaby went for $1,200. For three days, the auctioneer's gavel rose and fell. At the final hammer, the sale grossed more than $1.5 million. Altogether, 3,225 animals were hauled away by new owners from as far away as Canada, Florida, California, and Mexico to a new and likely grim existence in the exotic underground.
Sometimes, as the New Braunfels case shows, AZA zoos dispense with the fig leaf of a middleman and dump surplus animals directly into unaccredited zoos through breeding "loans" or donations. There are hundreds of these substandard roadside menageries nationwide, mostly run by owners with scant knowledge of the animals' natural behavior or needs.
Rescued animals housed by accredited wildlife sanctuaries in Austin and San Antonio provide stark examples of abusive conditions in the exotic-animal underground. Molly, a guard lion chained up for years in a Dallas drug dealer's house, has put on over 100 pounds in her new home. When another lion named Nayla wasn't lying down with a lamb at a biblically themed traveling circus, it spent its life squeezed into a 4-by-8-foot cage. Carnivores of every kind hobble painfully around their spacious compounds, victims of leg-breaking metabolic bone disease caused by the cheap, all-poultry diets fed to them by exotic-pet owners and roadside zoos. Monkeys and apes are missing tails and limbs. Some have torn out hunks of fur in fits of self-mutilation brought on by years of close or solitary confinement.
Roadside zoos often operate on thin profit margins. But some raise money--and gain the imprimatur of legitimacy--by declaring themselves "sanctuaries" or "preserves," obtaining 501c (3) nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service and soliciting public donations to "save an endangered species." The nation's 60 or more legitimate, accredited sanctuaries don't breed or sell animals, but these other so-called pseudosanctuaries allow their wildlife to mate and then sell the offspring or add to their collections--often exacerbating the substandard care.
Tax-exempt "preserves." Noah's Land Wildlife Park in Harwood, Texas, currently under USDA investigation, calls itself a sanctuary, enjoys tax-exempt status, and solicits donations. When Cheri Watson took over in 1998, Noah's Land was in bad shape. Watson lacked the money--and enough paying customers--to improve things. She gained nonprofit designation in May 2000, but conditions aren't much better. "We took in way too many animals," she says, "including four tigers that had been kept in a two-horse trailer for six months [that was] never cleaned out."
Watson allowed her cats to breed. Within two years, Noah's Land produced 26 new tiger cubs, infuriating regional accredited sanctuaries already swamped with unwanted Bengals. America now has an estimated 10,000 or more generic tigers in roadside zoos and backyard cages, virtually all of them mutts with no conservation value and often suffering painful physical defects from inbreeding.
The 275-acre Noah's Land has 48 big cats, six bears, several primates, between 200 and 300 exotic deer and antelopes, and scores of feral pigs that are fed to the predators. Some of the caged animals exist in grim squalor, including cell-like cinderblock cages, but Watson rejects offers by legitimate sanctuaries to take them. "We're still having growing pains," she says. "We haven't got a foothold on the fundraising yet, but we will improve."
Another pseudosanctuary was run by Joan Byron-Marasek. For more than 20 years, she kept up to two dozen tigers in a private, tax-exempt "preserve" behind her home in central New Jersey. "I feel it's my mission to save these animals from extinction," she says. "I know I'm doing it better than any other place."
Hardly. In 1999, after one of her cats escaped and terrified the neighborhood, authorities brought in a Bronx Zoo curator to evaluate her Tigers Only Preserve. He declared it the "worst facility that I have ever seen," with malnourished tigers, rotting deer carcasses, and rats everywhere. The state quickly moved to shut her down, and Byron-Marasek finally lost her three-year legal battle in May. Her 24 tigers are now headed to the Wild Animal Orphanage, an accredited sanctuary in San Antonio.
Those are the lucky ones. In May, seven men were indicted in Chicago for killing 17 tigers and one leopard to sell their skulls, hides, meat, and other body parts, which can bring ,000 or more per animal. Six tigers and one leopard were rescued. Big cats are now so common in the United States--there may be more pet tigers in Texas alone than survive in the wild worldwide--that cubs can be purchased for a few hundred dollars, and adult tigers are virtually worthless. Alive, that is.
There's no ready solution to the problems, but some zoo officials say that for starters, AZA-accredited zoos should take greater responsibility for assuring the lifelong welfare of their charges. "Any animal that devotes its life to being an ambassador for its own kind--even against its will--is owed a decent retirement," says Terry Maple, director of Zoo Atlanta and a former AZA president. "Zoo animals are held in trust to the service of humanity, and we shouldn't banish them to a terrible fate just because they have outlived their usefulness."

Good Related Books:
The Song of the Dodo - David Quamann
The Hot Zone - Richard Preston
Riddle of the Ice - Myron Arms
Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise? - Martha Honey
Good Related Videos:
Indiginous Peoples: Standing their Ground; Flames in the Forest
The American Dream (HBO special)... my personal favorite
Online Articles

The Coming Anarchy (Atlantic Monthly)

Mass Extinction Underway (small Washington Post article with related links to BBC and CNN articles as well as many others)

The Sixth Extinction

Environmental Links
Quincy University Environmental Page
There are lots of good environmental links on this page... including one to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (grrrrrrr)