Zoos, Conservation, Education and Research

The motion

That the Parliament notes with concern the closure of Glasgow Zoo, scheduled for September 2003, with the consequential requirement to re-house the animals and the loss of a dedicated workforce; considers that the demise of Glasgow Zoo raises issues about the role and funding of modern day zoos; further notes that all zoos are now required to carry out a number of charitable functions that require significant resourcing such as animal conservation, education and scientific research, that zoos quite rightly also have to maintain extremely high standards in animal welfare following strict zoo licensing guidelines for the welfare and transaction of animals, that they are regularly involved with organisations such as the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and HM Customs and Excise in animal rescues and that they are labour intensive institutions with high feeding, veterinary and infrastructure costs; is concerned that, to fund the foregoing, a zoo in Scotland requires to be commercially successful as it receives little or no central funding and that the needs of animals and visitors are not always compatible, and believes that the Scottish Executive should investigate central funding for the conservation, research and education work carried out by zoos, for example, at Edinburgh Zoo, where almost half of the animals are in managed conservation and breeding programmes, some of which are on the edge of extinction, such as the Amur tiger and the poison arrow frog, where more than 25,000 schoolchildren per year are taught about the interdependence of all living things and of our responsibility for the biodiversity of the planet and where 40 under-graduate and post-graduate students each year carry out non-invasive research on all aspects of animal biology, nutrition and behaviour with direct benefits to their kin, both in captivity and the wild.

No recorded vote on this motion. Most motions are never debated, and many that are debated are agreed without a division. Vote records are published from 2011.

SNP 4 LD 1

Party shown is each supporter’s party when the motion was published.

No contribution in the Official Report cites S2M-00159 by reference.