Glasgow Zoo thrown to the lions in damning animal welfare reports

Published on Sunday 10 February 2002 00:00

GLASGOW Zoo is a "disgrace" and needs to make urgent improvements to the conditions its animals are kept in to avoid closure, animal welfare campaigners claimed last night.

Two charities are to submit damning reports on the 50-year-old zoo to Glasgow City Council, which licenses the 90-acre site at Calderpark on the city’s outskirts.

The reports could prove the final blow for the zoo, which has seen visitor numbers plummet, rising debts and the death last year of its director Richard O’Grady.

The campaigns officer for Advocates for Animals, Ross Minett, said last night: "I have no doubt that the animals are suffering both physically and psychologically. Glasgow Zoo is an absolute disgrace. I was shocked at the squalid conditions in which most of the animals are being kept."

He said the zoo should close, adding: "Both animal and human life is at risk."

John Robins, director of the charity Animal Concern, which carried out an emergency inspection, said he was also very concerned for the long-term well-being of the animals. "The zoo must either come up with immediate plans for major investment and improvement or move towards inevitable closure. The truth is it has been run on the cheap and it shows."

Both reports revealed the shocking state of some of the enclosures, with damaged glass in the tiger house, an insecure aviary, and roof cladding missing from pens. There were also damaged safety barriers and walkways.

Roger Edwards, the new director of the zoo, refused to comment on the conditions. But he said: "We’ve been struggling for years, there’s nothing new in that. But as a zoo we are a benefit to the city. It costs 400,000 a year to run the zoo and we operate entirely on a charitable basis."

The zoo is understood to have debts of more than 2m.