No justification for zoo in modern age

I WAS horrified to hear that there may be another polar bear at Edinburgh Zoo (News, April 9).

I visit the zoo from time to time, although over many years I have come to dislike zoos a great deal.

As a veterinary student in the 1960s I went there often to help treat zoo animals.

In these modern days of global travel and superb televisual animal films, in my opinion there is absolutely no justification for zoos. A few excellent zoos do exist and play an important part in conservation and welfare. In my opinion Edinburgh zoo, I regret to say, is not one of them.

I visited recently to see if things had improved. I had forgotten quite how steep the zoo hill is, despite the advent of a very bumpy bus and ride to the top.

I was not surprised to see parents really struggling with buggies on the steep slopes, and for anyone with a disability the zoo would prove impossible.

I was appalled at what I consider the totally psychotic state of the present polar bear - upsetting, repetitive behaviour in a very poor enclosure. Polar bears should never be in zoos at all - they are used to roaming over wide areas of the polar regions in the Arctic and Canada, not in a tiny barren rocky enclosure with a tiny ditch of dirty water.

The big cats looked well fed, but bored out of their minds in enclosures that have always been too small.

The area near the penguins - for which Edinburgh zoo has rightly been famous - is now, like many other areas in the zoo, filled with a play area, climbing frames and towers for toddlers.

Children can play on these anywhere - and there seemed to be an inordinate number of these areas. However many animal enclosures were empty and derelict looking.

I used to go to the zoo to take animal photographs - although I think it is by far one of the worst zoos for that and has got even more difficult.

I hope another bear does not come to the zoo, but if one does arrive then I am afraid neither I, or my family, will ever visit the zoo again.

As a retired veterinary surgeon who has spent a lifetime concerned with animal welfare, I can no longer condone zoos and hope that the public will vote with their feet.

MRS PAT MORRIS BVM & S, MRVCS (VETERINARY SURGEON, RETIRED), HOPETOUN TERRACE, GULLANE