Past zoo director raises concerns

2006-04-09

Leanne Dohy, Calgary Herald

The man who guided the Calgary Zoo for two decades – charting its evolution from barred concrete-floor cages to the open, habitat-modelled enclosures such as those in the Canadian Wilds – says the planned Arctic Shores exhibit is not a course he would have taken.

"When I left, I made a commitment that I wouldn't meddle or second-guess my successors," says Peter Karsten, who was director of the zoo from 1974 to 1994.

"So my opinion is just my opinion. That said, Alex Graham has a very ambitious program, a very ambitious personal vision of what the zoo should be for Calgary.

Karsten, who now lives on B.C.'s Denman Island, says that polar bears and beluga whales are both "problematic" species. He's also concerned that the capital expenditures of the expansion plan -- an estimated $120 million will require operating funding that the community may not be able to support in leaner times.

Karsten began working at the Calgary Zoo in 1964, and was appointed acting director in 1974, then became director officially in 1975. He devised the master plan that replaced conventional cages with habitat enclosures, developed internationally used keeper manuals and set new standards for staff training and husbandry practices.

At Friday's press conference, a promise Karsten was reported to have made a decade ago was brought up by Alex Graham, the current president and CEO of the Calgary Zoo. Graham quoted a critic as saying that Karsten "had promised that polar bears would not be brought back to the Calgary Zoo," after the death of the zoo's last polar bear, Misty, in 1999.

Misty and her companion, Snowball, who died in 1996, caused a great deal of concern because of their chronic pacing, a stereotypical obsessive behaviour in captive polar bears. Their concrete enclosure wasn't one Karsten would have designed, he said, and he wouldn't be inclined to bring polar bears back to Calgary, but he didn't "promise" it wouldn't happen.

"I never said 'never,' " Karsten says. "That's just not very scientific. I said that under circumstances at the time, we wouldn't have them again."

The enclosure built in 1973 and inhabited by Misty, Snowball and Candy who died in 1990 – was not habitat-based, or behaviour based, and was inadequate for both the animals and visitors.

Zoo visitors, seeing the chronic pacing and other repetitive behaviours, were concerned and often complained. "Polar bears have this motor drive that is inborn," Karsten said. "They need to be active. That's why they are the great wanderers."

The pacing is not "madness," Karsten said, but the expression of that inborn drive, requiring a great deal of ingenuity by keepers and habitat designers to counter. "I just felt that there are enough other incredible creatures that can be shown, where the equation (of investment weighted against the resulting experience) comes out a little easier."

Bringing whales into a prairie zoo is a Pandora's box that Karsten said he would not choose to open, – an opinion he said he shared with Graham.

Through his involvement with several international zoological organizations, Karsten has seen firsthand the controversy that still rages over keeping whales in captivity.

"I wouldn't want to bring that controversy to Calgary," Karsten said. "The zoo has had such a wonderful relationship with the community. I wouldn't want to see that strained.