GuZoo Animal Farm

From Prairie Zoos: Captive Wildlife Collections in Alberta and Saskatchewan (2000). A report by Zoocheck Canada & the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Written by Marilyn Cole.

The GuZoo business card states that it is a licensed zoo. This fact only serves to point out the deficiencies in Alberta’s zoo regulations. By all rights, this zoo should be closed. In addition to the numerous animal welfare concerns, there are many public health and safety concerns as well.

Significant Animal Welfare Concerns
A sign at the entrance states that a veterinarian visits once a week. I find it hard to believe that any veterinarian would allow animals to suffer under the conditions I observed at this zoo. GuZoo fails to meet even the most basic requirements of animal husbandry and care. At the Toronto Zoo, I assisted staff veterinarians in the care and treatment of hundreds of animals. None of the veterinarians I know would tolerate such treatment.

I saw several animals that were clearly not well: one lark pigeon showed signs of respiratory distress; the spider monkey was listless and had several bald patches on her body; and the muskox was rubbing its weeping eye on the rusty pipe barrier, trying to relieve the obvious distress. Many of the birds had overgrown beaks, while the majority of the hoofstock had overgrown hooves. One elk, lying down at the time of our visit, had hooves so overgrown that I doubt it could walk properly. Several animals had misshapen horns. I find it appalling that animals would be allowed to suffer in such conditions if visited regularly by a veterinarian.

In the indoor barn structure next to the entrance, chickens were housed next to rabbits. Chickens are passive carriers of a disease known as coccidiosis which causes terrible death in rabbits. Rabbits are very susceptible to this disease and should never be kept in such close proximity to chickens as they were at GuZoo.

The basic needs of many of the animals were being ignored. There was no hay evident in any of the hoofstock pens. The floors of many cages were covered in faeces and decaying food, which appeared to have been there for quite some time. The water bowls were either empty or contained filthy water. Other animals had filth caked to their coats as a result of having to lie in their own faeces. Many animals had no means of seeking relief from the oppressive sun overhead, while others existed in virtual darkness.

All the cages were filthy, with a build-up of faeces (e.g., ferrets, bear cub, spider monkey, capuchin monkey). Many had food that had been leftover and which looked spoiled and decaying. The carnivores all had decaying, rotting bones and and body parts strewn around their cages. There were feathers everywhere, both inside and outside the cages, presumably leftovers from meals.

Public feeding is actively encouraged at GuZoo and several unplugged freezers with open lids are scattered throughout the zoo. These are filled with donated food consisting mostly of packages of bread. I examined one package to find that the bread was covered in blue mold. Bread is a poor source of nutrition for wild animals but is far worse when covered with mold.

All the mammals I observed exhibited extremely poor coat condition. The single spider monkey and guinea pigs had bald patches with flaking skin, indicating possible skin disease. This monkey was chewing on the bars in an attempt to reach the food that had been thrown over the top of its cage. She had a bloated stomach and did not appear healthy. The tigers appeared emaciated.

Caging on the whole was inadequate. I did not see a single enclosure that I would deem appropriate for the species housed. A skunk was being kept in a tiny cage in the zoo office, in a dark corner of the zoo office and visitors were invited to take the animal to handle it. A porcupine was kept in a dog crate, with no shade or privacy, and little room to turn around.

The cages found in the small barn adjacent to the office were particularly disturbing. The cages housing the monkeys, fox, and pigeons were all far too small for the species exhibited. There were numerous other animals in this small barn as well, including a squirrel that was frantically running around its cage the entire time we were there; a number of cockatiels, rabbits, chickens (as I mentioned previously on p. 17, these animals should never be kept together), and several reptiles. One iguana was in a cage with a flimsy rope tied around a log in such a way as to be a hazard to the animal. Another iguana was housed in a tank with a heat lamp positioned so low, the animal was in danger of being severely burned. It was also a fire hazard.

The capuchin monkey was kept in a very small cage, in a dark area of the small barn with a double layer of fencing because (according to the sign) this monkey bites. Consequently I wonder how this cage (as well as many others that had no shifting system) could be serviced safely. The sign stated that this monkey had been at GuZoo since 1973.
In addition to the physical needs of the animals not being met at this facility, their psychological needs are being neglected as well. For example, housing hamsters next to a ferret separated only by a wooden partition must make for a terrifying existence for those hamsters; a ground squirrel in the same building was racing around and around its cage, exhibiting stereotypic behaviour. I also observed stereotypic behaviours in some of the carnivores, in particular the wolves, who paced the fence non-stop during our visit. A deeply worn path was evident along the fence-line of the enclosure, hollowed out by the wolves' constant pacing.

No animal was provided with environmental or behavioural enrichment. The Japanese macaque monkeys had nothing to keep them occupied. In the wild, all three species of monkeys kept at GuZoo would spend the majority of their day foraging for a variety of food items, grooming and interacting with one another, and playing. I saw none of these activities. Indeed, Mr. Gustafson told me that the adult male Japanese macaque had killed his last two mates and that the young male in the adjacent cage had been mistakenly purchased as a female as a potential mate. This adult male may be too psychologically damaged to ever be a candidate for rehabilitation, but his present existence is intolerable. The pair of macaques in the third cage spent their time begging for food thrown to them and had nothing else to occupy them. Although Japanese macaques are found in cold areas of Japan, they still need adequate shelter from the harsh prairie winter, and a tiny shelter box simply is not adequate.

Safety Concerns
Security is a major problem at GuZoo. When we arrived, there was no one around at all. A sign in the office indicated that we should place our money in a box and feel free to enter the zoo. While the owner did show up a short while later, the fact that visitors are allowed to walk about completely unsupervised is disconcerting. Such a lack of supervision presents a danger to the animals and zoo visitors.

There are many instances where visitors could be bitten or mauled. The adult black bear cage has a safety barrier around only one side of the pen and it is easy for visitors to walk around and stick their hands into the cage. We witnessed a mother with two small children doing just that.

Outside the office, a tiger cub and a cougar cub were tied up where visitors can, indeed are expected, to play with them. I observed children surrounding the two cubs, poking at them and attempting to pick them up. I saw one child who dropped the cougar cub while attempting to pick it up. These are very young animals with developing bones, and a fall such as this could easily result in a broken bone. As well, it would not be difficult to imagine one of these cubs becoming annoyed with the manhandling and swatting, perhaps even injuring, a child.

Many of the cages had only nails to keep the hasp shut, rather than proper locks, thus allowing any visitor to open these cages. Several cages were in disrepair with bent, broken and damaged areas of fencing. Failure to mend these cages in a timely fashion could lead to an escape. Moreover, wires protruding into cages present a danger to the animals.

I observed a fisher in a wooden cage. A particularly fierce animal, the fisher would be capable of gnawing its way out of this cage. The cage was also inadequate in terms of size, as fishers need large areas with lots of privacy in order to exhibit their natural behaviours.

It would also be possible for visitors to stick their fingers into the spider monkey cage. This presents the danger not only of a bite but of disease transmission as humans are susceptible to many of the same illnesses as monkeys.

Public Health Concerns
Filthy water and animal faeces contaminated many pens and had spilled over into visitor pathways. Unsanitary conditions such as this put visitors (as well as animals) at risk. It was clear that very little housekeeping occurs at this zoo. Immediate steps should be taken to remedy this situation.

Children are encouraged to enter filthy pens near the zoo entrance to pet the goats and other domesticated livestock. This presents a very real risk of children coming into contact with urine and faeces as a result of bending down to pet the animals, not to mention falling down accidentally.

Education
GuZoo makes little attempt to educate visitors. Most signs did no more than name the type of animal displayed. There was seldom any additional information. What there was served little or no purpose. For example, the sign on the spider monkey cage asks "Are you my cousin?"

Overall, this zoo is likely to have a negative educational effect. Schoolchildren visiting this facility will likely grow up believing that these appalling conditions are acceptable for the keeping of animals.

Animals at GuZoo appear to have little more than entertainment value. Mr. Gustafson demonstrated how to make his fainting goats keel over by agitating them. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was stressing the animals in order to put on this demonstration.

Mr. Gustafson brought a black bear cub out on a leash and fed it Twinkies and bread while we watched. He encouraged some children nearby to do likewise. He informed me that he had traded a tiger cub for the bear. This cub was being kept in a run of cages along with a domestic dog for company. There is a real risk that as this bear grows larger and stronger, it will eventually injure the dog.

In another area, a number of pigeons were being housed in cages at ground level. I witnessed one of the many domestic dogs that were running around loose1 charge at the wire sending the birds flapping in all directions, bashing their wings on the sides of the cages.

Conclusions
From my observations I would conclude that the proprietors have no understanding of proper animal husbandry. They appear to have no knowledge of basic physical needs, such as the need for clean drinking water, fresh nutritive food or a clean cage. There is also no appreciation of the animals’ psychological needs or normal social environment.

The description given above is by no means complete. There was not a single cage or pen in the entire area that I would consider acceptable. Given the numbers of animals and the numbers of pens, I have chosen to point out some of the more glaring problems rather than repeating my observations on such items as filthy waterbowls, rotting food and cages covered in faeces, as were by far the majority of the enclosures, large and small. Not a single animal in the entire area is given the opportunity to exhibit what I would term natural behaviour for that particular species, primarily because of lack of space, shade, privacy areas and environmental enrichment. Many animals appeared malnourished and exhibited signs of stereotypic behaviour (e.g., wolves pacing).

Apart from the careless attitude toward animal husbandry, the lack of shift areas poses a danger to anyone cleaning the cages. Public health may also be at risk. Excessive amounts of faeces and rotting food observed inside many of the cages were also observed strewn in the visitor pathways adjacent to the cages. I was unable to assess how many of the animals were diseased; however, I was informed that Malignant Catarrhal Fever has previously been found in Sika deer owned by Mr. Gustafson. This is not a reportable disease in Alberta, but is in other jurisdictions and is of great concern to livestock breeders, as it is highly contagious. There should also be a concern for zoonoses – diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans, and vice versa.

Recommendations
Inside the small barn, there is a sign posted stating that the Gustafsons love their animals and resent anyone criticizing how they care for them. The same sign asks anyone who disagrees to please leave. This attitude is not conducive to improvement and change. Furthermore, the deficiencies were so numerous, and the problems so severe, that anything short of complete refurbishment would be inadequate.

GuZoo’s owner has been convicted in the past of cruelty to animals and of purchasing Sika deer illegally. In light of these circumstances and the appalling conditions observed at the zoo, it is surprising that GuZoo has been allowed to retain its licence to operate.

This facility is a disgrace to the people of Alberta, and those who care about animals. GuZoo should be closed and the animals dispersed to more suitable accommodation elsewhere.

1 Mr. Gustafson also breeds dogs, some of which appeared to be purebred. A couple of Shar Pei puppies were on display along with a sign stating that they were for sale.