3 things you need to know about Ontario’s roadside zoos

Photos showing guests directly interacting with and feeding wild animals at a roadside zoo.

Finally, being allowed to interact with captive wild animals is poor education. Wildlife enforcement officers and governments are trying to educate the public that wild animals should not be approached or fed in cities and parks for the safety of animals and people. What these roadside zoos do is in direct conflict with this message. 

ii. Most wild animals don’t have opportunity to hide from the public’s view. 

Wild animals, who generally avoid close proximity to humans whenever they can, should have the choice whether they want to be in the public’s view or not. And with choice, we don’t mean the small indoor boxes these animals might have access to. An animal should be able to rest, eat, sleep, play, and do all the things an animal wants to do out of the view of visitors. Many of these facilities strategically place food and water in locations that force animals into public view and limit hiding spots to make sure the animals are visible to the public at all times 

A jaguar in a roadside zoo in Ontario. (Photo: Sasha Rink / World Animal Protection)

Our report  “Nothing New at the Zoo” documented 11 of the approximately 30 roadside zoos across Ontario. You can use this report to see examples of animals being kept in inappropriate conditions. 

iii. All the cages and enclosures look the same. 

It’s a “cookie-cutter” approach to housing wild animals, all animals housed in often similar size enclosures, with the same substrate, the same water and food bowls and the same climbing structures. This approach is easy and cheap for the zoo operators. When a cage/enclosure is empty (due to the sale or death of an animal), it takes no effort to put a new animal in the enclosure, no matter the species. But as you can imagine, each species and individual animal has their own needs and preferences.  

For example, a Snow monkey from Japan comes from a very different environment than a Ring-tailed lemur from Madagascar, yet their individual needs are often not addressed when it comes to enclosure design. 

A Snow monkey enclosure on the left and a Ring-tailed lemur enclosure on the right. While these two species come from drastically different environments, their natural history is often not considered, and their enclosures are interchangeable. 

2. Why are roadside zoos a problem? 

Wild animals kept at roadside zoos live miserable lives. They aren’t able to engage in their natural behaviours, live in appropriate social groups or experience the freedom to do whatever they want. 

It's important to remember that wild animals have evolved for thousands of years to be in perfect harmony with their habitats and ecosystems, giving them the ability survive and thrive in the wild. When an animal is unable to fulfil their innate needs (like migrating, foraging, or protecting their territory), it leads to frustration and stress which in turn leads to physical and psychological health problems.  

Parrots, for example, have evolved to fly long distances every day in search of food and to live in big flocks where they have lots of social interactions. In captivity they aren’t able to do this as their cages are often cruelly small and their flight feathers are typically clipped making it difficult for them to fly. This is one of the reasons that many will pluck out their own feathers.