blog.bioethics.net

The Zoo is Much Easier to Bear When the Animals Are on Anti-Psychotics

Without an ounce of irony, Toledo Blade reporter Jenni Laidman recounts the drugs used to treat the animals in the Toledo zoo these days.

Johari the gorilla is on antidepressants. It eases her PMS. When the Toledo Zoo needed calm zebras, it used an antipsychotic medication to quiet their jitters. Zoo staffers tried to soothe wildebeests with antipsychotic medication for eight months last year, and even occasionally this year. A swamp monkey was dosed with the antipsychotic, but it didn’t help her get along with her daughter. It wasn’t much good for ostrich aggression either. Yet a little Valium calmed the silverback gorilla when one of the females had a doctor visit. And Prozac helped a female orangutan negotiate life in her group.

The drugs work wonders, according to one very practical zookeeper:

“They’re definitely a wonderful management tool, and that’s how we look at them,” said the Toledo Zoo’s mammal curator, Randi Meyerson. “To be able to just take the edge off puts us a little more at ease.”

The problem is the animals. They just can't adapt normally to their environment (the Swahili word for which is "cage"). So we have to be compassionate. Medicate the animals. Heck, let's pump valium through the water system!

“I think it’s unethical to have an animal — for example a dog with separation anxieties, desperately trying to get out of the house, digging until his paws are bloody — it’s unethical not to treat them with drugs if it will make them not as anxious or not as aggressive. You’re making an animal feel more contented,” [Cornell vet] Dr. [Kathy] Houpt said.

What a great analogy: domesticated doggies digging at the door are just like Brazilian monkeys in air conditioned 20 x 40 wire cages in Toledo. Clearly these animals need drugs, not bigger cages and more room to roam. After all, it's a zoo in there.
[thanks Darby Penny]