THE drive into Colchester Zoo takes you down a small lane past wooden shacks and into a weird world where exotic creatures stand and watch as tourists flock by.
More than 500,000 of them came last year, making it the top large visitor attraction in the east of England and adding more than £5million in revenue to the zoo’s books. Dominique Tropeano, the zoo’s French chief, bought it from a relative of his wife 20 years ago after a successful career in hotel catering. Although he says it was only a hobby of his in 1983, he has transformed the zoo into a profitable business.
But he is also a man who admits to struggling with his conscience about what he does, constantly questioning the ethics of keeping animals in captivity. And the result of all this soul-searching? Mr Tropeano is convinced he’s a latter-day Noah, banking animals away against unforeseen man-made catastrophes.
According to organisations like the Captive Animals’ Protection Society (CAPS) and the Born Free Foundation, a self-proclaimed zoo watchdog, zoos are outdated Victorian relics. They say there is no justification for them. Wildlife belongs in the wild, they say, and not captivity, where life can be restrictive and predictable.
“Many creatures live in cramped and artificial conditions, where natural instincts are frustrated and denied,” Daniel Turner, Born Free’s zoo check co-ordinator says. “Although life in the wild is complex and dangerous, that’s their habitat – they’ve evolved over thousands of years.”
He says extinction is part of that process and as humans we have to accept that as well as changing our behaviour.
But aren’t zoos scientific institutions, important for conservation of species? “No,” he says. “They are commercial organisations. They keep few endangered species and fewer than 1% of endangered animals have been successfully released into the wild.
“One of the observations that we have made is that in the UK, only around 5% of a zoo’s animal population is made up of endangered species – if there was a commitment to preservation that figure should be at least 50%.
“Zoos also claim to be about education. Yes, they are educational in that they show that a tiger has stripes and it is a big creature, but they certainly do not show them in their natural habitat – that can never be recreated in a glass box or cage.
“You would not naturally see elephants on concrete floors – they’re just there because they’re easy to wash down. You even see burrowing animals on concrete – how can they burrow through that?
“Some zoos still have animal shows where parrots ride bikes and elephants standing on two legs – is that educational? Studies have shown they suffer both physically and mentally.
“People will say they can’t afford to go to Africa or wherever to see these creatures. Well, we have TV and the Internet now. And anyway why should people have what they want on their doorstep?”
Craig Redmond, campaigns officer at CAPS, says the conservation justifications given by zoos are merely a marketing con.
“Most animals in zoos like the African lions, elephants and giraffes are not threatened. They are simply crowd-pullers. The power and dignity of these animals are stripped from them – they are no more than caricatures. Herd animals are turned into lonely, solitary beasts with sad and empty eyes.”
“Big cats will endlessly pace a regular path. Chimpanzees and elephants will rock and sway from side to side – this kind of behaviour is also seen in humans who are mentally ill.
“Primates will often overgroom, pulling out their own hair out of boredom and stress. Giraffes will constantly twist their necks or bite bars of cages. This is not natural behaviour.”
More sinister, he says, zoos have also been known to sell animals to vivisection labs and the exotic meat industry.
It’s accusations like these that trouble Mr Tropeano. Born Free says he is one of the better zoo directors and indeed he is well regarded by peers in the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, which helps co-ordinate breeding programmes.
“It’s a very emotive subject,” the 58-year-old says. “Every day, I look in the mirror and ask myself: ‘Do I like what I am doing? Do I have any justification for running a zoo?’”
When he bought the zoo in 1983, he says it was in a terrible state, going nowhere. “My solicitor thought I was crazy. I could have had the quiet life and be secure as I was in my last job, but this was a challenge.”
He said he looked at how theme parks were run and used that as the basis for his business model, how to pull people through the gates.
“The zoo has two sides – the animal side, but that can’t thrive without the business side.” Latest accounts show the zoo made around £400,000 profit in the last financial year.
The day we talked the customer services desk was queuing with parents wanting to “adopt” animals for their children. For a fee, the kids get a photo of their favourite creature and are told that this money goes to help conserve endangered species.
The zoo is heavily involved in breeding programmes and significant sums are ploughed into these and also into improving facilities at the zoo, some of which he admits are not good enough.
“We are building a new lion enclosure at the moment. That was done our own initiative. Nobody came to us to tell us to do that - I think there should be changes in the law to increase inspections.
“I am well aware that there are places in this country, but especially abroad, that are simply not up to scratch.”
At the moment Colchester Zoo is involved in around at least eight conservation projects around the world, and although this is the area where Mr Tropeano sees his long-term role, he admits he has never released a single animal back to the wild.
“And we never will,” he says. “It’s dangerous out there. Man is his own worst enemy -we have to plan for the future. I like to see ourselves as a bank where we keep the animals safe so they do not die out because of man.”
But is that not a bit like playing God, creating some kind of Jurassic Park? He pauses: “No, I prefer to see it like Noah taking animals on to his ark, protecting them.”
We walk around the zoo and stop by the giraffes. “They were all born in captivity,” he says. “A lot of them are hybrid creatures, what you call zoo animals. And that is an area, we need to improve, to stock more pure-bred species – that’s something that we are putting in order.”
So why are non-endangered beasts like giraffes and elephants in captivity? Was it not just a case of being a clever businessman, doing his market research and finding out what people wanted? Bringing in the crowd-pullers?
“No, if we listened to our market research, then I would have gorillas and dolphins in here, but I don’t feel comfortable with that – we could not create the right conditions for them.
He says around 20 species out of some 200, including fish, at the zoo are endangered and on some kind of international breeding programme.
“One day, you can be sure, a lot of creatures that are not endangered at the moment will begin to die out if man is not careful,” he says. “And they need our help.”
But he welcomes comments from Born Free, although he wishes they would speak out more in Eastern Europe, where he says, some conditions are atrocious.
“I believe that we do important work here, but at the same time we should review what we do every so often and be at the forefront of animal welfare.
“Our work helping the Siberian tiger has been praised. And we often get people from Africa actually asking us to help breed and many zoos, including Colchester, work to do that. We will never take animals from the wild.”
“Criticism is a good thing, but I can never accept as Born Free do that a species should be just left to die out.”
He also defends against accusations that animals suffer mentally while locked up in captivity.
“We check that a lot and I’m reasonably satisfied that they express natural behaviour. They are also fed good diets and looked after well by good vets and zookeepers.
“A friend who visited the zoo once wondered if was to come back as an animal whether he’d prefer to be in a zoo or the wild. He concluded he’d rather be in a zoo because it’s so dangerous in the wild getting chased and maybe eaten. Perhaps it’s too easy for the animals in here – I sometimes think we should make it a bit tougher for them.”
Dominique Tropeano is proud of his multimillion-pound family business. He is against vivisection, believes animals have rights and condemns circuses that use animals. He is convinced of the zoo’s role in the bigger picture. But for all this he clearly revels collecting animals. At one point he positively beamed showing off one of his latest “exhibits” – a small non-endangered dikdik deer. “I’ve been waiting for years to have one of these,” he said.