Poor housing: Lions at Woburn Safari Park look at the breeze-block enclosures that a Defra report says they spend 'unreasonable lengths of time' locked insideWoburn Safari Park has been criticised for locking its animals up in cramped, inadequate and unsafe pens - leading one expert to say that it is 'probably the most shocking evidence I have seen in a UK zoo'.
An investigation by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs found that the park, which trades on the fact that its animals are free to roam around the grounds, packs up to three lions in a ten-foot-square concrete pen for as long as 18 hours a day.
The breeze-block pens are described in the Defra investigation as 'inadequate in size provision' and 'structurally unsound and unsafe'.
Woburn attracts almost 500,000 visitors each year. The park admits that its current enclosures are inadequate and that larger, more modern pens are being built.
But they will not be ready until as late as next year, and the Defra investigation has highlighted the unacceptable conditions the animals have been forced to endure.
It said lions were housed in ' very crowded' pens with 'no provision for individual feeding or sleeping areas' for 'unreasonable lengths of time'.
When not on public display, the park's 16 lions were herded into the pens, padlocked inside and not brought out until the next public display. In winter, when the park was was opened for only a few hours a day, this could mean the animals were locked up for as long as 18 hours.
The Defra report said sea lions were kept in chlorinated water that affected their eyesight and caused pain. One keeper had written in an internal Woburn report: 'I am ashamed to be part of the team that keeps them under these conditions and wonder if we would be in breech of the Welfare Act.'
Irritated eyes: An internal Woburn report in 2009 said chlorinated water in pools for sea lions were causing the animals eye problems and painKeeper Katie Rice, the park's deputy team leader, concluded in her 2009 report that the sea lions' quality of life had been 'significantly compromised'.
The Defra report said that the park's elephant had recently escaped from its enclosure - prompting Central Bedfordshire Council to issue a prohibition notice, warning that there was a 'real and present threat' of the animal escaping again.
This had the potential of causing injury to not only the elephant but visitors and staff, the council said.
Defra's investigation came after an informant alerted the council to conditions at Woburn earlier this year.
Animal welfare expert Craig Redmond, of the Animals' Protection society, asked why previous investigations had not brought attention to the animals' plight, and called for a full inquiry.
He told the Sunday TImes: 'This is probably the most shocking evidence I have ever seen in a UK zoo.
'People say to me, "Surely safari parks are different than zoos", but this now raises questions over how safari parks really operate.'
Mike Potter, the chief executive of Woburn Enterprises, said the park had acted immediately on the recommendations of the keeper's 2009 report, and that new enclosures were being build for the parks' big cats.
He said the new tiger house would be ready by next spring, and the lion house was near completion.
He denied that the public had been misled as to the treatment of animals at the park, saying: 'Woburn's animal houses are clearly evident in the visitors' journey.'
source: dailymail
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