16th April 2025
Easter weekend can be zoos’ busiest time of the year, with many families looking to enjoy the first sunshine of the season in an outdoor attraction. That’s why, every year, we hold Zoo Awareness Weekend and support grassroots activists to meet visitors at the gates with peaceful protests and awareness raising. This year, they have explosive news to share that we have recently unearthed.
Zoos have enormous death tolls -more than even we at Freedom for Animals knew. Research that we have undertaken this year demonstrates that animals are dying in their thousands, including endangered species that zoos claim to be protecting.
19,111 critically endangered animals died at Chester Zoo just last year.
If just one zoo can lose tens of thousands of animals in just one year, what is the total mortality rate across this brutal industry? The UK is home to hundreds of zoos, each of which holds captive a range of animals, whom people spend their hard earned money to see. Visitors are tempted through the gates with promises that they are helping the conservation of rare and endangered species. However, research by Freedom for Animals is uncovering the truth.
Each year, as a condition of their licence, zoos are required to present a “stock list” to the local authority. These inventories detail the species they hold captive, and if submitted correctly, will demonstrate fluctuations in numbers over the previous 12 months. We have submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act to every local authority in the country to see these records. And what we are getting back is horrifying.
So far we have analysed returns from 75 zoos that submitted data showing their population fluctuations since January 2024. 60% of these zoos saw more animals die in their care than were born there – 44,620 deaths in total. Although only around 15% of the animals in these zoos belong to species considered vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, or extinct in the wild, almost 50% of the deaths are from species in these threatened categories. This not only indicates disproportionately poor care for these vulnerable animals, but it completely debunks the myth that zoos are conserving endangered species. The vast majority of species bred in zoos are there just to pull in paying visitors with cute baby offspring, whose births will never impact wild populations.
Zoos do not contribute to meaningful conservation, they do not benefit wild animals, they do not educate the public. In fact, they actively mislead the public, and animals continue to suffer in captivity while they make money from their exploitation. Take a stand. This weekend is Zoo Awareness Weekend – join one of the demonstrations at a zoo near you to play your part in ending this cruel industry.
What you can do:
Boycott all zoos and aquariums
Write to DEFRA to demand full transparency on zoo activities
Take part in Zoo Awareness Weekend
Donate today to help continue our research and action
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