Giant panda rentals from China by AZA member zoos subsequently became common practice, including at the Bronx Zoo, the National Zoo, and the San Diego Zoo, whose directors reputedly led the 1992 drive to suspend Hanna. The April 1992 suspension was to be for one year, but was lifted on November 6, 1992, effective on January 1, 1993. Longtime general manager Jerry Borin was named to succeed Hanna, just as he was in 2021. The AZA contended at that time, along with most other wildlife advocates, that giant panda rentals are not in the best interest of either the giant panda species or the individual animals.Ī week after the AZA imposed the suspensions, the Columbus Zoo executive committee named Hanna “director emeritus,” the title he held for the next 30 years while remaining the public face of the zoo.
#Columbus zoo investigation code
The AZA did, however, suspend Hanna and the Columbus Zoo in April 1992 for violating other provisions of the Code of Ethics by importing two giant pandas from China for an exhibit that closed in September 1992, after attracting 925,000 of the zoo’s 1.5 million visitors. The American Zoo Association took no action against Hanna and the Columbus Zoo then, but did reinforce the AZA Code of Ethics to require that accredited zoos be prohibited from selling animals to non-accredited entities. Others went to roadside zoos and other for-profit exhibitors. Hanna then insisted to the Columbus Dispatch that the Columbus Zoo had a policy against selling surplus animals to dealers for auction, but admitted that he did not always know what became of the animals he sold, some of whom ended up as living targets for trophy hunters at hunting preserves. Hanna won the debate over killing zoo animals, at least in the court of public opinion, by maintaining a no-kill policy, while Graham lost his Detroit Zoo job in 1990 and became a high school science teacher.Īt least five times between 19, however, the Columbus Zoo sold animals to dealers who resold them to inappropriate destinations, as confirmed and exposed in January 1990 by CBS 60 Minutes. (Beth Clifton collage) “No kill” policy, but Hanna sold animals who were shot for trophiesīoth Graham and Hanna allowed zoo animals to breed, to be able to display family groups. (See Steve Graham defends Copenhagen Zoo giraffe killing. Hanna has a motto that ‘You never go someplace to talk about animals without taking an animal along.’ Graham believes that is ‘prostituting animals.’” Reported the Columbus Dispatch on May 30, 1986, “Like a pair of gorillas, Columbus Zoo director Jack Hanna and Detroit Zoo director Steve Graham are pounding their chests at each other over the handling of zoo animals. Graham was also outspokenly critical of keeping zoo animals in unnaturally crowded conditions to avoid killing them.
Graham, previously director of the Antietam Humane Society in Pennsylvania, favored killing animals rather than taking the chance that they might end up at hunting ranches, roadside zoos, or badly kept private collections. The allegations raised in The Conservation Game have circulated for decades.ĭuring the decade of debate that preceded the adoption of the first AZA Code of Ethics in 1986, and during another five years of debate before the AZA Code of Ethics was reinforced in 1991 to prohibit several Jack Hanna practices, Hanna between 19 openly clashed repeatedly, with Steve Graham, director of the Detroit Zoo from 1981 to 1990, over the ethics of selling surplus zoo animals to private dealers. “The zoo announced in July that it has cut ties with animal vendors who do not meet certain standards of animal care,” Shaffer added. The film alleges baby tigers and snow leopards who appeared with Hanna on late-night talk shows often didn’t come from or return to accredited zoos, but were instead shuffled among backyard breeders and unaccredited zoos that don’t have to adhere to the same strict animal care standards and ethics rules as accredited facilities. “The recent documentary film The Conservation Game,” Shaffer summarized, “raised questions about the way celebrity conservationists, including Jack Hanna, acquire exotic animals. (Beth Clifton collage) “The Conservation Game” “The Conservation Game” director Michael Webber.