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Almost a year ago, nearly all the stringrays at a Calgary Zoo exhibit died by what was now being called a lack of dissolved oxygen. At the time it was big news. Even the police were called in to determine if it was sabotage.
Everyone one of us has lost livestock and most good honest aquarists don’t take it lightly. We act as quickly as possible to minimize the deaths. We take the loss hard and make updates to our system so that it doesn’t happen again. Sometimes we buy things that shouldn’t go in our tanks and we learn a hard lesson. There’s some hard lessons for aquarists to take from the Calgary Zoo.
However, this incident smacks of arrogance and now all that’s left is the finger pointing. To me, it seems like everyone from the supplier to the Calagary Zoo staff are responsible. Let’s take a look:
“Because this was an established zoo, we assumed there was a certain level of expertise that comes with handling these types of animals,”said Marty Tanner, president of Florida Marine Aquaculture.
“We had to assume . . . that there was a certain level of expertise with the life-support system and with their personnel, their veterinarians. We supply these animals to a lot of zoos and aquariums in the United States and overseas;we’ve never had this issue before,” said Tanner.
So, the supplier, Florida Marine Aquaculture isn’t claiming responsibility. They’re content assuming and counting the money from the transaction. I don’t know, but I’m guessing 41 stingrays added nicely to his bottom line last year.
It’s time for a change in the climate of the hobby. Suppliers, and for most of us that’s our local fish stores, need to start being responsible for what they’re selling to people. There needs to be accountability for the lives that we’re taking responsibility. Stores are too comfortable selling anything to anybody with a credit card.
You want to recreate a replica of the aquarium from Finding Nemo? Well, hold on there. There’s a few things you should know about.
Finding Nemo: responsible for the deaths of hundreds of talking clownfish.
These comments from the Zoo president make me think that more deaths are coming:
The Calgary Zoo, clarifying Tuesday that a lack of dissolved oxygen likely killed the rays last year, said it isn’t planning on changing its practices and is confident it can care for animals by referring to outside advice.
Zoo president Clement Lanthier and Cathy Gaviller, the zoo’s director of conservation, education and research, told reporters that they knew as early as November that low levels of dissolved oxygen were probably the cause of death.
“I think we need to be very frank here. Our main expertise is not in fish at the Calgary Zoo. This is something that we want to expand. We have a responsibility to connect Calgarians not only to land animals but also what is going on in the ocean. We will continue to go there,” Lanthier said.
There are some good reefers out in Calgary. I hope the Zoo speaks to them.
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In the hobby since 2001, and has seen all kinds of fads come and go. As he gets older, Jeff is developing more and more of a conscience towards environmental concerns, especially towards reefs. Currently, he writes from Ontario, Canada, but would rather be snorkeling on a reef.
What’s the difference between that Zoo’s supplier and any of our LFS. If customer do not ask specific questions and ask for help, you cannot underestimate them and push knowledge to them. No big deal.
Zoos are usually very stubborn organizations that refuses to learn or solicit help. Look at the Toronto one and what happened to their reef tank even though they have numerous help from local clubs… they just do not listen.
Agreed, it’s the “you can lead a horse to water thing…”, but ask yourself this; how many stores are leading their customers to, er, water?
I was at Big Al’s Scarborough and I was floored to see a photocopied informational sheet. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen something like that IN A STORE. Why isn’t that being done more?
An incident with stingrays happened at the Brookfield Zoo (outside Chicago here) last year. From the news articles I read, I thought that it seemed that the entire situation may have been mostly avoidable, if not completely averted, had they been using gear that is available to us as hobbyists, like the AC3, or your recent post on the reefkeeper w/ net hook up.
Now, re : a quote on the news link you provided -
“‘I think we need to be very frank here. Our main expertise is not in fish here at the Calgary Zoo.’”
Um…. what? Wouldn’t common sense dictate either hiring someone who is an expert to run the display, or to not have the display at all?
Sad. Poor rays.
Agreed. That whole article reeks of arrogance, ignorance and finger pointing. A deadly combination.
Sad to think a $600 device would have saved 41 lives.
I have to say that the supplier does not look like the bad guys here. This is a different situation then a LFS selling something to joe blow off the street. The supplier in question was selling these stingrays to a ZOO! They are supposed to have qualified people who know what they are doing to look after each exhibit……sadly not the case.
It’s a different situation from LFS’, but the method is the same. One person is selling livestock to someone who doesn’t know how to care for it. It results in a lot of death. Ignorance is blamed.
Rinse lather repeat.