Paignton Zoo has insisted that it the current coronavirus pandemic and lockdown would have to become "much worse" before it would even contemplate the drastic measure of euthanising any of its animals.

The zoo posted a strongly worded retort to an article on DevonLive which primarily highlighted the financial difficulties it was facing due to the COVID-19 lockdown and promoted it's Help Our Zoo appeal which aimed to raise funds towards the 414,000 a month it costs to run the zoo.

A spokesman for the zoo told DevonLive that staff were having "some difficult conversation and making decisions in the next six or seven weeks".

DevonLive's article, which is accurate and, contrary to the zoo's Facebook post, never stated euthanasia was being discussed, was published after speaking at length with one of the venue's directors who confirmed what plans were being drawn up for the future of its animal collections.

The zoo spokesman added: "The bigger animals are the biggest attractions and bring people in - it would be a false economy to get rid of the lions and tigers or any of the apes."

While not specifically stating what the precise meaning of the words "get rid of" meant, the zoo admitted that no animals had been euthanised.

The discussion regarding what action may need to be taken over the coming months drew concerns from the public, many of whom regularly attend the zoo and consider it a favourite attraction.

It also led to a number of claims that DevonLive had misreported the entire issue.

Paignton Zoo took to it's Facebook page to criticise the article claiming that the story had suggested the zoo was "considering euthanasing some of its animal collection".

The post said: "Nobody from the zoo has said this. The current crisis would have to be much worse before such a move would even be contemplated."

However, while insisting that no such move had been contemplated, the zoo added: "Having said that, nobody should underestimate the financial challenge facing us.

"Like all zoos we currently have no income at all but our costs are still extremely high, running to hundreds of thousands of pounds per month.

"This is clearly an unsustainable situation so it would be remiss of the zoo's owner, the Wild Planet Trust, were it not to be looking very hard at what it can do to mitigate the loss and protect itself, and its zoos, for the future.

"We suspect that every single charity, business and enterprise in the country is doing exactly the same.

"We are very grateful for the support that has been offered to us and for the donations that we have received in the last few weeks."

In 2014, Paignton Zoo's Simon Tonge spoke with the BBC over the issue of euthanising healthy animals held in captivity as part of a Radio 4 programme about the international issue.

It came after a number of zoos were criticised for putting down animals including giraffes, hippos, leopards, tigers, lions, bears and antelopes.

He warned that attaching numbers to culls was problematic, saying that any headline with claimed zoo's euthanise thousands of animals per year would be misleading.

He told the BBC: "Well OK, but you know most of those animals were rats or mice or something like that.

"If we ever got to the point of having to consider euthanasia for a gorilla I would argue that that one gorilla would generate more interest and more column inches than 10,000 rats. So the numbers game for me is kind of irrelevant."

He said further problems came from how such a incident was categorised.

He said: "Suppose we have two animals of a species. Both are ill, but we know that with a year or more's intensive veterinary effort, we can make them well again.

"One of them is never going to breed because it's genetically not important enough, but the other one is more important.

"Because we just don't have that time and the money to invest in both of those animals we euthanise the least [genetically] related one.

"Is that a veterinary euthanasia or is that management euthanasia? I genuinely don't know.

"I wouldn't know which column to put it in in the inventory we just don't count them really."

DevonLive has contacted Paignton Zoo's communication's manager this morning (April 25) via phone and email for comment to clarify the matter.

Link:

Zoo insists that its animals will not be put to sleep - Devon Live