Zooligans?

An interesting debate has started concerning London Zoo's decision to open in some evenings to attract in an older client base with teenagers and 20+ year olds (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/18/london-zoo-party-night-animal-welfare). Animals in zoos can certainly be stressed by visitors. Enlightened zoos actually incorporate a number of design features to enclosures that minimise this but they can't apparently cope with some of the 'wilder' behaviour of the late night visitors (including pouring beer over tigers and trying to get into locations with the animals). This is a difficult one as stress certainly impairs the health and breeding efficiency of the animals but many animal-orientated attractions have great difficulty attracting visitors from the 13-30 age groups. We tend to visit zoos as children or with children/grandchildren of our own. This is not simply a question of improving the finance of the establishments but a reasonable desire to interest the cohort (and possibly get them to support) in conservation. I do think the zoos ought to continue with such attempts but need to watch carefully the behaviour of their visitors. Perhaps people who are clearly drunk, should be refused entry to this type of place.