Group Criticized in Handling of Sale of Zoo Animals to Hunting Ranch

A national zoo organization has found the Zoological Society of San Diego guilty of misconduct in the way it publicly handled the sale of surplus San Diego Zoo animals to a Texas hunting ranch, it was disclosed Monday.

The American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, with 160 institutional members, found that the San Diego Zoo “did not meet the goals and concepts” of the group in its handling of the controversy, said association Executive Director Sydney J. Butler.

The zoo’s misconduct was not in the sale of the animals--which the association said the San Diego Zoo did unwittingly--but in the handling of the controversy after a San Diego animal rights group brought the charges publicly.

“We did not find that they knowingly sold any animals to the hunting ranch, nor did we find that the animals were harmed,” Butler said in a telephone interview from Bethesda, Md. “In fact, the animals were returned once it was discovered they might have gone to someone who might not have cared for them properly.

“It was in the handling of that issue where certain of our ethics code precepts were violated,” Butler said. He said he would not elaborate on how the ethics code was violated because of rules of confidentiality between the association and its members.

The reprimands do not carry any specific discipline, only the expectation that the Zoological Society of San Diego will address the problem, he said.

At issue, said San Diego Zoo spokesman Jeff Jouett, were misstatements by the Zoological Society when the charges were first aired in September, 1991, by San Diego Animal Advocates and Friends of Animals, which also complained to the national zoo organization.

The Zoological Society erred when, in its initial response to the charges, it said that a zoo employee had visited the Texas hunting ranch before allowing two Dybowski sika deer to be sent there. Two months later--last November--the Zoological Society corrected itself and said no employees had inspected the hunting ranch before the animals were sent.

A second error occurred, Jouett said, when the Zoological Society reported that the two sika deer had been returned to the San Diego Wild Animal Park--before the animals were returned. That misstatement was also publicly corrected.

“With all respect due the AAZPA, we do not believe that these errors support a suggestion of unethical conduct by the Zoological Society or any of its staff,” Jouett said in a prepared statement.

The Zoological Society of San Diego, in the face of charges by the animal rights groups, said last September it did not realize that the breeders to whom it was selling surplus animals had ties to private hunting ranches.