London Zoo employee feeds a giraffe
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Breeding programmes designed to save critically endangered species are being jeopardised by Brexit, London Zoo has warned.
Bosses say they are being prevented from transferring animals such as rhinos and giraffes due to red tape created by the UK’s departure from the EU.
About 1,400 animals used to be transferred each year between British aquariums or zooms and those in Europe. However, the number plummeted to just over 200 in 2022.
More than 75 groups have signed a letter urging the Government to do more to fix the problem.
Signatories include Sea Life London Aquarium, Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey and Blackpool Zoo in Warwickshire.
Zoos‘ small populations mean it is essential that they swap animals for breeding programmes to keep the gene pool as broad as possible.
A new EU animal health regulation came into force post-Brexit that created new controls on the import of animals and plants into the EU, known as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks.
Many of those checks need to be carried out at border control posts, which are usually set up by private enterprises. A few exist at airports in the EU, but so far there are none at French ports, creating an effective ban on the import of any large animal.
London Zoo said that before Brexit, it transferred 400 animals a year. Last year it moved only 38.
Dr Jo Judge, CEO of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said: “Government has not replaced the framework that lets zoo animals move easily between Britain and the EU. The red tape swamp has made it extremely difficult for zoos and aquariums to fully partake in the international conservation programmes that are so important to many species.”
“We are facing a biodiversity crisis and need to be coming together more than ever to save species from extinction.”
Malcolm Fitzpatrick, Chief Zoological Officer at the Zoological Society of London, which runs London Zoo, said: “The UK Government and the EU must urgently come together to help the UK conservation community continue their vital work saving species from extinction.
“With the world’s biodiversity under more pressure than ever, a new path must be forged through the current red tape to allow conservationists to resume a full programme of international collaboration - protecting threatened species.”
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been contacted for comment.
