DUBLIN ZOO HAS strongly denied allegations of mistreatment of animals in the zoo which were made in the Seanad today.

Speaking this morning on a Green Party animal welfare motion, Labour Senator Annie Hoey read excerpts from a protected disclosure regarding the zoo.

Hoey said that she had recently held meetings with current and former members of staff at Dublin Zoo, and through them she had “been made aware of a number of breaches” of the five freedoms which animals are internationally recognised to be entitled to.

These include the freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury and disease, the freedom to express normal and natural behaviour and freedom from fear and distress.

Hoey said that she had been on the phone “late last night, hearing more stories I don’t have time to go through today”.

The statement she read out was from a Dublin Zoo whistleblower who said they had “no option” but to go down that route. The whistleblower claimed, for example, that a female zebra died after complications from a tooth extraction in December 2020. “Staff were extremely distraught after witnessing the zebra’s treatment,” said Hoey.

Hoey went on to read the whistleblower’s account of a dying giraffe named Maeve who staff were told “was on quality of life assessment”, but Hoey said the whistleblower said “Maeve has not been observed consistently or been assessed to determine her quality of life and there was no quality of life assessment filled out from March until her death”.

“This should never have happened to Maeve or her keepers,” Hoey said of the details around Maeve’s death. She said staff were “offered counselling” following the incident.

“I saw photos of her gaunt frame and her bones sticking out and she was clearly an extremely unwell animal,” Hoey continued.

The zoo has stated in response that: “At no time did any member of staff come forward to Dublin Zoo regarding issues raised in the Seanad today. These are serious and upsetting allegations, for which we were not contacted to fact check.”

“We would encourage the Senator to view the two most recent inspection reports from the Department of Housing, Local Heritage and Government.”

The zoo criticised the fact that it did not have the opportunity to address the allegations before they were made public by Senator Hoey today and stated:

“These claims have unfairly undermined the incredible hard work and dedication of Dublin Zoo’s highly committed team of employees and volunteers who live and breathe Dublin Zoo’s purpose, mandate and animal welfare, on a daily basis.”

Dublin Zoo stated that it has invited Senator Hoey to Dublin Zoo to discuss the allegations and to learn more about the animal care standards in Dublin Zoo.

It has also sent the senator copies of animal welfare reports including a report from May 2022 on animal welfare standards “that found Dublin Zoo to be ‘a modern facility which, in our opinion, is well run and has the welfare of the animals it cares for at the heart of each decision made by the operators’.”

Hoey said she has seen footage or photographs of the animals she mentioned in the Seanad today.

She added that she had “pages and pages” of testimony from current and former staff.

She spoke about the case of a Harry, a silverback male gorilla who died in 2016. Hoey said “keepers consistently raised concerns leading up to his death” including that his “behaviour was abnormal [and] he was losing weight”. 

She said she had to sanitise the details of his death as she could not bring herself to read them aloud, but said she saw photos of him towards the end of his life and “he suffered greatly”.

The whistleblower’s disclosure also claimed that two crested macaws went missing from the zoo in 2019 and that in early 2022 a mangabey monkey went missing.