Singapore’s culture of intolerance towards wildlife ‘shocking’, says Jane Goodall
- The renowned conservationist told a conference that more education was required to counter a mindset in the city state that wild animals ‘belong in the zoo’
- She was in Singapore on Tuesday for a fundraising dinner of her NGO, which works with schools to increase conservation awareness
The 85-year-old, who revolutionised the world’s knowledge of chimpanzee behaviour close to 60 years ago, was responding to a question on Tuesday at the Human-Wildlife Co-Existence in Asia: Conflicts and Mitigation Conference 2019 at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre.
Robin Hicks, who volunteers at the city state’s Animal Concerns Research and Education Society, asked Goodall what Singapore could do about its culture of intolerance towards wildlife.
He gave examples of concerned citizens who have contacted the animal welfare charity to report snakes in parks or tropical birds near leisure centres, saying “these animals belong in the zoo”.
Goodall said she often learned something new from countries she visited and this was “often something shocking”. She remarked that she was not aware of this thinking that Hicks referred to and found it incongruous, especially at a time when “most of our kids are saying, ‘No, they shouldn’t be in any zoos. Animals should be in the wild’”, according to Today.
She identified education as the key to countering such ways of thinking, saying it was vital “to get children as young as possible out into nature, because once kids get out there, once they see how things grow, once they can watch spiders making a web, then they become absolutely fascinated”.