Animal Welfare Adrift With Proposed Noah’s Ark Theme Park

Kentucky is having job problems, like the rest of the country. Its solution? Build an ark.

An article in the New York Times states that Kentucky has “promised generous tax incentives to a group of entrepreneurs who plan to construct a full-size replica of Noah’s ark, load it with animals and actors, and make it the centerpiece of a Bible-based tourist attraction called Ark Encounter.”

There’s a lot wrong with this picture. But I won’t get into the Constitutional and First Amendment issues here, or talk about how most of the jobs that would be created by this theme park would be low-wage, at best. I’m most concerned about the animals right now, and you should be, too.

“Animals including giraffes — but only small, young giraffes — will be kept in pens on board,” the article states. Mike Zovath, senior VP of Answers in Genesis, the company that brought you the Creation Museum, now responsible for spearheading this project, said the following: “We think that God would probably have sent healthy juvenile-sized animals that weren’t fully grown yet, so there would be plenty of room … We want to show how Noah would have taken care of them, taken care of waste management, taken care of water needs and food needs.”

I think we can all agree that human beings will be responsible for maintaining, cleaning, and managing this theme park, not God. Which means that when these “juvenile-sized animals” grow up, humans will be responsible for them. Where will they go? And where will they come from? Whether they’re stolen from their natural habitats that span hundreds, if not thousands, of miles, or whether they’re the unfortunate offspring of other captive-bred animals, their futures on the fake ark — in pens with limited natural sunlight, forced to endure several hours of loud, unceasing human presence, in unnaturally close proximity to natural predators or prey — would be bleak.

And if the park plans to sell the animals when they outgrow their enclosures, their futures could be bleaker — zoos rarely accept privately owned exotic animals into their programs, which means the wild animal refugees of the Kentucky Ark could be euthanized, or sold to canned hunting operations — enclosed spaces where hunters pay for the privilege of shooting exotic animals in a barrel. Or they could end up like Tony, the truck stop tiger, when Management no longer finds them useful.

Mr. Zovath said that Ark Encounter “is designed to be a model of environmentally sensitive development … I don’t believe in global warming,” he said, “but I do believe we’ve got to be good stewards of everything God’s given us.”

I’ll tell you what’s not environmentally sensitive — removing baby animals from their mothers and sticking them in pens a fraction the size of their natural habitat for amusement. I don’t call that good stewardship. Do you?

If Kentucky wants to build this ark, it should be built with robotic animals. With screen projected animals. Or maybe it shouldn’t be built at all. In any event, the plan’s proponents shouldn’t insult the public by pretending that this place will be good for the wild creatures it imprisons or the environment. Tell Kentucky Governor Steven L. Beshear, and the state of Kentucky, that the baby animals they’d like to conscript for this deserve more.

Photo credit: chrstphre