Brits urged not to visit zoos with great apes amid calls to free our 'cousins'

Great apes kept in zoos suffer from chronic stress, obesity, heart disease, and poor mental health, warns a new report.

There are more than 1,500 gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans currently held in European zoos, with more than 300 in the UK alone.

But Born Free say these highly intelligent and profoundly social creatures experience traumatic births, high rates of stillbirths, maternal rejection, and instances of infanticide as a result of captivity. The report also says great apes suffer in environments that will never meet their complex physical, emotional, and social needs. As a result Zoo guidelines recommend medicating great apes with antidepressants to alleviate stress.

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The charity is calling for "jungle not jail" and urged the public not to visit attractions which exploit our closest cousins for profit. Ian Redmond, Born Free Advisor and World-renowned Great Ape Expert, who studied wild gorillas alongside the late Dr Dian Fossey said, “Having had the privilege of spending time with great apes in their natural habitat, where they take their own decisions, I find it increasingly uncomfortable seeing their lives in captivity. And having surveyed apes in UK zoos 35 years ago, I know some individuals who have faced the same daily routine for nearly four decades. The zoo industry and the Government must take note of changing public attitudes and, based on scientific evidence of ape cognition and ecology, heed the recommendations in Born Free’s new report.”

Germany keeps the greatest number of great apes in Europe with 349 in zoos followed by the UK with 315 - 14 bonobos, 143 chimpanzees, 95 gorillas and 63 orangutans.

Dudley Zoo currently has six orangutans including three-year-old Joe born there. During the Mirror’s visit Ian Redmond tells us how he is the great grandchild of Joe - believed to have been captured from the wild aged two in 1962. He spent the rest of his life in the zoo until he died in 1995. Ian said: “The thought of him being locked up for four decades is painful.”

Born Free’s report highlights how great apes are our closest living relatives, with immense capacity for learning - they are known to pass cultural knowledge down through the generations. Despite this, Born Free says we continue to incarcerate our closest cousins in zoos where they are denied agency over fundamental aspects of their lives – how they live, who they live with, who they mate with, or how to escape conflict. As Our Captive Cousins: The Plight of Great Apes in Zoos

The research also outlines the many, often fatal, instances where a great ape’s inability to escape conflict, due to enclosures which lack the space and complexity of wild environments, has resulted in serious injury or death. Tragically, on occasions where great apes have escaped their zoo enclosures, humans have also been injured, and the animals typically pay with their lives.

It also questions claims by zoos that the keeping and breeding of great apes in captivity is somehow important for their conservation stating that zoo-bred great apes are genetically and behaviourally unsuitable for release into the wild. As confirmed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), releasing zoo- bred apes into the wild poses serious risks to wild populations.

Shockingly, the report also highlights how European breeding programmes have produced an excess of male great apes; these ‘surplus’ individuals face a deeply uncertain future.

The charity’s report is particularly pertinent as it comes just months after the long-awaited release of the UK government’s revised Standards of Modern Zoo Practice for Great Britain, set to take effect in May 2027. If implemented stringently and effectively, it is highly questionable if any UK zoos will be able to meet the new great ape welfare.

Will Travers OBE, Born Free’s Co-Founder and Executive President stated, “Wild great apes and the places they live in around the world are crying out for help. Their conservation is not enhanced by keeping thousands locked up in zoos. That teaches us nothing. Treating them as living commodities, to be stared at rather than admired and celebrated, shows us that, while humans may dominate this planet of the apes, we know the price of everything but the value of nothing.”

Chris Packham, Naturalist and Broadcaster said the report is “a stark reminder of humanity’s complex and challenging relationship with zoos. He added: “All the evidence to prove radical change is now imperative is here. Great Apes mustn’t be imprisoned for our entertainment any longer.”

Chris Lewis, Born Free’s Captivity Research and Policy Manager said: “Many of us are fascinated by great apes due to the similarities we see between themselves and us.

"When confined in zoos, it also means we are uniquely positioned to empathise with their suffering and their lack of freedom. With less than half of Britons recently stating it was acceptable to continue the keeping of great apes in zoos, it is yet another example that modern society is increasingly conscious and concerned by the keeping of such highly intelligent animals in captivity. To continue to confine these complex beings for our entertainment can no longer be justified on the basis of science, welfare, or animal and public safety.”

Dr Jo Judge, CEO of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and aquariums said: “This report fails to recognise that good zoos are working every day to improve the lives of great apes, BIAZA member zoos are at the very forefront of animal welfare. Member zoos have to adhere to the highest standards for animal care, as well as legally adhering to the strictest zoo licensing system in the world, with the new standards including a specific chapter on the care of great apes. All ape species are either Endangered or Critically Endangered – they are at risk of being lost forever, good zoos are a crucial tool in the fightback against extinction.

“Every single great ape in the care of good zoos is known by name and character, provided with round-the-clock expert care and lives in specially engineered habitats. The fact that the life span of great apes in human care often far exceeds that of wild counterparts is testament to this extraordinary care.”

“Great apes are among the most brilliant and complex animals in the care of zoos and safari parks. Visitors cannot help but be inspired by the rich and busy lives of our closest relatives. To feel the power of a gorilla or see the skilful clambering of an orangutan or the social behaviour of a chimpanzee family is to be inspired to care for these amazing animals. These are animals living rich and meaningful lives.”

“The simple fact is that good zoos are not just leaders in great ape welfare, but are also leaders in conservation. Good, modern zoos are guardians of the natural world and conduct and support many, many conservation projects to save great apes in the wild. Whether that is conserving 2 million hectares of Cameroon rainforest, removing snares and preventing poachers in Uganda, providing veterinary expertise for rescued apes in sanctuaries across the world, or removing unsustainable palm oil from our food chain to protect wild orangutans.

“In the wild, apes face enormous threats; hunting, disease, deforestation and habitat loss as well as the impacts of climate change. Imagine the painful death a chimp faces being caught in a snare, or the trauma facing orphan apes as they are ripped away from their mothers for the illegal wildlife trade, that everywhere they go their homes are cleared for mining and logging.

“That feeling we all have of wanting to do right for the natural world, for our closest cousins, is exactly what drives BIAZA members to provide such incredible care for the great apes. As a fellow wildlife charity we encourage Born Free to come and find out about our work to deliver a world class standard of animal care and our leading conservation work.”

“Zoo conservation is making an essential difference to wild apes. Everyone can be proud to support our brilliant zoos which provide homes where great apes can thrive.”

Captives: Reflections on encounters with apes behind bars by Ian Redmond

It doesn’t get any easier. After more than 50 years of visiting zoos around the world, you would think I’d get used to seeing apes in captivity.

Whilst I am still fascinated by every ape I encounter – their personality and individual story - as I leave each captive, I am still saddened by the restricted lives they lead. Having also had the good fortune to study gorillas and photograph or film chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans in their natural habitat, the contrast is stark.

Back in 1973 when I was a student, I visited Guy, London Zoo’s famous gorilla. He was then housed with Lomie, who had joined him as a five-year-old in 1969. But having been alone for 25 years, and captured in Cameroon as an infant, his social skills were limited and Guy didn’t father any offspring.

Between 1988 and 1991, I surveyed most of the apes, elephants and rhinos in the UK and Ireland for Zoo Check, visiting 86 exhibits in 32 zoos/safari parks, plus six circuses and a monastery. Of these, 29 zoos had gorillas, chimpanzees and/or orangutans and two of the circuses had chimpanzees.

Four decades later, some things have improved. Thankfully, performing apes and elephants in UK circuses are history. Many zoos that used to house one or two of each kind of ape now have more individuals of fewer species in appropriate social groups.

Outdoor enclosures are more varied and most have some natural vegetation (though usually trees are ringed with hot-wires to prevent apes from climbing them).

Two UK zoos, Howletts and Port Lympne (both owned by the Aspinall Foundation) are rewilding Kent-born gorillas in Congo and Gabon, and report successful breeding in the wild, but no other zoos are following this example.

Today, the numbers have changed somewhat (19 zoos with apes instead of 29 and 2 circuses in 1990), and more attention is paid to environmental enrichment in the better zoos, but the life of a captive ape is still one of social and sensory deprivation compared to a life in the wild

On 24th April 2025, Dublin Zoo announced the death of its “much-loved” female Northwest Bornean orangutan Leonie. The zoo said she was “an iconic presence since her arrival from Rotterdam Zoo in 1984” and that the 44-year-old “was at the heart of our orangutan family for four decades”. I checked my notes from 1988 and sure enough, I had watched and photographed Leonie, then aged seven, playing with Maggie, two years her junior, while their adult male cagemate, Sibu, lay in a heap and gave exaggerated yawns at the public.

My notes recorded that Leonie threw excrement at one noisy school party and begged for food from another group. Maggie tasted a damp patch on the concrete floor – there appeared to be no food or water freely available and the only enrichment was a swinging tyre.

As well as noisy children their soundscape included a children’s ride that played Fur Elise electronically.I have a lasting memory of Leonie as I left, face against the glass of her indoor quarters, a picture of boredom isolation and sensory deprivation compared to a life in the complex ecosystem in which orangutan species evolved to play a role as a keystone species.

The thought of her being locked up for four decades is painful. I don’t doubt that the keepers and public cared deeply for her but her every move, every decision – what to eat, where to sleep, with whom she could mate - was taken for her by humans.

For an intelligent autonomous being it wasn’t much of a life and unless more zoos begin rewilding the captives in their care, that is the prospect for each infant ape born in a zoo. If they survive into adulthood, they face 40, 50 or even 60 years of concrete and steel indoors, and an exercise yard with at best some grass and a climbing frame, but gazed upon constantly by crowds of humans.

According to online sources, Leonie had one infant, a son named Carl, now in Barcelona Zoo, and acted as a surrogate mother to Mujur, still in Dublin. On the face of it, for a female ape to give birth is a wonderful thing and incomparable in terms of environmental enrichment for the mother. But unless the breeding is part of a rewilding programme, reintroducing the species into suitable habitat within its historical range to restore its role as a keystone species to forests depleted of apes, then the question has to be asked: is it moral to encourage breeding for a lifetime in captivity?

About 10 years ago, a video of Leonie rescuing a bird from a lake went viral, demonstrating her innate compassion.

As more and more zoo visitors record interesting snippets of ape behaviour on their smartphones and post them on social media, more and more people are being surprised by the self-evident level of ape cognition.

The time is long overdue for a re-evaluation of the ethics of imprisoning apes (and other sentient, self-aware social animals) for zoos to provide a fun day out for the kids.

I hope this new report on apes in UK zoos will trigger such a public debate.