Demo Report - Whipsnade Zoo
April 10, 2008 – 1:34 am
Despite the bad weather a small group of us turned up on Easter Monday to demonstrate outside Whipsnade Zoo near Dunstable in Bedfordshire to mark Zoo Awareness Day. The fact that it was snowing for most of the morning made it difficult for some protesters to attend, however it also had a dramatic effect on visitor numbers, which appeared to be severely down on previous years’ attendance.
Local police had negotiated with Whipsnade zoo prior to the demonstration and as a result we were allowed to stand close to the zoo entrance and subway leading from the car park. This gave us greater visibility with our placards and meant we were able to hand out leaflets to the majority of people visiting the zoo either by foot or in cars. Most people were happy to accept a leaflet from us and hopefully after having read this they may think twice about visiting zoos in the future.
By about 1pm we were all frozen cold and visitors had slowed almost to a halt so we decided to call it a day. On the whole it felt as though the demo had been worthwhile with many leaflets and children’s leaflets distributed to the public. The protest made the local newspaper, which also reported that the shooting of Jonnie the chimp had been a ‘breach of protocol’. The full report can be seen at http://www.lb-news.co.uk/lbnews-news/displayarticle.asp?id=301386. Photos from the demo can be seen in our photo gallery.
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