Dan Ashe’s management of the Affiliation of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) has change into a case examine in institutional self-sabotage. Like Neville Chamberlain’s misguided perception that he might negotiate with these dedicated to destruction, Ashe continues to pursue “dialogue” with organizations whose express mission is eliminating the very establishments he represents. This appeasement technique has yielded predictable outcomes: repeated humiliation, strategic defeats, and rising injury to the zoo neighborhood’s public standing.
Legitimizing the Enemy
Essentially the most damaging facet of Ashe’s method isn’t his particular person media failures, although these are quite a few, however his systematic legitimization of the anti-zoo motion. By repeatedly platforming organizations like PETA and the Humane Society of the US at AZA occasions, Ashe has granted official recognition to teams that view his members as essentially illegitimate.
This isn’t a case of partaking with constructive critics or good-faith skeptics. PETA has said clearly that it considers zoos to be “prisons” and campaigns actively for his or her closure. HSUS shares this final objective, regardless of sometimes utilizing extra reasonable language. These organizations don’t search reform or enchancment—they search elimination. Ashe’s resolution to offer them talking slots and exhibition house at AZA conferences represents a elementary betrayal of his fiduciary duties.
The Swaziland Elephant Catastrophe
Ashe’s participation within the New York Instances journal piece on Swaziland elephant imports completely encapsulates his strategic incompetence. Confronted with an easy conservation story—elephants saved from euthanization by placement in accredited services—Ashe someway managed handy his opponents a public relations victory.
The author’s anti-zoo bias was readily obvious and simply discernible. His 2011 assertion that zoos “needs to be obviated” was accessible by primary analysis. Any competent communications technique would have both declined participation or ready extensively for a hostile interview. As a substitute, Ashe walked unprepared into an obvious ambush, offering quotes that had been used to painting zoo situations as “torturous” and all the elephant switch program as problematic.
The aftermath was much more embarrassing. The author subsequently gave interviews reiterating his anti-zoo positions whereas taking private pictures at Ashe, demonstrating that the AZA CEO had been performed from the start. This wasn’t dialogue—it was manipulation, with Ashe because the prepared sufferer.
The PETA Connection
The elephant import story reveals one other layer of Ashe’s strategic blindness. PETA had beforehand litigated to dam elephant transfers from Swaziland, with their attorneys arguing in courtroom that elephants can be higher off lifeless than in human care. This is identical group that Ashe has welcomed into AZA conferences, legitimizing their presence among the many very professionals they search to remove.
PETA’s place on elephant transfers—that demise is preferable to zoo life—exposes the novel nature of their agenda. These aren’t animal welfare advocates searching for higher situations; they’re abolitionists preferring animal demise to human care. Ashe’s continued engagement with such teams reveals both profound naivety or willful blindness to their true nature.
The Penalties of Appeasement
Ashe’s appeasement technique has created tangible hurt for AZA members. Each platform he offers to anti-zoo activists generates content material utilized in campaigns in opposition to particular person services. Each legitimization of radical positions makes it more durable for zoo professionals to defend their work in native communities. Each strategic give up weakens all the business’s place in public debates about animal welfare and conservation.
The injury extends past public relations to the animals themselves. Trendy accredited zoos contribute considerably to conservation by breeding applications, analysis, and public training. Efforts to undermine public assist for these establishments in the end hurt the species they work to guard. Ashe’s failures don’t simply embarrass his career—they threaten the conservation mission that justifies all the endeavor.
A Disaster of Management
The comparability to Neville Chamberlain isn’t merely a rhetorical flourish—it’s an correct evaluation of Ashe’s elementary misunderstanding of battle dynamics. Like Chamberlain, Ashe appears to imagine that good intentions and a willingness to compromise can overcome ideological opposition dedicated to whole victory. Historical past reveals how such methods usually finish.
Skilled associations exist to advance their members’ pursuits, to not present platforms for his or her destruction. Zoo and aquarium professionals deserve management that acknowledges threats and responds strategically, not a CEO who repeatedly empowers these searching for to remove their life’s work. Till Ashe abandons his appeasement technique or AZA finds new management, the group will proceed to endure self-inflicted wounds that weaken its capability to serve each its members and the animals of their care.
