The Greater Vancouver Zoo has taken heat for a picture of an emaciated moose in it’s care and there are renewed calls for it to be shut down.

Glenn Grant, General Manager from the BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops, appeared on the NL Morning News and was asked if thinks they might be getting unfairly vilified.

“I think some of the criticisms right now are unjustified.”

Grant says animals do get sick while in care and he feels for the staff in Vancouver.

He says there’s not much the Wildlife Park would have done differently. “Maybe the only thing that we may have done and maybe they intended to do was put up some signage that this animal is under veterinary care.”

“We’ve had an animal that is under the weather, not doing very well and we’ve put up a sign that says yes you’ll notice this animal either underweight, has a limp of has an injury to it that it might have got from another animal in the habitat, but we’ll put a sign up saying this animal is under veterinary care for a specific reason.”

Grant added, the animal in question poses a unique problem, “A moose is one of the hardest animals to keep captivity or in human care because of it’s diet.”

“We had problems with the moose we had here of sometimes not maintaining it’s weight. We just can’t seem to replicate the diet that they have in the wild when they’re in human care.”

Grants says it’s one animal we won’t be seeing anytime soon. “Actually a moose isn’t the best animal to be housed somewhere and hence we won’t have another one at the park.”

“If someone can find the right mix then terrific, it’ a beautiful, majestic animal that people love to see but you won’t see one at the park again.”