There are two certainties in the wake of last week’s explosive story about Berkley the bear’s drive-thru visit to the local Dairy Queen.
First, Discovery Wildlife Park absolutely should hire a communications expert for advice on all future safety and conservation messages.
Secondly, the Innisfail zoo did not deserve the massive and often shoddy negative media publicity the story generated across the country.
News organizations pounced on the titillating angle of the Kodiak bruin inside a truck celebrating her first birthday with ice cream treats in the drive-thru. The video of the visit on the park’s Facebook site was eagerly snatched up, with the first 21 seconds having DQ owner Mark Kemball gushing how the bear treat was a "winner.”
But hold on. Kemball’s preamble was all staged and at the 21-second mark a voice-over from park zookeeper Serena Bos comes in on the importance of staying inside a vehicle when bears are by the highway. Sadly, however, in today’s news business Bos’s public safety message was more of an irritant. The first 21 seconds set the tone for all stories and headlines, and by Jan. 17 it was all downhill for the zoo, with angry wildlife groups expressing indignation that poor Berkley was a victim of negligence.
And then the Alberta government jumped in to announce its probe, with one communications guy charging the video was "very disturbing.” Within 48 hours the zoo, and by extension the Town of Innisfail, had been portrayed as just backwater operations with little regard for wildlife and public safety.
However, viewers and readers of the stories were hard-pressed to find what measures the zoo put in place to ensure safety for the video shoot. It was held at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 14, an hour and half before the restaurant opened for the public. The bear was chained at all times. There were four park employees present for the entire shoot. These facts were buried in stories, or not included at all.
And then there was the piling-on phenomena. Some news outlets also chose to mention that Zoocheck, a national zoo watchdog agency, found more than 50 violations of the Alberta zoo standards at Innisfail’s zoo during a 2015 review. "Some of them would be relatively minor, others not,” said Zoocheck spokesman Rob Laidlaw. That does not sound like the same sort of horror that ultimately shut down Three Hills’ GuZoo in 2015.
For now Innisfail’s zoo, which has an admirable record for caring for orphaned animals and those in stress – like the ones threatened at the Calgary Zoo during the 2013 flood crisis, will move forward. Lessons have been learned.
Naysayers, meanwhile, will just have to find another story, which in today’s digital world is just a click away.
Johnnie Bachusky is the editor of the Innisfail Province.
