Ark Encounter is a proposed creationist theme park centered around a 510-foot "replica" of Noah’s Ark to be built in Kentucky. The park is based on a literal interpretation of a 6,000-year-old Earth and biblical global flood, and is financed in part by state tax breaks and municipal junk bonds.

From the first announcement of the park in 2009, live animal displays inside a giant wooden boat were part of the plan. That's kind of what the story of the Ark is all about. Just how they are going to jam lots of animals into an artificial, closed environment with loud tourists and a bunch of other animals (some of which are predators), has been a bit hazy.

In a 2010 interview,Mike Zovath, Senior Vice President of Answers in Genesis, who is overseeing the construction of the ark, explained:

"the ark is to be built with wooden pegs and timber framing by Amish builders, Mr. Zovath said. Animals including giraffes — but only small, young giraffes — will be kept in pens on board.

'We think that God would probably have sent healthy juvenile-sized animals that weren’t fully grown yet, so there would be plenty of room,' said Mr. Zovath, a retired Army lieutenant colonel heading the ark project.”

That's pretty much in line with published statements from the owner of the Ark Park, Answers in Genesis. By their estimates, 16,000 land animals and birds, including dinosaurs, were on the ark. Before you ask, provisioning for dinosaurs wasn't a problem for Noah:

"Carnivorous dinosaurs—if any were meat-eaters before the Flood—could have eaten dried meat, reconstituted dried meat, or slaughtered animals."

This is an artist's illustration of one of the animal confinement bays inside the planned Ark, from a video released this year (2013).

If I saw something like that in my neighbor's garage, I'd call animal welfare. The wooden poop diversion system shown in this photo will not hold up under a constant bombardment of feces, uric acid, and ammonia.

I've helped manage and care for a wide assortment of wild and domestic animals, big and small, over the course of my career. There is a HUGE amount of paperwork, documentation, and inspections involved in having captive animals. It is, frankly, a gigantic pain in the ass, and the animals are healthier and receive better care because of all the annoying, complex rules. That's why the Ark project set off all sorts of alarm bells in my head.

Keeping animals in captivity is really, really difficult. By gathering animals together in an artificial environment you concentrate all the poop and pee, and just make it easier for diseases to rapidly spread. (Got a kid in daycare? You know exactly what I'm talking about.)

As caretakers we have an ethical duty to provide captive animals with the food and environment they need to stay healthy. Doing that takes specialized knowledge. If you have raptors or game birds, they can get bumblefoot just from the wrong kind of perches. Feeding an imbalanced diet, or just not noticing a raptor is off its food, can tip a bird into a metabolic crash. Ducks can get a fatal type of herpes that spreads rapidly, despite our best efforts.

Since the junk bond issue brought the Ark Encounter back into the news again, I thought it might be interesting to call the Ark folks up and ask some questions about their animal care. Mr. Zovath was kind enough to chat with me on the phone this week.

Some of what we talked about was good news. Happily, Zovath backed off his earlier statements about a zoo full of juvenile animals removed from parental care:

"We originally thought about a lot more exotic animals on the ark, but as we got into the design and the code restrictions, we realized we weren’t going to be able to do what we wanted to do. Because the ark is what it is, people do expect to encounter some live animals while they are walking around... but we had to modify what we planned do with large animals on board. We’ve gone from trying to have an actual zoo inside with exotic animals to mostly farm animals. Little farm animals, like mini-cows."

I asked Mr. Zovath about the diagrams currently on the Ark Encounter website which show plans for bears, sloths, koalas, deer, monkeys, bats, owls, and "possom" [sic], among other animals. His response was that the diagrams were from the initial conception of the park in 2010, and that they are marked as "layout subject to change."

He also mentioned that they would use animatronic animals or stuffed display animals rather than live animals for exotic species. This is another bit of good news; I'd predict hoof problems in a giraffe within a week of standing on wood saturated with feces and urine.

Using "small farm animals" isn't a solution for that problem, though. Laminitis is a common problem for cows and other hoofed mammals, and it's associated with poor diet and standing on hard floors.

Zovath went on to say:

"Those were some early ideas about how we’re going to lay things out, and we are going to fine tune those as we get the final plans back from the architects. The architects are planning the building, lighting, air conditioning, ventilation. Once that is done, then our display design team will take those plans... we have 132 bays that we’ll have available for exhibits."

So, not until after the design plans are set will anyone involved in animal care or with knowledge of what it would take to maintain a zoo inside a multi-story wooden structure have input. But that's probably ok, since most experts would say "this is a really bad idea."

Ark Cross Section, based upon plans from the Book of Genesis. Image © Answers in Genesis

I'm not, frankly, convinced that this structure is going to be a very pleasant place for human animals, either. It's a wooden box about the length of 1.7 football fields, and it's going to be full of people talking and stomping around. Add into that multimedia presentations, live non-human animals, all the bodily products of those animals, and multiple food service areas. It's going to be pretty noisy and smelly, even with a state-of-the-art HVAC system.

But the fact that how to house and care for their animals is the LAST part of their planning process – a plan to build what is supposed to be a historical artifact made specifically to hold animals – says a lot.

This is an attraction that exists to promote a religious message. It's not about animals at all. The welfare of the animals and their biology is less important than their ability to reinforce a religious myth.

This isn't a new issue for creationists. The Museum of Creation and Earth (formerly run by the Institute for Creation Research, and not connected to Answers in Genesis) was recently denied membership in the San Diego Museum Council, in part because of "their animal care and the protocol and care of their exhibitions...a lot of areas that were not in line with membership guidelines."

Very specific, science-based guidelines on how to house captive animals exist. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), an international body of scientists and experts in animal care, has published their AZA Accreditation standards for 2014 (92 page PDF). AZA Accreditation is the gold standard for zoos; it's not something all zoos can achieve. However, most reputable zoos do try to incorporate AZA Standards where and when they can. For many captive animal species there are very clear exhibit design guidelines about shelter, water, space, and behavioral enrichment.

As an example, let's look at a skunk or a weasel, a likely small mammal candidate species for the Ark. The AZA Mustelid Handbook suggests 29 square meters (34.7 square yards) as a minimum exhibit size. Go back and look at that diagram above, or one of the ark schematics I've linked to. Nope.

Want to see an ark? Go to a modern, AZA-accredited zoo or aquarium, hubs for animal conservation and education. The black-footed ferret, an adorable little animal, has a chance at survival entirely due to captive breeding programs. That's one of hundreds of species with survival plans connected to zoos.

It's not a perfect analogy; for a lot of animals, they will never be able to exit their "ark." Sometimes saving species in captivity is limited in what it can accomplish because of habitat loss and hunting.

Modern zoos and aquariums are involved in research, breeding, and conservation of animals all over the globe. They share information and best practices. They create new knowledge and plan for the future.

Creationists... reconstruct old stories from a book. That's fine, and best of luck to them. But animals should not suffer and die for their design sins.

Note: images used in this post are copyright Ark Encounter, and reproduced under Fair Use. I expect civility in the comments on this post.