Belgrade Zoo

[Guest guest]

Belgrade zoo

 

I am a concerned citizen asking for guidance on how to help the animals

who reside at the Belgrade city zoo. Built in 1936, on six hectares of

rocky fortress, this privately operated zoo is among the oldest in

Europe. It is located in the Belgrade city center, on city property. It

has approximately 2.000 animals of about 200 species. Many big animals

are in very small cages. Many animals look distressed. They often show

signs of " stereotypic behavior, " such as pacing, head-bobbing,

neck-twisting, bar-biting and sucking, coprophagia, over-grooming, and

self-mutilation. Many animals have been born who are not in the zoo,

including tigers, bears, and a hippo. What has become of them?

The Orang-utan Trade

Only about 20,000 orang-utans still live freely on the islands of Borneo

and Sumatra. Orang-utans are highly prized by zoos, circuses, animal

trainers in the entertainment business and wealthy private collectors.

Because of their rarity, orang-utan babies fetch a high price - as high

as $50,000 in the United States.

<http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/cantor01.htm#_ftn10> [10]

Trappers usually kill the mothers - and sometimes other adults and

babies - to obtain one young orang-utan. Taking into account the high

mortality rate suffered by captured animals, animal rights advocates

estimate that certainly two or three, and perhaps as many as ten,

animals die for each one who survives the long journey to a zoo or other

destination.

<http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/cantor01.htm#_ftn11> [11]

The case of one group of captured orang-utans, known as the 'Bangkok

Six', has focused public attention on the international primate trade.

The six orang-utans were transported without food or water from Borneo

to Singapore to Bangkok, Thailand, stuffed into two wooden crates marked

'birds'. The crates, their lids nailed shut, had only pencil-diameter

holes for ventilation. One box, carrying three orang-utans, was shipped

upside-down. Had officials at Bangkok airport not become curious enough

about the un-bird-like cries coming from the crates to X-ray them, the

animals would have gone to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and from there possibly

to a Moscow zoo.

The shipment, marked 'personal baggage', also included two sia-mangs,

who were presumably to go to Belgrade Zoo as payment for overseeing the

orang-utans' passage to Moscow. Although Thailand is a member of CITES,

in 1990 it allowed the import and export of non-native species.

<http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/cantor01.htm#_ftn12> [12]

In fact, officials at Bangkok airport seized the orangutans and siamangs

not because of their endangered status, but because they were labelled

incorrectly.

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:hv7yYx-e6kMJ:www.animal-rights-librar

y.com/texts-m/cantor01.htm+Belgrade+Zoo

<http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:hv7yYx-e6kMJ:www.animal-rights-libra

ry.com/texts-m/cantor01.htm+Belgrade+Zoo & hl=sr> & hl=sr

MIAMI, Florida--Victor Bernal, 57, director of zoos and parks for Mexico

state, Mexico, was convicted on May 18 of trying to bootleg a gorilla

from Florida who was actually a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent in

disguise. Bernal paid $97,500 for the " gorilla, " in one of two stings

set up by convicted primate trafficker Matthew Block of Worldwide

Primates as part of an attempted plea bargain. The other sting nabbed

alleged bird's egg smuggler Clement Solano.

Bernal is to be sentenced on July 18. In the most recent similar case, a

Texas exotic bird dealer who was convicted of smuggling parrots was on

April 28 fined $10,000 and sentenced to five years in prison.

Block is currently appealing a 13-month sentence issued for his part in

the 1990 " Bangkok Six " orangutan-smuggling case, and was recently fined

$16,000 for multiple Animal Welfare Act violations, also dating to 1990.

A major laboratory primate supplier, whose customers include most of the

laboratories whose work on primates has become controversial, Block may

escape jail time entirely, according to International Primate Protection

League president Shirley McGreal, who exposed the Bangkok Six case,

because key documents have disappeared.

McGreal has asked the American Civil Liberties Union to investigate the

entrapment aspects of both of the Block-arranged stings, pointing out

that neither Bernal nor the other arrestees had previous criminal

records. Further, she said, " No animals were shipped, and no animals

suffered or died, as happened in the Bangkok Six case. " The defendants

were never offered the chance to plea-bargain, as Block was; they spent

10 days in jail while trying to arrange bond, while Block has never been

jailed; and one defendant, Maria Villada, lost a baby she had tried to

conceive for seven years when she miscarried at her arraignment.

Ironically, former Belgrade Zoo volunteer Milka Knezevic-Ivaskovic, who

helped expose the Bangkok Six case by revealing how her boss, Vukosav

Bojovic, helped set it up, may become the only person to serve time in

connection with it. A Serbian court on January 26 upheld her three-month

jail sentence and fine for purportedly libeling Bojovic---who is under

indictment in the U.S. as result of the same evidence.

Knezevic-Ivaskovic has appealed again.

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:dUSsod4umMwJ:www.animalpeoplenews.org

/94/5/frame_up.html+Belgrade+Zoo

<http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:dUSsod4umMwJ:www.animalpeoplenews.or

g/94/5/frame_up.html+Belgrade+Zoo & hl=sr> & hl=sr

Please help us by voicing your concerns. Write a letter to the

following:

 

Vojislav Kostunica, Office of Prime Minister

predsednikvladesrbije

 

President of Serbia , Predsednik Svetozar Marovic

kabinet

 

Ministry of Interior

muprs

 

Ministry of Justice

kabinet

 

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management

office