ANTI ZOO PROTESTS IN MANILA

June 6, 2006

r.freedom.of.zoo.creatures.html

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

*Animal rights group bats for freedom of zoo creatures*

WEARING prison suits and monkey masks and holding a banner and signs that

read " Zoos: Cruel Animal Prisons, " members of People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals (Peta) Asia-Pacific will protest outside the Manila

Zoo. The protest comes as Filipinos prepare to mark their 108th year of

independence from Spanish colonizers on June 12, and Peta is urging the

first democracy in Asia to again lead the way by becoming the first zoo-free

country in the region:

Why is Peta in an uproar? Animals in the wild spend their entire lives with

their close-knit families. But animals in zoos are separated from their

families as babies and are sentenced to an eternity of boredom, crippling

loneliness, and even abuse, leading to self-mutilation and other abnormal

and self-destructive behaviors, called " zoochosis. "

* Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President

" Zoos claim to educate people and preserve species, but they fall short on

both counts, " says Peta Asia-Pacific Campaigns Manager Rochelle Regodon.

" Zoos present us with a distorted view of wildlife. Even the biggest zoo is

nothing compared to the vastness of the wild. Visitors don't see normal

animal behavior because their natural needs—space, exercise, privacy, and

mental stimulation —aren't met. We're better off watching nature

documentaries, reading about animals in books or on Web sites, or traveling

to their natural habitats. "

The Manila Zoo has an elephant isolated in a concrete enclosure with little

grass. Elephants can walk up to 48 kilometers every day in the wild—but the

entire zoo measures 5.5 hectares, or 0.055 square kilometers.

" Animals in zoos are serving a lifetime sentence with no parole, " says

Regodon. " Let's just leave them in the wild and use zoos as sanctuaries for

animals rescued from circuses, marine parks, and other exploitative forms of

entertainment. "

Peta Asia-Pacific is an affiliate of Peta, the world's largest animal rights

organization, with more than 1 million members and supporters worldwide.

For more information, please visit WildlifePimps.com.

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