(IN): Zoos and Aquaria: Deathtraps, Not Sanctuaries

[Guest guest]

The link to this in the earlier post got patched up with my name and it

fails to open.

 

Here is the text and correct link below.

 

Thanks,

 

Azam

 

http://www.petaindia.com/zoos.html

 

Zoos and Aquaria: Deathtraps, Not Sanctuaries

 

*‘Our zoos are still in the Dark Ages. Admitting an animal into an Indian

zoo is like passing its death sentence.’*

–Iqbal Malik, a member of the Central Zoo Authority’s Technical Committee

 

Interest in and affection for animals leads many well-meaning people to

visit zoos and aquaria. Although zoos and aquaria claim to educate people

and preserve species, they frequently fall short on both counts. Most zoo

enclosures are quite small, and labels provide little more information than

the species’ name, diet and natural range. The animals’ normal behaviour is

seldom discussed, much less observed, because their natural needs are seldom

met.

 

In 1999, at the Prince of Wales Zoo in Lucknow, 72-year-old elephant Damini

died while grieving the loss of the only elephant she had ever known. In

captivity, birds’ wings are often clipped so they cannot fly, aquatic

animals often have little water and animals who naturally live in large

herds or family groups are often kept alone or, at most, in pairs. Animals

are closely confined, lack privacy and have little opportunity for mental

stimulation or physical exercise, resulting in abnormal and self-destructive

behaviour such as repeated head-bobbing, biting cage bars, pacing, producing

stillborns, playing with excrement and severely mutilating themselves,

called ‘zoochosis’. In 1999, Lalita, a lion being kept at the Heera Golden

Zoo, resorted to licking herself all day long out of sheer boredom. After

she was seized from the zoo, a veterinarian extracted two huge balls of hair

that had led to a5-foot block in her

intestines<http://newsarchives.indiainfo.com/spotlight/zoos/history1.html>

..

 

According to Maneka Gandhi, the former minister of Social Justice and

Empowerment, more than 60 per cent of animals in zoos have marks on their

heads from banging their heads against the bars out of frustration and

misery. Many of these animals die prematurely as a result. Statistics show

that 10 to 15 percent of animals die every year in India’s 258 zoos.

 

*Protection or Abuse?*

‘Protecting’ and breeding animals behind bars causes many state officials to

feel justified in turning a blind eye to illegal poaching.

This does nothing to conserve the animals’ natural habitat or the species in

its natural state and actually ends up contributing to the decimation of

wildlife and its populations. In captivity, many animals are unable to breed

and are afflicted with illnesses. In 2001, an endangered male Monal bird

died at the Gopalpur Zoo, near Palampur, demonstrating the difficulty of

maintaining an animals’ health and habits when kept in captivity so far away

from their natural habitat.

 

Maneka Gandhi reports that every time an animal dies, he or she is replaced.

As a result, the zoos, she said, are becoming bigger degraders of the forest

than the poachers.

 

•Darjeeling Zoo, Calcutta <http://www.indiatraveltimes.com/special/dec.html>:

In 2000, three endangered red pandas and a snow leopard died under

‘mysterious circumstances’.

•Jaipur Zoo: During a three-month period in 2000, 125 animals died.

•Lucknow Zoo: In 1999, 53 animals died.

•Mysore Zoo: In 2003, five animals died within a time span of a few months.

Forest Minister K H Ranganath blamed zookeeper negligence for their deaths.

•Nandankanan Zoo,

Bhubaneshwar<http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jul/05tiger.htm>:

In 2000, in just two months, 13 tigers, three deer, a mongoose and one

crocodile died.

 

*Zoo Staff Shortage, Incompetence and Negligence*

 

‘These people do not have even the basic training in taking care of animals

.... but they are there taking vital decisions.’

–Ashok Kumar, former vice president, Wildlife Protection Society of India,

on managers of Indian zoos.

 

Zoo staff, zoo veterinarians and other zoo officials are often ill-trained,

ignorant of animal psychology and insensitive to the needs of animals they

are supposed to be caring for. According to Maneka Gandhi, not a single

Indian zoo has a suitably trained staff.

 

•Chhatbir Zoo: Asia’s largest zoo has never had a veterinary hospital.

Although two veterinarians are required by law, the zoo does not even have

one on-site veterinarian.

•Delhi Zoological Park, New Delhi: There is only one veterinarian

responsible for the health of more than 1,200 animals.

•Darjeeling Zoo: In 2001, a snow leopard died of pneumonia when she was kept

outside through a heavy downpour.

•Jijamata Udyan Zoo, Byculla: In 2003, an employee suggested that the zoo’s

deer overpopulation problem might be solved by feeding the deer to the zoo’s

tigers.

•Mysore zoo: In 2003, after a zookeeper left a male tiger’s cage door open,

the tiger leaped out and attacked and killed Badri, a 13-year-old tiger in

the adjacent cage.

•Nandankanan Zoo, Bhubaneshwar: In 2000, a crocodile was beheaded inside his

enclosure, allegedly by a zoo employee.

 

•Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad: In 2001, a tiger named Saki was killed by

poachers, reportedly with the connivance of zoo staff members.

•Prince of Wales Zoological Gardens: In 2000, three tiger cubs died after

zoo staff failed to notice that their mother had stopped caring for them.

•Sangli Zoo, Maharashtra: In 2000, a 12-year-old lion was finally relieved

of her suffering when she died. She had been paralysed at the age of 2 and

had lived for 10 years in that condition.

 

*Unsanitary and Inappropriate Zoo Conditions*

Many zoos do not have enough money to operate, resulting in atrocious

conditions and numerous deaths.

 

•Nandankanan Zoo, Bhubaneshwar: In 1998, because the zoo failed to make

payments on the electricity bill, the power was shut off. The situation

became critical for the animals, whose only source of water in the extreme

heat was electric pumps.

•Prince of Wales Zoological Garden, Lucknow: Within five months (from

December 1999 to April 2000), 23 animals died. The zoo director blamed

several factors, including a financial crunch.

 

Without money, zoos cannot afford to buy fresh food or provide animals with

clean water for drinking, bathing or swimming.

 

•Lucknow Zoo: In 2000, it was discovered that tigers were being given only 5

or 6 kilograms of meat each day, rather than 12 to 13 kilograms, which their

bodies require.

•M.C. Zoological Park, Chhat Bir: In 1998, a visitor gave this description

of the zoo: ‘The animals are in pathetic condition. They are ill kept and

near starving. The animal enclosures are devoid of greenery and trees. I

could hardly see any proper living conditions for the animals. The animals

such as the hippos which need sufficient clean water for survival are in dry

and empty pits and where there is some water it is spoiled and covered with

weeds and moss.’

•Mini Zoo inside the Malampuzha Garden, Palakkad: In 2000, animals were seen

eating and drinking water from the same concrete enclave in which they

urinated.

•Mumbai Zoo, Byculla: On a visit in 2002, it was noted that there was not a

drop of fresh water in the hippopotamus trough.

•Nandakan Zoo, Bhubaneshwar: In 2000, zoo employees blamed contaminated food

for killing several deer: ‘The feed comes once a fortnight and is of poor

quality. The feed is not sent to the laboratory at Bhubaneswar for quality

checks and is prepared in the absence of a vet. The composition of the feed

is not correct since almost half of it is husk against the prescribed 20 per

cent. No wonder, the deer fall ill and die’.

‘Often, meat given to the animals is stale and contaminated’, points out

Utter Pradesh chief wildlife warden R L Singh.

 

•The Padmaja Naidu Zoo: In 2000, five tigers, six snow leopards, 16

Himalayan wolves and 10 leopards nearly starved to death because, according

to the food supplier, the zoo was three months behind on payments.

 

Insufficient space often results in frustration, fighting, injury, and

death.

 

•Chhatbir Zoo <http://www.atip.org/INDIANEWS/EMBASSY/20011207.txt>: As of

2003, the zoo has 82 lions, even though it is designed for only 22, and also

keeps more than twice as many tigers as it is permitted to—29 tigers in a

space intended for 12.

•Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park, Chhat Bir: In 2002, two lion cubs died

within one day – both had sustained severe injuries, presumably from

fighting among other big cats.

•Mini Zoo of Nehru Rose Garden, Ludhiyana: In 2000, 50 ducks were crammed in

their pond, which offered only a few inches of water, making it impossible

for them to swim, and were fighting with each other for what little food was

available

•Mumbai Zoo: Three hippopotamuses were electrocuted when authorities raised

an electric fence around the moat surrounding their enclosure.

•Pratapsinh Zoo, Sangli: In 1999 and 2000, six lions died as a result of

overcrowding and resulting infighting.

 

*Cruel Visitors*

Zoos also expose animals to the danger of being deliberately harmed or even

killed by cruel visitors.

 

•Delhi Zoo, New Dehli: A bird died after his eye was poked out by an

umbrella tip. Several other animals died after eating food containing razor

blades that was tossed to them by visitors.

•In 1999, a hogdeer became the third animal to die from ingesting plastic

bags discarded by zoo visitors.

•Lucknow Zoo: In 2000, a female monkey died after being teased by visitors.

 

*Zoos Hurt People, Too*

 

**

*

 

•MC Zoological Park, Chhatbir: In 1999, a visitor jumped the railings to

‘shake hands’ with a bear, who pulled him into his enclosure and mauled him

to death.

•Mysore Zoo: In 1997, after the door to a tiger’s enclosure was left open,

the tiger mauled a zookeeper. Indian police executed him.

•Nandan Kanan Zoo, Bhubaneswar: A royal Bengal tiger escaped from his

enclosure and fatally mauled a priest who was cleaning the premises.

•Trivandrum Zoo, Kerala: A visitor feeding a bear was seized by the animal,

who tore off her hand.

 

You Can Help

 

• The Supreme Court has finally begun to intervene in behalf of animals in

zoos and has ordered that no new zoos be built without the court’s prior

approval.

• You can help by meeting with or petitioning your state’s minister of the

environment and forests and your city’s municipal authorities for specific

improvements to the plight of the animals housed there and urging them to

adopt a ‘no new animals’ policy for your local zoo.

• One of the most far-reaching things you can do to help captive animals is

to urge your friends and family to boycott zoos and other animal

attractions.

 

***

 

 

 

 

 

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