21 March 2002

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Jason Baker (0) 98201 22602

Mumbai —Model-turned-actor Rahul Dev, appearing in spotted bodypaint—and little else—to resemble a cheetah, is featured in a new ad released by PETA criticising the atrocious conditions and exploitative practices of Indian zoos. Appalled by the plight of animals kept captive for entertainment purposes, Rahul volunteered for the ad, which was shot by top photographer Atul Kasbekar.

PETA and Rahul are not alone in their condemnation of the zoo industry. Even the Central Zoo Authority (CZA), itself an object of much criticism, has condemned poor conditions and animal care at what it termed India’s 11 worst zoos, which PETA officials and other animal-welfare experts say must be closed down immediately: Trishur Zoo in Kerala; Kota, Jodhpur, Jaipur, and Udaipur zoos in Rajasthan; Aizwal Zoo in Mizoram; Shillong Zoo in Meghalaya; Maharaj Bagh Zoo in Nagpur; Kohima Zoo in Nagaland; the Mini Zoo at Haddo, Andaman, and Sayaji Bagh Zoo in Baroda. Dr Iqbal Malik, renowned environmentalist and defender of animal welfare, recently resigned from the CZA saying, ‘Central Zoo Authority was created to change the state of zoos and is supposed to monitor the zoos. However, the CZA has failed to do so.’

This is not to imply that all is well with the rest of India’s zoos. Animals confined to zoos display a form of psychosis called ‘zoochosis’, caused by severe boredom and stress and characterised by abnormal, debilitating behaviours, such as repeated head-bobbing, biting of cage bars, pacing, stillbirths and severe self-mutilation.

‘Zoos are nothing more than animal prisons maintained for human amusement,’ says Rahul. ‘If you love animals, let them live with their families in the wild, where they belong.’

Salaries of Indian zoo staff members are reportedly not paid on time; guards are often not provided with shoes or transport; officers resent their posting, considering it ‘second-grade’; and the staff-to-animal ratio is so inadequate that all the animals ultimately suffer. Basic care is not a given at India’s zoos. It is alleged that the staff pilfer 50 per cent of the animals’ food, either for resale or for their own use. Reportedly, some facilities stock medicines and drugs with expiry dates long past.

The zoo industry rationalizes the caging and breeding of animals by claiming that zoos enhance conservation efforts, but the facts do not back up this claim. According to a joint report by the World Society for the Protection of Animals and the Born Free Foundation, ‘with the best will in the world, and even with all their combined resources, zoos cannot hope to save more than a few of the animal species that are doomed to become extinct within the next decade’. Reintroductions of individual members of an endangered or threatened species into the wild by zoos are scant at best. One reason is habitat loss; the other is financial income. Zoos rely on breeding ‘cute’ baby animals to draw paying visitors. Many zoos around the world sell off older animals to dealers who, in turn, sell them to laboratories for deadly experiments, to game preserves to be shot by hunters and to slaughterhouses. Even ‘surplus’ babies are sometimes killed because the zoo can’t afford the cost of providing them with proper food, housing and medical attention.

‘Protecting species from extinction sounds like a noble goal,’ says Rahul, ‘but zoo officials usually favour exotic or popular animals who draw crowds and publicity, neglecting less popular species. Most animals housed in zoos are not endangered, nor are they being prepared for release into natural habitats.’

Most, if not all, zoos in India operate at a loss, swallowing up scores of rupees, and must continually find ways to cut costs, while taxpayer funds and other resources would be put to better use conserving animals’ natural homes and fighting poaching. Rhinowatch estimates the annual cost of keeping a black rhino in captivity to be US$16,800, while the annual cost of protecting an appropriate wild habitat to support one rhino is merely US$1,000. Thus, 16 rhinos can be supported in the wild for the cost of keeping a single rhino in a zoo. Similar scenarios exist for elephants, big cats, chimpanzees and other primates.

The animals protected in the Garamba National Park in Zaire (size: 492,000 ha) include 31 northern white rhinos, 4,000 elephants, 30,000 buffaloes, the country’s entire giraffe population and 10 primate species. The annual operating cost for the park is US$269,000, equivalent to the cost of keeping 16 rhinos in captivity in India. Safaris in sprawling national parks, in which animals are not confined and are not disturbed by spectators, are so popular in Kenya that the number of visitors to that country continues to be on the upswing. According to the United Nations, Kenya registered more than 1 million visitors in 1997. The tourism industry—based on the free-roaming animal parks—is a major source of employment for Kenyans.

Public interest in zoos is declining. In one survey by Crossbow Research in 1993, 82 per cent of the respondents agreed that more people were concerned about keeping animals confined to zoos compared to 10 years before, and 62 per cent agreed that animals kept in zoos suffer physically or psychologically. A 1993 survey of local education authorities revealed that 82 per cent of respondents rejected entertainment as a satisfactory justification for the confinement of animals, and most respondents felt that they were less inclined to take children to zoos than people had been 10 years prior.

Another common claim made by zoo officials is that zoos educate the public about the plight of animals in the wild. Again, this claim is not borne out in reality. The average zoo visitor spends only a few fleeting minutes at each exhibit and cannot possibly come away having gained any insight into the natural behaviour of displayed animals whose natural environment and complex social structures have been replaced with artificial surroundings and little meaningful interaction with others of their own species. In the wild, cheetahs (whose name derives from the Hindi word for ‘spotted one’) run at speeds of up to 114 km per hour, live with their families and roam an average area of 37 square km. But in zoos, their babies are sold off and the adult cats are usually left pacing in a small cage.

‘Our zoos are still in the Dark Ages,’ says Dr Iqbal Malik. ‘Admitting an animal into an Indian zoo is like passing a death sentence on [the animal].’

‘The best thing to do to stop this cruelty is to urge your friends and family to boycott zoos,’ says Rahul. PETA recommends supporting true conservation and rescue groups like the African Wildlife Federation, the Born Free Foundation and the International Primate Protection League.

The ad is being released in eight other languages, and all versions are available to be downloaded from our Web site at www.PETAIndia.com.