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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 a 5-foot
block in her intestines.
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: 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: 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: 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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Circuses: No Fun for
Animals
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