(MY) Laws to protect 'inmates'

[Guest guest]

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2002/2/19/features/yyzoo1 & ne

wspage=Search

 

By S.S. YOGA

PLAYTIME at the zoo? An otter and a river terrapin were having some fun, it

seemed, the otter swatting at the terrapin, the latter moving sluggishly to

get away. To the knowing eyes of the zoo veterinarians and animal

specialists gathered around the animals' enclosure, however, the little

drama had more to do with life and death than fun and games. The otter was

underfed and was hungry enough to try and eat the terrapin.

 

The " keepers " at this " ecopark " in a resort in Taiping, Perak, didn't see

anything wrong in the little drama at all. They probably didn't even know

that the terrapin (Batagur baska) is an endangered animal that is losing its

riverbank habitat to development and shouldn't be allowed to become another

animal's dinner! The hapless reptile was only rescued by a keeper after one

of the vets complained.

 

The resort park also had an aviary that was not only filled with birds but

primate species and butterflies, too. It was an unusual set-up that prompted

one delegate to note that it was an interesting immersion experience. There

were at least 600 birds enclosed in the area, however, and that, said

Malacca Zoo veterinarian Dr Razeem Mazlan Abdullah, is too many for an

aviary of that size.

 

The park's facilities manager, Azman Mohd Zain, who is a former Wildlife and

National Parks Department (Perhilitan) senior staff member, explained that

" visitors actually complain there are too few birds to see because the

numbers are mainly made up of munia birds, which are small. And because

there is much vegetation here, you can't see a lot of the birds because they

are hidden. "

 

Too many birds say the experts, too few, complain the visitors. Obviously,

it's not easy to run a wildlife park.

 

The vegetation is a plus point actually.

 

" Some modern zoo enclosures are so small, sterile and unnatural that captive

animals frequently exhibit lethargy or stereotyped behaviour, " explains Zoo

Negara's head veterinarian, Dr S. Vellayan. " The resultant stress suppresses

the immune system and leads to extremely high mortality rates. "

 

If you've seen those cute sun bears pacing restlessly in a repetitive

pattern in some of the zoos and parks in Malaysia, you'll know what he

means. To put it simply, the animals have gone ga-ga.

 

Zoos and wildlife parks are supposed to help conserve species whose habitats

are being destroyed, not allow their exhibits to eat each other, or to go

insane and die young.

 

But if the keepers are ignorant, if enclosures are over-crowded, if the

wrong species are placed together, that's exactly what could happen. And

there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do to stop this from happening.

 

It's a sad state of affairs, affirmed the 98 veterinarians and animal

specialists from 29 countries who gathered at Bukit Merah Laketown Resort in

Taiping for the South-East Asian Zoos Association's (Seaza) 10th annual

conference in October. Aptly, the theme for the conference was Animal

Welfare and Ethics: South-East Asian Zoos in the 21st Century.

 

In Peninsular Malaysia, we have Perhilitan. But the department's role is

limited to issuing permits to own and display protected species and those

that are regulated under international trade agreements such as Convention

on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Perhilitan can only directly supervise zoos or parks that the department

itself runs, like the Malacca Zoo.

 

There is also Section 92 of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 that provides

for fines and imprisonment in cases when wild animals or wild birds are

abused, not provided adequate and proper nutrients and housing, used for

work or performances they are unable to do, and are exposed to unnecessary

suffering, pain or discomfort. Perhilitan, however, says that action under

this section can only be taken if a formal complaint or report is made.

(Studying the Act, however, reveals that nowhere does it say that.)

 

Apart from these two rather nebulous forms of protection, however, there are

no legally binding provisions, standards or guidelines to regulate zoos,

animal parks, aquariums and butterfly parks. There has been talk for years,

since the 1990s in fact, that the Science, Technology and Environment

Ministry (under whose aegis Perhilitan comes) would develop guidelines. At

the opening of the South-East Asian Zoos Association's conference, it was

announced that such guidelines will finally materialise this year.

 

At a press conference after the opening, Science, Technology and Environment

Minister Datuk Seri Law Hieng Ding said: " The guidelines are aimed at

ensuring that animal welfare and ethics are given priority in the management

of parks, and would incorporate the best practices of zoo management in use

in the region and the world. The guidelines will then be distributed to all

federal and state government agencies, private companies and organisations

which manage zoos in Malaysia. " Perhilitan will be given jurisdiction.

 

The guidelines were to have been finalised last month and given to the

Cabinet for approval but there has been no indication until press time

whether they have been or not. Law said they would be incorporated into the

Wildlife Protection Act, making them legally binding - meaning that both

government and privately run institutions would have to comply with them.

 

Taiping Zoo veterinarian and director Dr Kevin Lazarus, however, sounds a

cautious note: don't expect the guidelines to be as detailed as the massive

tomes produced by India and the United States that look into every detail,

even something like cage or enclosure size that is derived from complicated

mathematical formulae to take into account many varying factors.

 

" How do you work it out for all the animals? And it is also dependent on

numbers per animal group, the gender make up, the age structure, so it will

be a very thick document, thicker than a phonebook. What about the fact that

 

even animals have a right to be alone even though part of a bigger group?

Then you have to factor that in into the space requirements.

 

" If you strictly follow guidelines for elephants, for instance, you need a

really huge area, with perimeter fencing and a buffer zone. Can you do that

really? " he asks.

 

A better route than throwing the book at transgressors might be education.

The ignorance of people running parks and zoos can be astounding. A case in

point: at that same resort " ecopark " that had the " playful " otter, the vets

and animal specialists also discovered a very rare - there are only 200 left

in the wild - and lonely golden-headed lion tamarin from South America in a

small little cage, shrieking and snapping at visitors.

 

" It used to be let loose but then it started making holes in the netting (in

the aviary). It also ate the butterflies in there so we then had to lock it

up in the cage, " was the keeper's explanation.

 

It's a puzzle that the park management didn't do its homework and find out

that butterflies could be part of a tamarin's diet. Because of the

management's ignorance, the tamarin is now condemned to a lonely, cramped

existence, though Azman, the keeper, says they are trying to get it a female

companion.

 

Most of the zoo specialists at the conference conceded that skills and

knowledge in species management is seriously lacking; actually, Dr Lazarus

went even further to say that he knows of staff who don't even think when

they're doing their jobs.

 

" One of the staff (at the Malacca Zoo) was in charge of feeding the animals

and he was supposed to leave the food in each enclosure. This he did, but he

left some in enclosures that were obviously empty so he didn't even use

logical reasoning and was obviously just doing things by rote. "

 

Many of the staff are not even interested in animal management and

husbandry, according to many zoo vets and specialists. Still, going by the

salaries paid to them, which Dr Razeem says is RM400 to RM700 a month do

they have an incentive to be?

 

Raise salaries? Even at the low rate quoted by Dr Razeem, salaries eat up

50% to 60% of a zoo's operating budget. And if you're a private concern that

needs to make a profit, raising salaries would be raising operating

expenses, as Wildlife Reserves Singapore curator (conservation) Tan Kit Sun

pointed out.

 

If those Science, Technology and Environment Ministry guidelines ever do

materialise, they might not address issues like this. Or like the concern

some specialists have about ensuring that all operations involving animals

have an in-house vet; or Dr Vellayan's suggestion that larger organisations

have full-time pathologists to document causes of animal deaths to prevent

further mortalities.

 

But the operators themselves could look into these and other issues. It's

called self-regulation. In Malaysia 18 organisations have come together to

form the Malaysian Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums. And they

aren't simply paying lip service to the idea of self-regulation either. Dr

Razeem said the association has inspected two of its members, one in Johor

and one in Penang - though this is at those organisations' requests. The

inspection revealed that the Johor Zoo has some major problems; these are

being worked out according to the association's recommendations.

 

He also readily agreed that a mini zoo run by the local council in Kuala

Krai, Kelantan, is atrocious in its handling of the animals and that it

should be closed down. The South-East Asian Zoos Association currently also

inspects by request but will make such inspections mandatory after 2005. In

fact, the guidelines drawn up by the Science, Technology and Environment

Ministry were done in consultation with both associations and draw much in

spirit from the guidelines that the regional association has for its

members.