For animals, zoos turn to be unhappy places

HYDERABAD: The death of a one-year-old lion cub at Nehru Zoological Park who was named Mahismati as her birth coincided with the release of the film Baahubali, showed the ugly side of animals kept in captivity. Forty-nine animals died in Nehru zoo in 2015-16 according to the Central Zoo Authority. Curator Sivani Dogre of the Nehru Zoological Park said, “Most deaths are due to infighting or digestive tract diseases and some are due to age.”

Veterinarian A. Jacob Sunny said, :When wild animals are kept captive, they require a different kind of attention. The digestive tract diseases that are frequently found in zoo animals is because of low immunity under captivity,” Diet must be charted according to the needs of captive animals. “We should stop looking at zoo-bred animals as wild animals, and chart out a diet for them instead of for the species in general,” Dr Sunny said. Thiruvanthapuram zoo superintendent Anil Kumar, where 55 animals died in 2016-17, said, “The deer population is very high and that causes infighting that leads to death. We did lose an ostrich that was three years old, due to heatstroke last year.”

Vets say that despite the zoo’s best efforts, some animals just cannot get used to weather conditions that are different from their natural habitat. Dr Sunil Kapoor, a vet, aid animals are often transferred from zoo to zoo and encounter different weather conditions that could affect them adversely. “There is a bond between the keeper and the animal that is ignored. A new keeper might not be able to adjust to the animal as the old one did.” A lot of zoos initiate transfers so that their animals don’t get lonely but very few are successful, he said.

Far away from home zones, animals feel very out of place

 

Zoos often boast of housing rare animals in order to attract visitors, but the new environment may not be suited to animals that are not native to a country or the local area. Breeding animals in captivity has its own problems. Senior zoologist C. Srinivasulu said, “Zoo breeding is leading to a lot of problems in the gene pool of animals. Growing up in a closed environment, their immunity is severely compromised and therefore these captive animals are susceptible to diseases that humans or domestic animals get.”

Such animals need extra medical care which they don’t always get, he added.
Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, a hunter from Hyderabad, said he refused to shoot animals unless absolutely necessary. “Animals in zoos suffer a lot. An instance is Mysore zoo where the animals can be seen in suffocating cages. But with shrinking forests, many wild animals enter into human habitats and then are sent to a zoo.” He said the lack of rescue centres is the root of the problem. “More rescue centres and focus on the man-animal ratio is needed to ensure that animals are not kept captive," he said.

SV Zoo, Tirupati, curator, Y. Srinivas Reddy said, “We are one of the very few rescue centres. It is sad to note that many rescued animals like panthers or leopard cubs mostly die despite getting the best medical care. Any wild animal out of its habitat will suffer from a mortality period of two years when they are at immense risk of contracting infections from outside.” The Central Zoo Authority recognises zoos and facilitates transfers.  “The CZA inspects zoos before agreeing to transfers but it depends on the zoo officials to follow all the steps that they promise. Zoos continue to run even without recognition but we are not a regulatory body,” an official said.