As a child, I thought of the zoo as a fun place. I enjoyed watching all the exotic animals you generally fear, behind the bars, far beyond harming me. But the more I visited zoos the more I started realizing how helpless all the animals must be feeling, taken away from their habitat, thrown into an environment they don’t belong. My fears for them grew and grew.
8 South American Humbolt penguins were brought to the Byculla Zoo, Mumbai from South Korea, on which the BMC spent 2.57 crore rupees. One of those eight flightless birds, a one-and-a-half-year-old female penguin named Dory, has succumbed to liver dysfunction and an intestinal infection.
The Plant and Animals Welfare Society – Mumbai (PAWS) has written to the Central Zoo Authority asking it to visit Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo to check whether the conditions are ideal for the remaining alive.
“We have filed a complaint (application) citing the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act as the penguin was diagnosed with liver and intestinal infections. It is possible that the food being given to the birds did not suit them even after zoo officials said all possible measures were being taken to protect them.”
Sunish Subramaniam Kunju, secretary, PAWS-Mumbai added,
“We demand a thorough investigation at the quarantine area, where the penguins are being housed, before they are put out for public display.”
The penguins were procured from Coex Aquarium in Seoul. Jose Louies, head of trade control, Wildlife Trust of India calls it just a transfer from one jail to another. 20 activists staged a protest in front of the Indian Consulate in Manhattan, New York to raise concerns a global level.
“This can be seen as a transfer for these endangered species from one jail to another one. Even officials in-charge of international zoos like the National Zoological Park at Washington, USA had a hard time looking after these birds.”
Byculla Zoo is not considered as a healthy environment to keep exotic animals in and is basically run-down. Yet, it has received a Rs. 150-crore revamp plan from the Central Zoo Authority in 2012. Stalin Dayanand, project director, NGO Vanashakti, said,
“One bird has escaped the misery faced by all wildlife for the last four years in the living hell called the Byculla Zoo. They cannot take care of indigenous species and are over stretching themselves into exotic wildlife.”
This inhumanity needs to stop. Their lives matter.
Source : The Hindustan Times