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ZOOS
Beastly Tales

Nandankanan isn't an isolated case. Cramped enclosures, callous management and shoestring budgets turn our zoos into death-traps.

By Vijay Jung Thapa

Picture this. You're walking down a winding corridor encased in thick, protective glass. You feel caged in, but outside the animals roam freely in a jungle setting. A sambar herd grazes peacefully even as a lumbering sounder of wild boar approaches it. Further on, the jungle grows thicker and somewhere above peacocks and langurs sound an alarm. As if on cue, a tiger strides out nonchalantly from the foliage, then stands still, looking magnificent. Another hundred yards and the patch of untamed forest suddenly ends. The corridor opens into a concrete jungle and blinding sunlight. There's a food court to your left, a souvenir shop with furry animals to your right. Up ahead is the African safari complex and beyond that is a building housing the Amazonian rain-forest. No, this isn't a science fiction fantasy. It's a conglomeration of ideal counterfeit habitats -- in other words, a modern zoo.

The cardinal principle of any modern zoo is to serve the needs of the creatures it exhibits. But zoos in India do just the opposite; they serve the needs of the visitors. While the lawns are manicured, the paths pebbled and the waiting areas equipped with modern facilities, the animals are housed in cramped, dingy enclosures. The Indian zoos suffer from congenital problems that they've found hard to shake off. They are run by unqualified and ignorant staff. They run on tight budgets, leading to food-shortage for animals. They are poorly designed, with no understanding of animal behaviour. Because of high inbreeding the animals have low immunity making them susceptible to disease; worse, there is little expert veterinary care available. Lastly, insensitive visitors ill-treat the animals, throwing objects at them or poking them, often resulting in their deaths.

Says Iqbal Malik, a member of the Central Zoo Authority's (CZA) technical committee and an animal activist: "Our zoos are still in the dark ages. Admitting an animal into an Indian zoo is like passing a death sentence on it." Nandankanan, where 12 tigers died recently, clearly wasn't an isolated case of mismanagement. Zoos in India echo with examples of animal deaths caused due to sheer callousness. Consider this:

• At the Veermata Jijabhai Bhosle Udyan in Mumbai, three hippopotamuses were electrocuted because the authorities suddenly decided to put up an electric fence around the moat surrounding their enclosure.

• At the Alipore Zoo in Calcutta some years ago, three endangered giant Al Debra tortoises were killed after visitors repeatedly pelted them with stones to see if they were alive. The stones cut through the shells, leaving open wounds that turned septic and finally lead to death.

• At Lucknow's Prince of Wales Zoological Park, three tiger cubs died last May because the keepers failed to realise that the mother tigress had stopped rearing her offspring.

• In another incident last month, an elephant calf died while being transported to another zoo.

• At the Darjeeling Zoo, a snow leopard, an extremely endangered species hailing from the rain-shadow areas of the Himalayas, was made to stay out in heavy downpour recently. It contracted pneumonia and died.

Every zoo in the country is a potential Nandankanan. The Indian Zoo Yearbook lists 230 recognised zoos with an estimated 65,000 animals belonging to at least 643 different species. Of these, only 15 are big zoos with some semblance of order. The others have been classified as medium and mini zoos, most running on paltry funds and in appalling conditions. Almost all (except the Delhi Zoo, which is run by the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests) are run by state governments, some by municipal corporations and a handful are privately-owned menageries. Says Avanti Mallapur, a zoo biologist and the only one to study zoo animal welfare in India: "Why does every hamlet in the country need a zoo when there evidently isn't enough money going around?"

A good question and one that the CZA was specifically meant to answer when it was set up in 1991. It was also required to bring in the much-needed reforms. While the world over, zoos were being transformed into centres of conservation, education and research, in India they still served as cheap entertainment for the family. The least that the CZA could do, felt most wildlife activists, was to formulate stringent guidelines to rid the animals of their perpetual misery. Activists also hoped that the meagre resources spent on zoos could be restricted to 15 or 20 good zoos that would seriously pursue conservation studies. "The CZA was thought to be a magic wand that would end all the problems in our zoos," points out Subhash Pandey, an animal activist who runs an NGO in Uttar Pradesh.

Not quite. True, the CZA formulated guidelines. It even succeeded in closing all the travelling and some of the medium and mini zoos. But nine years on, it is too little over too long a period. Not one zoo has undertaken any kind of research work, none has good educational infrastructure and the breeding programmes are still carried out on the whims and fancies of keepers who have scant knowledge about conservation policies. Even the CZA authorities concede to this. Says CZA Chairperson P.R. Sinha: "Though we've managed to achieve a lot, there's a lot more that needs to be done. What we really need is stronger political will."

He should know. Even though the CZA has closed nearly a hundred zoos, many continue to exist simply because nobody knows what to do with the animals. These animals cannot be released into the wild as they have lost their survival skills. The other zoos are overcrowded. Worse, despite the CZA having officially "derecognised" these zoos, keepers have been breeding the animals, thereby increasing their population. A notable example is the Sangli Zoo in Gujarat. Even though the CZA has shut it down, there's no place to house its nearly 40 Asiatic lions. Says Mallapur: "Nobody has heard of contraception in our zoos. Euthanasia is out of question; they won't even discuss it. The problems merely keep growing exponentially." Besides, the CZA has few legal powers. Even if it derecognises a zoo, the state government retains it as it doesn't contribute significantly enough to the budget.

Ironically, proposals for zoos keep pouring in despite the stringent CZA guidelines. Most politicians quickly grasp how popular zoos are (an estimated 50 million people visit zoos every year in India) and harass the CZA to sanction one for their constituency. For instance, the Uttar Pradesh Government has been incessantly demanding a zoo adjacent to the Taj Mahal. On being queried about the inputs and resources that the state government would be willing to contribute, the state officials had no answer. "All they wanted was quick permission. They felt that opening a zoo was as easy as collecting some animals and putting them behind bars," points out Sinha. Worse, the state governments have adopted an ostrich-like attitude, with most declaring that there was nothing wrong with the zoos. Admits Karnataka Forest Minister K.H. Ranganath: "We run short of funds for these zoos, but it is a matter of priority."

Even with the CZA guidelines in place, reforms were always going to be an uphill task. A case in point are veterinarians; there are extremely few wildlife vets in India. Almost all the veterinarians in zoos are on deputation and actually specialise in livestock. And in a situation where heavy inbreeding has led to low immunity among zoo animals, these vets offer few solutions to the frequent deaths. In fact, while there are several national centres of medical research on animal husbandry, the country does not have a single institution for wildlife. It isn't a coincidence then that there is still no consensus on whether the drug berenil should have been administered to the Nandankanan tigers. Similarly, most zoo directors are from the Indian Forest Service, with little experience in supervising wildlife. Besides, many are transferred just as they are beginning to get a grasp on their jobs. Emphasises Sally Walker, founder of the Zoo Outreach Foundation: "That's a major problem; no expertise is being developed."

Post-Nandankanan, there is a raging debate among wildlife activists on whether we need the zoos. Most experts agree that the CZA must be given more teeth and a bigger budget to finance the zoos. Once this happens, a derecognition certificate will actually hurt the zoo. As of now, only 10 per cent of the zoo's budget comes from the CZA. The other concrete step that needs to be taken immediately is to cut down the number of zoos. Says Malik, "If they can't be managed, just shut them down."

-with Stephen David, Subhash Mishra, Labonita Ghosh, Methil Renuka and Robin Abreu

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