TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Suspicion mounts that lion's death was no accident
Caged, but still in danger?: A Sumatran tiger in its enclosure at the notorious Surabaya Zoological Park (KBS) in Surabaya on Tuesday
Change Size
Caged, but still in danger?: A Sumatran tiger in its enclosure at the notorious Surabaya Zoological Park (KBS) in Surabaya on Tuesday. After the death of scores of the zooâs animals over the past few months, supervision at the zoo has been tightened. (Antara/Eric Ireng) (KBS) in Surabaya on Tuesday. After the death of scores of the zooâs animals over the past few months, supervision at the zoo has been tightened. (Antara/Eric Ireng)
C
span class="inline inline-none">Caged, but still in danger?: A Sumatran tiger in its enclosure at the notorious Surabaya Zoological Park (KBS) in Surabaya on Tuesday. After the death of scores of the zoo's animals over the past few months, supervision at the zoo has been tightened. (Antara/Eric Ireng)
Surabaya Zoo in East Java is again in the spotlight after another of its animals died, the eighth in the last 10 months; this latest death in suspicious circumstances.
The most recent death, of a lion named Michael, occurred on Tuesday. The 18-month-old lion was found dead, hanging in its cage, ensnared by a cable attached to the cage door.
Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said he suspected the lion was deliberately killed, saying that it was impossible for the lion to have died in such a way accidentally.
'We want the perpetrator arrested. The death of the lion seems to have been caused intentionally,' he said as quoted by Antara news agency on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Rosek Nursahid, chairman of animal conservation organization ProFauna Indonesia, claimed on Wednesday that bad management was behind most of the long list of animal deaths in the zoo. 'This is a reflection of the poor standards of the zoo's management,' Rosek said.
He said his organization had sent reports and recommendations on the need for improvements in Surabaya Zoo since 2000 but they appeared to have been ignored.
Among the recommendations were improvements in the animals' accommodation, cage designs, cage enrichment as well as animal and visitor management.
Previously in April 2013, a Sumatran tiger died because of digestion problems. A zebra died the following month after hitting the fence of its cage. An orangutan died from pneumonia in October 2013. A camel died in the same month due to kidney failure after a urinary infection.
The following month a jaguar died of old age and intestinal tumors while a Javan deer died as a result of fighting. In January this year a gnu died, then Michael was found dead on Tuesday. Rosek said that because of the deaths, a number of tourists from Australia and the US who had been to the zoo sent letters to ProFauna saying they would campaign against tourist visits to East Java.
'This is not a small problem. This is serious,' Rosek said.
Rosek blamed the problems on conflict within the zoo's management. Thanks to the conflict, he said, improvements were mostly superficial, such as improvements in the quality of the animals' diets.
In fact, according to Rosek, taking care of animals was not just a matter of providing food and drink but also providing good accommodation, improved cage design and enrichment as well as better animal and visitor management.
'We were not surprised that many of the animals have died,' said Rosek who was a recipient of the 2010 Special Investigation Award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in the UK.
He suggested that improvements were mostly needed to the animals' cages and animal and visitor security. What was no less important, however, was changes in staff training, especially with regard to the keepers who dealt directly with the animals, he said.
Head of Surabaya Police's investigation and crime unit, Adj. Sr. Comr. Farman, expressed concern at the removal of evidence at the scene of the death. 'We have yet to find out the position of the animal when it was hanged. An investigation cannot be optimally conducted as the location was not properly secured,' Farman said.
