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strong>March 26, p. 7

The Jakarta Post recently reported the death of a giraffe at the Surabaya Zoo, found to have ingested 20 kilograms of plastic. This is extremely tragic, but of course by no means surprising in Indonesia’s zoos, given the appalling way they are managed.

As a former zoo keeper myself in the UK, what is clear to me is that the vast majority of zoos in Indonesia hardly pay any attention whatsoever to investing in their zoo and instead see them only as potential revenue generators.

A good example is the so-called Medan Zoo in North Sumatra. For many years this occupied just a few tree-shaded hectares within the city itself and despite its poor sanitary condition, a number of animals somehow managed to survive there for several years. Nevertheless, they were subjected to blaring dangdut music just outside their cages every weekend and public holiday, and a barrage of peanuts thrown at them every day.

On public holidays, more than 20,000 visitors would visit the zoo and almost all would throw handfuls of peanuts at the animals during the day. Not exactly a nutritious balanced diet. (By Ian Singleton, Medan)

Your comments:

Good article, Ian, well said and an easy yet very sensible proposed solution. I think the problem is the ignorance of the zoos’ managers in Indonesia. It’s been a common opinion that zoos are simply “a cheap public recreation attraction” and the managers tend to increase their business by hosting dangdut shows, which maybe is more profitable and easier to do than looking after their animals properly.

Fransiska Sulistyo
Yogyakarta

It is a great article. If any of you have ever had the pleasure to visit the exceptionally well-managed Schmutzer Primate Center (Pusat Primata Schmutzer) located within, but separate from, the appallingly managed Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta you would realize that the reforms that the author is talking about in this article are both possible and urgently needed.

Greg McDonald
Bali

It is an excellent article! It’s a pity that such articles are almost always written by members of the tiny Western expat community in Indonesia. Something is really wrong in the local education system, and we see the results everywhere — not only in zoos.

I wonder how many supporting comments this article will get from Indonesian citizens.

Ronen Skaletzky
Medan

 As a great fan of all of Gerald Durrell’s delightful books about animals, I wholeheartedly support your ideas about improving zoos and the lives of the animals kept there.

It is a distressing truth that a great many of my fellow Indonesians haven’t yet learned to respect the rights of wild animals to exist, and haven’t learned to properly provide for their needs once they are caught and put in zoos.

It seems that an appalling number of Indonesian zoo managers only think that the animals exist merely to gain profit from.

Several years ago, two of my American friends and I were driving through a well-known animal park in West Java, and all of a sudden we were hit by an overwhelming feeling of sadness and despondency. We all felt it very clearly, and I had to stop driving as I just couldn’t go on.

It turned out that we were in the area where the elephants were kept. Some were chained. After we left, after offering all of our bananas to them, that despondent feeling went away. As far as I know, the best-managed center for the care of animals is the Schmutzer Primate Center (Pusat Primata Schmutzer) when it was still managed by Dr. Willie Smits.

Recently, many of my friends who have beloved pets have been truly shocked by the fact that several professional veterinarians do not really care for their patients in the way they are supposed to, but give the wrong kind of medicine and even neglect the patient.

Aside from the fact that this is very unfair to the animal and to its loving owner, this is scandalous. Those unscrupulous veterinarians would do well to clean up their act.

I myself still remember with deep gratitude my favorite veterinarian, Dr. Danny Umbu, who did everything humanly possible to save my beloved and terminally ill pet, who eventually died in the doctor’s hands. The doctor then held him up, while tears ran down his cheeks, and sobbed: “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Tami Koestomo
Bogor, West Java