Perancak Zoo, Bali's ugly little secret<\/p>\n
Claire Harvey, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali<\/p>\n
There is an ugly little secret in a beautiful corner of Bali.<\/p>\n
An adorable baby lion cub, emaciated and covered in sores, is
\nchained by the neck inside a tiny, stinking cage.<\/p>\n
Not far away his parents, both proud African lions, lie on the
\nfilthy concrete floor of another cage, chained by their necks to
\nposts.<\/p>\n
The baby's father has an open wound on his head and growls
\nangrily at anyone who approaches his cage. The lioness is not
\nallowed to see her baby, who spends all his time alone in his
\ndark little cell.<\/p>\n
This is Perancak Tourist Park, a private zoo which animal
\nrights activists say must be closed immediately.<\/p>\n
A recent report by the World Society for the Protection of
\nAnimals (WSPA) declared Perancak Tourist Park the worst of 10
\nIndonesian zoos visited by investigators over the past two years.<\/p>\n
Perancak was \"beyond rehabilitation and should be closed as
\nsoon as possible\", the WSPA report said.<\/p>\n
Animals were kept in pitifully small cages, hygiene was
\ncompletely neglected and the animals showed symptoms of severe
\nmental disturbance, the investigators found.<\/p>\n
The zoo managers even offered to sell one of the seven African
\nlions then in residence to investigators. \"Several of the lions
\nwere chained by the neck and others had open sores which had been
\nleft untreated and were infested with maggots,\" the report said.<\/p>\n
The zoo did not have a valid permit, but kept several types of
\nprotected species, including eagles, hornbills and crocodiles.<\/p>\n
When The Jakarta Post visited Perancak this month, things had
\nnot improved. The eagles are no longer there, and five of the
\nseven lions have been transferred to Surabaya Zoo by the Forestry
\nDepartment.<\/p>\n
A skinny, nervy pig-tailed macaque runs loose around the park.
\nAround its belly is a broken chain. In a corner of the zoo is the
\nanswer to its escape -- the wire surrounding its empty cage is
\ntorn open and the other end of the macaque's broken chain lies on
\nthe floor.<\/p>\n
Now it runs wild, climbing on the cages of other animals and
\nsidling up to visitors in the hope of being fed. It is in luck --
\na man is holding a packet of crisps. Within seconds the macaque
\nsnatches them and scampers into a tree with its prize.<\/p>\n
The macaque seems at first to have little fear of humans --
\nbut when one visitor bends to pick up a stick it squeals in
\nterror and sprints out of reach. Clearly this creature has
\nlearned from experience to fear humans wielding sticks.<\/p>\n
Activist Purwo Kuncoro, from the Bali division of Animal
\nConservation for Life or Konservasi Satwa Bagi Kehidupan (KSBK),
\nis horrified by Perancak.<\/p>\n
\"The conditions here are terrible,\" Purwo says. \"Many of these
\nanimals cannot be saved. They have been so badly neglected that
\nmany of them would have to be euthanized.\"<\/p>\n
Purwo and fellow activist Wita Wahyudi have visited Perancak
\ndozens of times in their research for the report, which was a
\njoint project by WSPA and KSBK.<\/p>\n
They have learned the owner of Perancak Tourist Park, about
\ntwo hours' drive east from Denpasar, is local businessman Murah
\nHardono. But the family who ostensibly runs the zoo, selling
\ntickets and snacks and feeding the animals, say they have no
\ntelephone number or address for him.<\/p>\n
Officials of the Department of Forestry say they, too, have
\nbeen unable to trace Murah.<\/p>\n
\"The biggest problem in Indonesia is a lack of education about
\nanimal cruelty,\" Wita says. \"We have never educated our children
\nto care for animals. Even in kindergarten, children learn that if
\nthey want to see a bird, they should put it in a tiny cage.\"<\/p>\n
At Perancak, Purwo crouches before the dank cage of a wild
\nboar. The animal, its ribs clearly visible through its skin,
\nwallows in a thick gray puddle of mud which takes up half its
\ncage.<\/p>\n
\"We don't want all zoos to be closed down,\" Purwo says. \"We
\nrealize that zoos are necessary for education and for breeding
\nsome species, but they do not have to be like this.\"<\/p>\n
Next door to the wild boar's cage is a cassowary. This
\nenormous bird, perhaps 1.7 meters tall, is kept in a cage no
\nbigger than three meters square. It darts about nervously,
\nbanging itself against the walls.<\/p>\n
Four peacocks stand in a large, bare aviary and in a
\nmalodorous pond behind a wooden fence, several large crocodiles
\nlurk in a dark-green pond. Near the crocodiles lie the remains of
\ntheir food. The bloody mess of flesh looks like it might have
\nbeen a dog.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the saddest sight at Perancak is the cage which once
\nhoused an animal that has disappeared to who knows where.<\/p>\n
At one end of the row of cages a glass-walled room sits empty,
\nits roof missing. This room is tiny -- surely not more than four
\nmeters square. What sort of animal could be kept in such a tiny
\nplace? Surely something which did not need much room to move.<\/p>\n
A tumbled-down sign reads: \"Kangaroo\".<\/p>\n
For a kangaroo, the famous high-jumping, athletic Australian
\nmarsupial, being trapped in a room like this must have been
\ntorture.<\/p>\n
Where has it gone? Nobody at Perancak can say -- but whatever
\nfate befell the Perancak kangaroo could not have been worse than
\na life in this place.<\/p>",
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