Stop littering at the zoo, it can kill animals<\/p>\n
By Jim Plouffe<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The Komodo dragon lay motionless, which isn't
\nunusual. However, early in January last year, the native lizard
\nhadn't moved for days. When the zoo keepers went to investigate,
\nthey found stones littered around the large reptile's body. Their
\nimmediate conclusion was it had been stoned to death by
\n\"impatient visitors, in an attempt to wake what they thought was
\na sleeping Komodo,\" The Jakarta Post reported at the time.<\/p>\n
It was later discovered that the komodo had first died of an
\nillness and only then had \"impatient\" visitors thrown the rocks.<\/p>\n
Seeing animals being pelted with stones is common at the
\nRagunan Zoo in southern Jakarta, where the behavior of the
\nmajority of visitors can only be described as shocking.<\/p>\n
The management of the zoo, a department of the city
\nadministration, and a group of loyal volunteers called Sahabat
\nSatwa -- Friends of the Zoo -- are striving to educate visitors
\nin order to limit the occurrence of abuse. They have an awesome
\ntask ahead of them, from anti-litter campaigns to talks on animal
\nbehavior. But who really cares? In a city where many people don't
\nlive as well as the zoo's animals, aren't a few dead or sick
\nanimals nothing to worry about?<\/p>\n
After a spate of killings, both at the zoo and in the city
\nlast year, the Post answered this question in an editorial called
\nOf Animal and Man on Jan. 8, 1994. It explained that concern and
\nsorrow should be shown for the animals not \"because the
\nvictimized animals were very close to many of us, or that they
\nwere so innocent and defenseless, but because in discussing such
\ncruelty, we must talk about ourselves.\" Indeed. How we treat
\nanimals is directly linked to the way we treat one another, and,
\nas the editorial added, tormenting or killing an animal doesn't
\n\"bode well for the image of man, or for the image of our society
\nin the eyes of the world.\"<\/p>\n
So far, throwing a stone at a snake, feeding an elephant a
\nhandful of peanuts and leaving behind a mound of garbage after a
\npicnic, have been dismissed as a part of Indonesian culture.
\nHowever, as head of the Flora and Fauna Department, Dr. Sutarman,
\npoints out that a sign reading, \"'don't feed the animals' doesn't
\nlink with (Indonesian) culture,\" only because of \"the low
\neducation of the visitors.\"<\/p>\n
Islam teaches compassion toward the environment and tells its
\nfollowers to be kind toward animals. There are many hadith --
\nsayings, traditions and examples of conduct by Prophet Muhammad
\n-- which give clear directives as to how humans should treat
\nanimals. One states that, \"Allah has ordered everybody to be kind
\nto all things. Sharpen your knife when you wish to kill or
\nslaughter an animal so it won't suffer.\"<\/p>\n
Anything but a sharp knife was used to kill the cassowary, a
\nlarge flightless bird native to Irian Jaya and Australia,
\nrecently.<\/p>\n
The cassowary hadn't eaten for three days, Dr. Sutarman
\nexplained, so a zoo veterinarian gave it an injection and put it
\nunder observation. After not eating for another three days, it
\ndied. An autopsy showed the bird had died of eating a bit of
\nplastic thrown into its pen by a thoughtless visitor. The plastic
\nthen plugged the entrance to its intestine, stopping waste from
\nbeing ejected from its body and slowly poisoning the bird. In
\neffect, a small piece of plastic caused the bird to starve to
\ndeath.<\/p>\n
Litter outside and inside the animal pens, and the poor
\nhygienic conditions it causes, is a major health risk to the
\n4,000 mammals, reptiles and birds kept at the zoo. According to
\nthe head of the works department, 40 percent of the 10-square-
\nmeters of garbage strewn across the park on any given Sunday is
\nnon-biodegradable plastics. Drink cans make up 30 percent of the
\ntotal, and paper, mainly newspaper that visitors sit on during
\npicnics in the otherwise natural surrounds, contributes 20
\npercent to the total. The remaining 10 percent is biodegradable
\nwaste which is used in the zoo's compost project.<\/p>\n
The 50 cleaning staff labor from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. to keep up
\nwith the littering guests. \"Monday to Friday the zoo is very
\nclean, but on the weekends the staff can't cope,\" explains the
\nzealous president of Friends of the Zoo, Carmel Webster.<\/p>\n
To help alleviate the problem, the zoo has provided sets of
\ntrash cans throughout the 135 hectare park, Webster pointed out.
\nThe sets are comprised of two cans, a green one for organic waste
\nand a red one for cans, plastic and other non-biodegradable
\nwaste. Children of zoo employees then sell the recyclable items
\nto supplement their families' meager incomes, according to the
\nhead of the works department. The problem, states Webster, is
\nthat visitors don't throw their garbage in the bins.<\/p>\n
Campaign<\/p>\n
A campaign to educate visitors about the danger litter poses
\nto zoo animals has been launched by both the zoo's administration
\nand Friends of the Zoo. Besides the rubbish bins, Friends of the
\nZoo have concentrated on educating visitors through brochures
\nthey provide at the information office. On the back of one map of
\nthe zoo they have produced a bilingual list of things that should
\nnot be done, including littering and spitting. It points out that
\nplastic can harm the animals and that \"Spitting spreads germs,\"
\nand \"Many germs in human mouths do not make us sick but can be
\nfatal to animals.\"<\/p>\n
The message has obviously not reached everyone. During a
\nFriends of the Zoo workshop on reptiles by Ron Lilley of the
\nWorld Wide Fund for Nature, a young local man got up from
\nenjoying a demonstration of an Indian python eating a chicken,
\nsauntered a few paces down one of four reptile enclosures and
\nspat on the red-tile floor.<\/p>\n
Realizing that maybe this young man and many other visitors
\ncannot read or can't be bothered to, Friends of the Zoo have
\nbegun incorporating drawings of unhappy animals surrounded by
\ngarbage in their brochures and educational books. In a recently
\nreleased picture book on the zoo, called Kebon Binatang Ragunan,
\nFriends of the Zoo have added illustrations of animals suffering
\nfrom abuse and litter. They hope this will help get the message
\nacross that animals are suffering from the behavior of visitors.
\nOne drawing depicts animals laughing at and taunting a naked
\nhuman family in a cage. It asks, in effect, \"how would you feel?\"<\/p>\n
The zoo's management has also started using this technique on
\nsigns around the 131-year-old zoo. But, according to Dr.
\nSutarman, people steal the attractive signs -- instead of just
\nvandalizing them as they did the written warnings.<\/p>\n
Webster suggests having reminders blared over the PA system
\nevery 10 minutes, but Dr. Sutarman's ultimate answer to the
\nproblem of people littering, as well as pestering and feeding the
\nanimals, is to call in the army. He says that the zoo's 37
\nsecurity guards are far from adequate and that the army's canine
\nunit would do the trick, especially during holidays when the zoo
\nis inundated by an average of 100,000 visitors. The sheer number
\nof visitors also poses other dangers to the animals, especially
\nover feeding.<\/p>\n
If each of the 30,000 visitors on a normal Sunday feed one
\nanimal just one peanut, that would be 30,000 peanuts in a day --
\nenough to make even an elephant incredibly sick. Put the two-and-
\na-half million visitors a year into the equation, and the picture
\nis grim.<\/p>\n
\"Too many (animals) have died by visitors,\" Dr. Sutarman
\nstates glumly, adding that it is not intentional. He explained
\nthat 45 percent of the primates have chronic diarrhea after every
\nholiday because visitors feed them.<\/p>\n
In 1983, Dr. Sutarman related, a very rare pygmy Siamang from
\nMantawi, West Sumatra died from obesity because visitors
\nconstantly fed the friendly monkey peanuts until it became so fat
\nthat its heart couldn't stand the strain. It died of a heart
\nattack.<\/p>\n
Webster told of finding a chimpanzee with drink cans lined up
\nin its enclosure. She couldn't be certain if the cans, including
\na beer can, were empty when given to the chimp, but the simple
\nact of giving them to the animal for entertainment illustrates a
\ncomplete disregard for the animal's well-being.<\/p>\n
Dr. Sutarman is quick to point out that it isn't cruelty that
\ndrives visitors to feed the animals, but ignorance.
\nUnfortunately, the gap between the two is narrow at the zoo.
\nIgnorance can be combated with education, but cruelty has no
\ncure.<\/p>\n
The difference between cruelty and ignorance becomes
\nindistinguishable when watching a guest lean over the rail of a
\nprimate's cage and torment a monkey until it goes berserk. It
\nhappens everyday. Orangutans are given lit cigarettes, stones are
\nthrown at everything from turtles to giraffes, crocodiles have
\ngarbage poured on their backs and firecrackers are tossed into
\nbird enclosures. The list includes every type of cruelty
\nimaginable, including zoo keepers killing the animals to get back
\nat zoo management, the Post reported last year.<\/p>\n
\"Nocturnal animals get the worst (of the physical abuse),\"
\naccording to Dr. Sutarman, because visitors want to see them in
\naction, not curled up in the corner asleep. A well aimed stone
\nusually does the trick. The primates suffer the most from non-
\nphysical abuse, such as tormenting, because visitors find it fun
\nto see the apes and monkeys react \"in human ways,\" Dr. Sutarman
\nsays.<\/p>\n
One chimpanzee reacts just this way. After years of torment
\nand having everything from food, garbage and stones thrown at
\nhim, the chimpanzee has taken to hurling stones back. A classic
\nexample of learned behavior, which, ironically, may also be the
\nway to stop the abuse.<\/p>\n
Dr. Sutarman's solution is, once again, education. It must
\n\"start in kindergarten\" and in the home, he insists. \"If a family
\nloves animals, the kids will.\" He also believes that a love of
\nanimals is a secondary effect of wealth. With wealth comes
\neducation as well as the time and will to be considerate to
\nanimals.<\/p>\n
The zoo's management is limited in what it can do by a lack of
\nfunds. Besides a barrage of ineffectual signs and a school
\nlecture series, the education aspect of the zoo is neglected.<\/p>\n
This is where Friends of the Zoo come in. According to
\nWebster, they \"do the small stuff\" like helping out at the
\nnursery. But the group's main focus, and arguably the most
\nimportant, is to educate the public towards greater understanding
\nof the purposes and functions of zoos. They do this by running a
\nwide range of activities and publishing educational booklets,
\nwhich they fund by giving educational tours around the zoo to
\nboth adults and children. Besides direct education through
\nchildren's workshops and talks at woman's groups, Friends of the
\nZoo indirectly teach visitors and staff about the need to care
\nfor animals by funding animal welfare programs, like their highly
\nsuccessful mealworm feeding program. When a visitor sees a happy
\nanimal in a proper enclosure, and is also told something about
\nthe animal, the visitor is less likely to hurt the animal.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, like many of Jakarta's problems, nothing will
\nchange soon. Dr. Sutarman stresses that any change needs \"action
\nfrom the top\". Luckily, action is forth coming from patron of the
\nzoo and Jakarta Governor, Surjadi Soedirdja.<\/p>\n
At least a generation will pass, however, before the crocodile
\nlying in a murky pond with stones and garbage littered across his
\nback will once again cry only crocodile tears.<\/p>",
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