lilith_bcn
11-sep-2010, 12:37
Plight of animals at Bangkok's rooftop zoo above department store
Animal welfare groups face a battle to close Pata zoo, where more than 200 species live out their days in appalling conditions Source:The Guardian (11/09/2010)
VIDEO LINK http://gu.com/p/2jeqj
The ground floor of the Pata department store has cheap clothing: the polyester slacks for 200 baht (£4.20), the polo shirts for half that. Higher up is the electronics department: the fake Rolexes and the cheap TVs. On the seventh floor is the gorilla.
There are no trees in "King Kong's" 15 x 10 metres concrete enclosure, just a tyre and a few ropes hanging from the low ceiling. He moves little, spending long hours sitting at the front of his pen, gripping the iron bars.
Ten metres away, a lone penguin stands in an air-conditioned pen, next to a pool of water, which is smaller than a bath and nowhere near deep enough for him to swim in. A few years ago, there were a dozen penguins, but only this one survives.
Bangkok's Pata zoo sits atop the department store that shares its name, on a busy road in the northern suburbs of Bangkok. Crammed into cages and pens across the sixth and seventh floor of the ageing building are more than 200 species: a menagerie of pythons, turtles, flamingos, monkeys, leopards, tigers, bears, and even a Shetland pony. From the rooftop enclosures, you can see the advertising billboards and office blocks next door, while traffic roars past below.
The director of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, Edwin Wiek, wants the zoo closed: "Basically, it is an animal prison on top of a shopping mall. The space is too small, the animals have very little room, there is very little sunlight, the enclosures are dirty, they smell bad, and people are coming past all day, getting far too close to the animals, which makes the animals extremely stressed. In 200 steps you can see 50 different species. Most people know that this is not an acceptable way to keep animals. It is a hell for animals."
Thailand, like much of south-east Asia, faces myriad animal welfare issues: cockfighting remains a popular, hardly-underground spectator sport, elephants are still put to work on the traffic-choked streets of Bangkok, and the city remains a hub for smuggling animals across the world. Last month a sedated tiger cub was discovered in a bag at Suvarnabhumi airport disguised amongst soft animal toys.
But Pata zoo reflects the fundamental problem: a lack of legislation regarding animal welfare. The zoo is breaking no laws. The animals were all obtained legally, and the zoo's licence was recently extended.
All the same, staff don't like the animals being filmed or photographed in their cages. The Guardian visited twice to obtain its footage, and both times we were encouraged to move on if we stayed too long at one enclosure.
"There are no rules or regulations to say how much space each animal needs," said the director, Kanit Sermsirimongkol. "It's not about space, it's about the way in which you treat the animals. The space that we provide to the animals is enough for them to freely move around, and to exercise. The zoo has a vet to take care of the animals. And we have many species of animals successfully breeding, which shows the animals are healthy and well-managed."
Kanit says the zoo is a respite for people looking to escape the "concrete jungle" of Bangkok and to "reconnect with nature". He says the animals are especially popular with children.
Earlier this year, Thailand's ministry of natural resources and environment declared its support in principle for a universal declaration on animal welfare, and a draft act on the prevention of cruelty to animals has been written, but in Thailand's current unstable political climate, the legislation is unlikely to be passed.
"There is an animal welfare law in Thailand, but it is very simple, very ineffective, and is rarely enforced," Wiek said. "It says only that if you torture an animal, you can be fined. And the maximum is 1,000 baht (£20). That's not a tool, that's a joke."
Pata zoo has been in Bangkok for nearly 30 years, but attitudes towards animal welfare are changing. Business is slow.
During the three hours the Guardian spent there, there were barely 20 visitors. The lunchtime "performance", featuring primates who lift weights, ride bicycles, and fight with knives, drew fewer than a dozen people to an auditorium built for several hundred.
The building is tired and run down, latches are broken on empty cages, abandoned enclosures are filthy. A handful of jackals, held in a tiny concrete room, are barely visible through the grimy viewing window. Across a narrow corridor from King Kong, two orangutans share a sparse enclosure, concreted on all sides apartfrom the iron bars at the front. Here, too, there are no trees or any greenery. The orangutans have learned to beg for food, reaching their long arms through the bars of their cage, clapping their hands as they shriek at visitors.
Several years ago there was a second indoor zoo in Bangkok, but all the animals died when the building caught fire, said Roger Lohanan, chairman of Thailand's animal guardian association. "Pata is an old building. If the zoo caught fire, those animals would all die. There is no way to get them out."
His organisation has successfully lobbied other shopping centres and hotels to abandon plans for indoor zoos, but campaigning to close the zoo at Pata has foundered on a lack of legal support. "We are fighting a losing battle in animal welfare in Thailand, because anything that can make money is acceptable. When we explain the problems to people, they agree with us, but they go on doing it because the law is on their side."
Animal welfare groups face a battle to close Pata zoo, where more than 200 species live out their days in appalling conditions Source:The Guardian (11/09/2010)
VIDEO LINK http://gu.com/p/2jeqj
The ground floor of the Pata department store has cheap clothing: the polyester slacks for 200 baht (£4.20), the polo shirts for half that. Higher up is the electronics department: the fake Rolexes and the cheap TVs. On the seventh floor is the gorilla.
There are no trees in "King Kong's" 15 x 10 metres concrete enclosure, just a tyre and a few ropes hanging from the low ceiling. He moves little, spending long hours sitting at the front of his pen, gripping the iron bars.
Ten metres away, a lone penguin stands in an air-conditioned pen, next to a pool of water, which is smaller than a bath and nowhere near deep enough for him to swim in. A few years ago, there were a dozen penguins, but only this one survives.
Bangkok's Pata zoo sits atop the department store that shares its name, on a busy road in the northern suburbs of Bangkok. Crammed into cages and pens across the sixth and seventh floor of the ageing building are more than 200 species: a menagerie of pythons, turtles, flamingos, monkeys, leopards, tigers, bears, and even a Shetland pony. From the rooftop enclosures, you can see the advertising billboards and office blocks next door, while traffic roars past below.
The director of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, Edwin Wiek, wants the zoo closed: "Basically, it is an animal prison on top of a shopping mall. The space is too small, the animals have very little room, there is very little sunlight, the enclosures are dirty, they smell bad, and people are coming past all day, getting far too close to the animals, which makes the animals extremely stressed. In 200 steps you can see 50 different species. Most people know that this is not an acceptable way to keep animals. It is a hell for animals."
Thailand, like much of south-east Asia, faces myriad animal welfare issues: cockfighting remains a popular, hardly-underground spectator sport, elephants are still put to work on the traffic-choked streets of Bangkok, and the city remains a hub for smuggling animals across the world. Last month a sedated tiger cub was discovered in a bag at Suvarnabhumi airport disguised amongst soft animal toys.
But Pata zoo reflects the fundamental problem: a lack of legislation regarding animal welfare. The zoo is breaking no laws. The animals were all obtained legally, and the zoo's licence was recently extended.
All the same, staff don't like the animals being filmed or photographed in their cages. The Guardian visited twice to obtain its footage, and both times we were encouraged to move on if we stayed too long at one enclosure.
"There are no rules or regulations to say how much space each animal needs," said the director, Kanit Sermsirimongkol. "It's not about space, it's about the way in which you treat the animals. The space that we provide to the animals is enough for them to freely move around, and to exercise. The zoo has a vet to take care of the animals. And we have many species of animals successfully breeding, which shows the animals are healthy and well-managed."
Kanit says the zoo is a respite for people looking to escape the "concrete jungle" of Bangkok and to "reconnect with nature". He says the animals are especially popular with children.
Earlier this year, Thailand's ministry of natural resources and environment declared its support in principle for a universal declaration on animal welfare, and a draft act on the prevention of cruelty to animals has been written, but in Thailand's current unstable political climate, the legislation is unlikely to be passed.
"There is an animal welfare law in Thailand, but it is very simple, very ineffective, and is rarely enforced," Wiek said. "It says only that if you torture an animal, you can be fined. And the maximum is 1,000 baht (£20). That's not a tool, that's a joke."
Pata zoo has been in Bangkok for nearly 30 years, but attitudes towards animal welfare are changing. Business is slow.
During the three hours the Guardian spent there, there were barely 20 visitors. The lunchtime "performance", featuring primates who lift weights, ride bicycles, and fight with knives, drew fewer than a dozen people to an auditorium built for several hundred.
The building is tired and run down, latches are broken on empty cages, abandoned enclosures are filthy. A handful of jackals, held in a tiny concrete room, are barely visible through the grimy viewing window. Across a narrow corridor from King Kong, two orangutans share a sparse enclosure, concreted on all sides apartfrom the iron bars at the front. Here, too, there are no trees or any greenery. The orangutans have learned to beg for food, reaching their long arms through the bars of their cage, clapping their hands as they shriek at visitors.
Several years ago there was a second indoor zoo in Bangkok, but all the animals died when the building caught fire, said Roger Lohanan, chairman of Thailand's animal guardian association. "Pata is an old building. If the zoo caught fire, those animals would all die. There is no way to get them out."
His organisation has successfully lobbied other shopping centres and hotels to abandon plans for indoor zoos, but campaigning to close the zoo at Pata has foundered on a lack of legal support. "We are fighting a losing battle in animal welfare in Thailand, because anything that can make money is acceptable. When we explain the problems to people, they agree with us, but they go on doing it because the law is on their side."