An evening in Thrissur Zoo

THRISSUR: A 17-year-old camel in the zoo here died on Tuesday. According to the zoo authorities, the animal had not been keeping well for the last two weeks.

Thrissur: One of the two porcupettes (baby porcupines) born at the Thrissur zoo on Sunday was gored to death by its mother, zoo veterinarians said on Monday.

Founded in 1885 by the joint venture of Travancore-cochin kingdom, for the animal enthusiasts, Thrissur boasts a zoo, 2km from the town centre. Within the 13.5 acres of the compound live a variety of fauna like the lion tailed macaque, sloth bear, species of birds and deer. The snake park has a reptilian collection of King Cobras, Kraits, Vipers and Rat Snakes. That is enough for the marketing division.
Today the zoo is congested, being in the center of the city there is nop space left to expand the zoo premises. Recently the government and Thrissur corporation have decided to move the zoo to Peechi forest few 10-15 miles from the city which already houses a natural reserve. The plan includes building a natural reserve and giving more freedom to the animals who has seen just a stinky small cage in the lifetime. On the wake of this positive move and though the zoo was improved many times after my visit before my last one, I must confess the sights I devoured in the my last visit to the Thrissur zoo.
I have always had interest in nature, animals, trees etc and I loved to visit zoos. One of my friend once asked me if you like animals how could you love watching them behind bars and he suggested that I should discourage zoos and other animal captivities. And that's why I decided to visit the Thrissur zoo to realise that.
The main problem of that zoo were
1. the hygiene of the cages.
The cages stink of uncleaned excreta, rotten food mixed with dirt, damp moss covered walls in times of rain, rusting cage bars. Probably it is difficult to mend the rusting cage bars, in which case they should be coated with non-rusting material or replace it with strong Aluminium cages. Regarding the cleanliness, the cages are cleaned only once a week and most of the cages are dark ang gloomy. The food is thrown into the cages and if the animals don’t eat them it just lie there and rot inviting infection and epidemic. Why are the animals so unhealthy even when there is a well known veternary hospital in the town. Hippopotamus tank when installed you could see them playing joyfully in the water, mainly encouraged by the new clean water. But the merry is long lost the water stinks of dead fish and algae. Everything seems to be there but a little dedication in lacking.
2. overpopulation
All of the deer enclosure and monkey cages are almost full, one monkey cage contains 15-16 monkeys jampacked quarelling with each other for the bread crumbs, peanuts or fresh air. Talking about monkeys they are the most active animals who love to jump around exploring the world, and here you find them trying to find that joy in a rusty enclosure. There were many instances of monkey prison breaks too. This time I visited the Sambhar enclosure too was overcrowded, they were fighting to drink water from a narrow tank. The ways to check overpopulation would be to gastrate the males or just should have let the older ones free into jungles and keep the fresh littles ones inside.
3. institutionalisation of animals (see Shawshank redemption)
Though the worst of the criminals get life imprisonment they just need to spend 14 years of their life in prison. Many animals when they are sent to the zoos it is imprisonment to life indeed for many never get a chance to see a forest or river or any of their habitats. Now that I suppose the Instincts are born out of the cirumstances these animals are getting more and more unfit to the jungles. The animals should be cycled between the zoos and cages. A tiger when it comes to a zoo doesn’t have to live there till its death, why cant they be released after 5 years to some wilderness. Same is the case of monkeys, there are plenty of monkeys already loose in the town so why do we we have to keep more of them in cages.

This is just a case study, the situation is more or less the the same everywhere. Please encourage the movements towards the freedom of animals. They would still live happily even if you don’t go and visit them. Make visits to natural reserves and forest rides to encourage the forest maintainance and preservation of the nature.
The immaturity of the childhood eluded the harsh realities with painted fascination, it took ages to realise the errors and still a lot to travel be worthy to be called human.