Better laws regulating zoos are urgently needed because the habits and behavior of zoo animals reflect the decades of neglect they have been subjected to as the result of human-centered thinking, animal rights activists said yesterday.
Members of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) screened a documentary at the Legislative Yuan yesterday to prove that some zoo animals suffer from neglect and abuse.
PHOTO: ENVIRONMENT AND ANIMAL SOCIETY OF TAIWAN (EAST)
Volunteers of the society spent two years shooting the documentary in zoos around the nation. In the film, a mangy Alaskan Brown Bear confined to a small room in the Kaohsiung Municipal Shou Shan Zoo has lost most of its fur.
PHOTO: ENVIRONMENT AND ANIMAL SOCIETY OF TAIWAN (EAST)
An orangutan housed at the same zoo jumps in place for hours at a time, while an elephant lies on the ground without being responsive to others' touching.
"We've seen too many cases involving abnormal animal behavior. Animals are treated cruelly in unnatural environments created by human-centered managers," said Chen Yu-min (
Chen said that zookeepers are supposed to be specialist animal caretakers, but many of them were unaware that their charges were sick until volunteers working on the documentary reported the illnesses to them.
"Zookeepers don't even notice the abnormal behavior of stressed animals," Chen said.
Chen said that unusual behavior is sometimes the first clue that an animal might be sick.
According to EAST, there are more than 100 animal centers in this country, including three major public zoos and two private ones. The Taipei Zoo, the largest in the nation, has more than 3,000 reptiles, amphibians and mammals of about 400 different species. Its annual income is more than NT$200 million.
The activists complained that zookeepers introduce rare species from abroad to attract more visitors without considering the problems posed by the inappropriate environment provided for the animals. Even worse, artificial breeding services are available in some private zoos, catering to buyers.
"Relocating wild animals to zoos [to satisfy curious people] is wrong. We should promote non-zoo education, which stresses the value of observing animals in the field without disturbing them," said EAST president Wu Hung (悟泓).
Wu Hung said that certain kinds of animals, such as polar bears and elephants, had been classified by Western conservationists as unsuitable for zoos. In Scotland's Edinburgh Zoo, he noted, a stone elephant was built a decade ago with a sign saying "You won't find a single elephant in this zoo except this one!"
Wu Hung said Edinburgh was evidence that animal conservationists in the West tried to inform people about human beings' inability to create a good environment in a zoo for certain animals.
Wu said that well-designed zoo laws are necessary if zoos have to exist, noting that examples of such laws can be found in the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, the EU, Australia, Colombia and India.
"We have to improve the zoo environment to make animals feel more comfortable," Wu said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) said he would work with his colleagues to draft laws to regulate zoos, adding, "The way we treat animals is an indicator of the degree of civilization in our society."
Li Ken-cheng (
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its
22 GUIDELINES: The claims that the Taiwanese military was behind cyberattacks in China were likely made to influence William Lai’s Double Ten address, the expert said Beijing is using its “22 guidelines,” designed to punish “die-hard” Taiwanese independence separatists, to target active-duty Taiwanese military personnel, a cross-strait expert said yesterday. Similar tactics by China intended to threaten or harm morale are expected to increase in the coming weeks ahead of Double Ten National Day next month, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on Monday posted a message on WeChat accusing a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of launching cyberattacks against China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year. The group was seeking to seize control of Web sites, electronic billboards, and