Nature Alert: Letters: Welfare of zoo workers and animals

Saturday, 18 April 2009

Letters: Welfare of zoo workers and animals

Sat, 04/18/2009 | Reader's Forum The Jakarta Post

I would like to comment on an article titled "Visitors ask for cleaner Ragunan Zoo" (the Post, March 19, p. 19).

I agree that Ragunan Zoo management should increase the entrance fee; they should have raised it a couple of years ago. If 10,000 people visit the zoo on a Saturday or Sunday, with an entrance fee of Rp 4,000 (37 US cents) the zoo will only get Rp 40 million. Rp 40 million is not nearly enough to feed all the animals for even a day, as Ragunan has so many animals, not to mention pay for the salaries of all the workers.

If this happens in Ragunan Zoo, what about other zoos in Indonesia? The entrance fees there are even cheaper than at Ragunan Zoo. The government should pay more attention to the workers and the animals at all zoos.

Susan
Jakarta

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/04/18/letters-welfare-zoo-workers-and-animals.html

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.