Zoo animals have feelings, too
By Marlet D. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:50:00 10/05/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Dogs, cats, snakes and other pets took center stage on Saturday, World Animal Day, for blessings in various churches and parks all over the country.
As companions of humans, they are showered with love and attention. They are cuddled and fed on time. They are seldom alone because they have human guardians to look after their needs.
But a number of animals at the Manila Zoo have been living solitary lives for many years, with only zoo keepers and veterinarians for company.
Mali the elephant, Sese the orangutan, the unnamed hippopotamus and zebra, and the newly donated silver fox are among the animals living in enclosures with none of their kind to interact with, according to Dr. Donald Manalastas, chief of the Manila Zoo’s Zoological Division.
But Manalastas was quick to say that the zoo was working to ease the animals’ emotional stress through a behavioral enrichment program.
“We try to provide some activities to ease their boredom,” he said.
For example, food is provided in a way that allows the animals to “hunt.”
Thus, Mali’s fruits are frozen and presented in a pail. “She has to scoop them up,” said Manalastas, who joined the zoo’s veterinary team in 1997.
Sese is given a “phone book” where seeds are hidden in between the pages.
Food for the tigers is strategically located in their enclosure to allow them to track it by its odor; crickets are sometimes scattered in the aviary for the birds to pursue.
And to sustain his instinct for digging, the silver fox is given a scratching peg.
All these, Manalastas said, are “to help them stimulate their minds and to at least not take their wild instincts from them.”
Sociable and affectionate
Mali, an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), is easily one of the most popular animals at the 5.5-hectare zoo because she greets visitors at the entrance.
Manalastas said Mali arrived at the zoo in the 1980s as a replacement of an elephant (one of two) who had died. A few years later, the other elephant also died.
Since then, Mali has been spending her life alone.
The National Geographic website states that Asian elephants, the largest animals on earth, “roam great distances while foraging for the large quantities of food they require to sustain their massive bodies.”
As shown in many documentaries, elephants are highly sociable animals who live in herds.
They have extended families, and the whole herd takes care of and protects the young.
They are also affectionate animals who grieve for a long period of time over the death of their kind.
Highly intelligent
The orangutan Sese (Pongo pygmaeus) and a male partner arrived at the zoo also in the early 1980s.
The male died two years later due to “a liver problem,” and Sese has not had a mate since then, Manalastas said.
She is often observed in her enclosure that resembles a huge bird cage looking forlornly at the people who either tease her or throw food at her just to make her move.
Sese often takes care of kittens who stray into her cage, Manalastas said. “She cuddles them until they grow and leave.”
According to the National Geographic, orangutans are “highly intelligent and are close relatives of humans.”
They are endemic to Sumatra and Borneo.
Family animals
While orangutans are considered more solitary creatures than apes, they keep in contact with their own species by howling and making rumbling sounds.
Orangutan literally means “person of the forest.”
Hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) and zebras (Equus burchellii) are family animals, so to speak.
The unnamed female hippo has surpassed her life span (hippos live up to 40 years, according to National Geographic).
She arrived at the Manila Zoo in the early 1960s and her partner died three or four years ago “because of system failure due to old age,” Manalastas said.
The hippo has given birth, but her calf did not live long. “It’s because the mother didn’t show the nurturing instinct to care for her child,” Manalastas said.
Hippos travel as much as 10 kilometers in one night and “spend 16 hours a day submerged in rivers and lakes to keep their bodies cool.”
Female hippos produce offspring every two years and join other hippos in a school to protect themselves against predators.
The zebra, on the other hand, lost her kind one by one over the years. She is seen with a white horse in one area of the zoo.
Zebras are described as “social animals that spend time in herds. They graze together, primarily on grass, and even groom one another … They live in small family groups consisting of a male (stallion), several females, and their young. These units may combine with others to form awe-inspiring herds thousands of head strong, but family members will remain close within the herd.”
‘Zoochosis’
The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) Asia-Pacific has been lobbying for the closure of the Manila Zoo, citing the ill effects of confining wild animals in an environment not suitable for their natural build and instinct.
But it acknowledges that closing the zoo and releasing the animals into the wild is a multistep process and cannot be done overnight.
Quoting a term coined by Bill Travers of the Born Free Foundation, which is also working on freeing captive wild animals, Peta cites the psychological condition called “zoochosis,” in which an animal displays “obsessive and repetitive behavior.”
“The symptoms include incessant pacing in one area, bar biting, neck twisting, swaying, and over-grooming,” Peta said, adding that the condition was considered “a sign of mental illness.”
But Manalastas said: “We don’t get animals from the wild; what we bring in are captive-bred animals while some are donated by private individuals.”
Expenses
The Manila government has aired plans to import animals for the zoo, but as Manalastas pointed out, “it is much too expensive to bring other animals to pair with the single ones here.”
His rough estimate of the cost was between P4 million and P5 million, the bulk being freight charges.
The zoo operates under the Public Recreations Bureau and is allocated a budget every year like any other government unit.
It currently spends P12.3 million annually on food and about P300,000-P400,000 on vitamins, supplements and medications.
Its income goes straight to the city government’s treasury.
Peta has asked Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim to just consider closing the zoo, rehabilitating those animals that could still be saved, releasing them into the wild “where they truly belong,” or sending them to sanctuaries to allow them to interact with their own kind.
Manalastas said, however, that because the zoo animals had been “housed” for a long time, there was a great chance that they had lost their survival skills and would only end up as unsuspecting prey.
“Here at the zoo, they live a longer life, as opposed to reintroducing them to an environment in which they don’t know how to survive,” he said.
But apart from the zoo’s behavioral enrichment program, what to do with the solitary Mali, Sese, the hippo, the zebra, and the silver fox?
Think Tigger in “Winnie the Pooh,” when he first realized there were other Tiggers out there that he didn’t know existed.
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