- Anupama Reddy Eleti, B.A LLB (Hons.), Gujarat National Law University
INTRODUCTION
“There is a man and our mind knows we will die here”, said Carol Ann Duffy in her poem, The Dolphins, presenting a grim picture of the trauma and abuse caged animals undergo every day. A recent plea filed by animal rights activist Sangeeta Dogra at the Supreme Court seeks to highlight this very issue. The plea expressed the lack of structural provisions with regards to the treatment of zoo animals in India, by highlighting examples of torture afflicted on them by underqualified zookeepers. The petition also stated a severe violation of Sections 30, 54 and 56 of the Indian Veterinary Council Act 1984, which address the appointment of verified veterinarians for animal care and penalize the use of fake certificates and misuse of titles. This article is particularly relevant in light of the various controversies regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. This article seeks to bring out the problems within the existing zoo management structure and provides for recommendations to further animal welfare among Indian zoos.
LANGUISHING ZOO MAINTENANCE
As of January 2020, India is a host to a total of 145 zoos as recognized by the Central Zoo Authority of India (CZA). The CZA is a statutory body established under the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act, 1991. The Act assigns the Central Zoo Authority the responsibility to draft and maintain specific standards of “housing, upkeep and veterinary care” for the animals held captive. Thus, CZA has been vested with the primal authority to manage all zoological parks in India — be it appointments, management, training or zoological research. However, ever since the Act came into place nearly 30 years ago, many incidents of animal rights violations have surfaced, with underqualified officials being appointed for their upkeep. Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo, located at Byculla, Mumbai, for example, has had a history of controversy with regards to animal treatment and has recorded several cases of mismanagement, leading to a high mortality rate in recent times. Unnatural environment, small unhygienic cages, overcrowding, and cruelty characterize not only Byculla but most zoological parks in India. Pertaining to animal deaths at Zoos in India, a recent RTI plea regarding the national zoological park at Delhi revealed that it has witnessed a total of 450 deaths in the past three years alone. These numbers are appalling, to say the least, and showcase the complete disorder of the management system.
ANIMAL ENRICHMENT
Animal Enrichment is an important part of animal welfare. It is the process of enriching an animal’s environment so as to encourage it to live according to its species-typical behavior. A healthy animal environment is just as important as food and veterinary care. Some examples of this can be found as follows:
Creating a realistic nature-oriented environment with real plants that highly resemble the animal’s habitat in order to stimulate normal upbringing. This would serve two main purposes, one, that real plants would act in making the environment more realistic to the habitat of the animal and second, it would also provide shade.
Provide them with food puzzles for mental stimulation.
Provide special enclosures and barriers that give the animal the ability to stay away from visitors when needed.
Provide social enrichment by putting animals from the same habitat together.
However, Indian zoos severely lack the efforts needed for animal enrichment, with many caged in small spaces, vulnerable to mental stress and trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its high transmission rate, has only exacerbated the need for better management. The recent case of the death of Padmanabhan, a 12-year old male lion soon after the death of Neela, a 9-year old lioness at Vandalur Zoo, due to COVID, presents the grave urgency of the matter. Despite CZA setting regular assessments and guidelines, no substantial change can be seen. Underfunding, mismanagement, lack of well-trained zoo officials and veterinary services are only some of the many reasons for the dire state of India’s zoological parks.
NEED FOR ZOO-BASED RESEARCH
For a long time now, zoological parks have been a massive storehouse of valuable knowledge in the field of animal behaviour and veterinary sciences. Zoo’s contribution to animal nutrition, reproduction and ethology is well documented. The ZSL (Zoological Society of London), for example, set forth a careful policy on zoo animal research in the UK, which noted the essential reason behind research on zoological animals - to address impending questions on animal conservation and management. Owing to the abundant species data gathered at zoo’s, research on conservation, upkeep and disease mitigation of endangered species is especially easier to conduct within zoo premises. Results of such research would help species conservation around the world. In the Indian context, the CZA has so far taken up several research projects subjected to Indian zoo animals, such as the behavioural study of Himalayan black bear, research on the upkeep of reptiles in the Indian zoos and conservation breeding of the Brow-antlered deers.
Such significant research is, no doubt, extremely important to answer questions on animal behaviour and husbandry, however, research on animals raises doubts on the ethics of it all. For ethical research to take place, there must be a strict protocol for experiments (keeping animal care as a priority) as well as involvement and approval of qualified veterinary surgeons for the projects. In the 2020 AZA annual report on conservation and science, over 63 per cent of AZA-accredited zoos were participating in research, with a total of 1,375 research projects recorded, demonstrating the important role zoos play in conservation research. The ethical debate over zoo-based research can only be resolved by implementing research guidelines that strictly adhere to field conservation and species management. Within the CZA, an animal ethics committee should be set up to formulate and ensure such guidelines are maintained. In this era of climate change and habitat loss, as the IUCN red list keeps getting updated, ethical research in the field of conservation is a necessity and should be one of the many factors that the zoological parks in India must prioritise.
ETHICS OF ZOO BASED RESEARCH
All of this research must be carried out in accordance with well-defined scientific aims and with due regard for animal welfare. The outcome for the animals at the end of the program of work, such as rehoming, release, or euthanasia, must be carefully considered at the planning stage of the project (if required).
Animals must only be used in research when there is no other viable option. Researchers must give due consideration to non-animal methodologies such as computer modeling, imaging technology, and tissue and cell-based research before submitting their project ideas. Non-animal models should be developed by the researchers in order to acquire the knowledge needed to address risks to wildlife health.
India has become the latest country to look into replacing animals in research with developing technology such as organs-on-a-chip. Alternatives for drug toxicity and efficacy testing, on the other hand, are not yet sufficient to eliminate the need for animals. However, a shift to alternative technologies will necessitate a significant and costly overhaul of India's drug approval procedure, which presently requires drugs to be tested in rodents, primates, or dogs before being approved for human use.
RECOMMENDATIONS
When it comes to the quality standards required to become an ethically conscious zoo, accreditation plays an important role. In the United States of America, for example, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) presents a system of accreditation that sets quality standards for zoo management while prioritizing animal welfare and conservation. An AZA-accredited zoo is therefore following the highest forms of care and management of its animals. In order to achieve this level of standard among Indian zoological parks, the following changes must be observed :
● Enforcement of large scale regulation in terms of appointments and infrastructure development.
● Multiple and regular on-site visits and stringent inspections of zoo premises.
● A gradual transformation of its management into a PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model, (PPP model is essentially a funding model wherein there is a partnership between the government and private organization or group of businesses). The involvement of private players in the management would give the zoological parks a much-needed upgrade.
● Reduction of the total number of zoo parks to a limited number for better funding and management.
These will ensure the basic necessities to be met with, and re-establish zoological plans in India.
CONCLUSION
Giving animal ethics its due precedence, we must ensure a transition from the traditional ideas behind zoos into their modern role in animal conservation. New age zoological parks must prioritize animal conservation, health and awareness above that of entertainment and profit-making. Efficient animal management training programs, animal care manuals, zoo-based research and recruitment of trained and qualified officials for their care is extremely necessary to achieve the goals of modern zoos in serving the need for animal conservation. Articulation of a collective voice for this cause is essential for a humane society to persist.
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