Conflict at Indonesia's Surabaya Zoo leaves animals to languish and die, including endangered Sumatran tigers

Updated

Thousands of exotic animals, including endangered Sumatran tigers, are languishing at a renowned Indonesian zoo where a bitter conflict is leaving animals to suffer and die.

The Surabaya Zoo was once the pride of South-East Asia, but overcrowding, small enclosures and squalid conditions have seen the number of animal deaths at the zoo run in to the hundreds - possibly thousands - over recent years.

There are 3,500 animals in Surabaya Zoo, including endangered orangutans and 15 tigers.

During the past three months alone, 50 animals have died, including an endangered Indonesian orangutan. Three tigers, dozens of Komodo dragons, and a giraffe have died in recent years.

Paper Tiger - Foreign Correspondent

In 2011 Matt Brown investigated the impact the paper industry was having on the Sumatran wilderness. In 2011 Matt Brown investigated the impact the paper industry was having on the Sumatran wilderness.

The zoo's curator, Sri Penta, showed Foreign Correspondent around the zoo where endangered orangutans could be seen drinking from contaminated water, eagles and pelicans were crammed into small cages with no room to fly, and thousands of other animals were in dire conditions.

The big cats are kept for days on end in cramped, damp enclosures. Some of them are in such poor condition the public is not allowed to see them and they spend their entire existence caged.

"The current size of cages, for example, does not correspond with the animals occupying it. [They're] too crowded," Ms Penta said.

Sumatran tigress in the middle of bitter feud

One Sumatran tigress, Melani, has become the poster girl of the zoo for the wrong reason - used by feuding management factions to further their own interests.

Three Sumatran tigers have dropped dead at Surabaya Zoo since 2008.

Melani survived but she is teetering on the edge of death after years of neglect and being served toxic meals contaminated with formaldehyde.

Tiger facts: Tigers are the largest of all big cats.

Male Siberian tigers can grow to 300kgs, while male Sumatran tigers grow to 140kgs.

Can consume up to 40kgs of meat per meal.

Give birth to 2-3 cubs every 2-2.5 years.

Juvenile mortality rate is high, but tigers in the wild can live to 26 years.

Around 3,200 tigers left in the wild. Source:



Source: World Wildlife Fund

Ms Penta says the zoo staff tried as hard as they could to save her.

"We have changed [from] the old supplier of the food. We have a new meat supplier," she said.

"We also work to improve the quality of food and when the meats arrived, we try to check the quality."

About three months ago, forestry minister Zulkifli Hasan stepped in.

"In order to avoid this continuous use of Melani as a political tool, and to make sure she is treated in a better, safer environment, we moved her to Taman Safari," the minister said.

Mr Hasan's portfolio includes responsibility for the exotic animals that inhabit Indonesia's shrinking forests.

He signed a ministerial decree ordering the sick tigress be removed and taken away for expert care.

Mr Hasan says rescuing the zoo's animals is almost impossible because the local government, which owns the zoo, is refusing help from outside and insists it can run the zoo itself.

"We tried and failed. They wouldn't let us," he said.

"We were trying to move some animals out to Taman Safari, but they didn't let us, they surrounded us."

Surabaya Zoo 'doesn't understand animal welfare issues'

Such is the damage to Melani's internal organs that her survival is not guaranteed.

Melani was taken to a tiger rehabilitation centre near Jakarta, run by the head of Indonesia's Zoo Association, Tony Sumampau.

Mr Sumampau, who runs a tiger hospital and breeding program, says Surabaya Zoo is failing its responsibility to the animals.

"They don't understand about the animal welfare issue. Since 2007 [the] South East Asian Zoos Association inspects every zoo around in Indonesia," Mr Sumampau said.

Ms Penta has been getting more and more worried about the animals she considers her children, but she is almost powerless to help.

"Of course, I feel very disappointed, feeling a sense of loss," She said.

"When these animals were sick, we tried to make them recover as much as possible together with the medical team to heal them. But what can we say?

"The insufficient environment and also the cages did not meet the standard animal welfare."

Sumatran tigers face extinction

There are now only thought to be between 300 and 400 critically endangered Sumatran tigers left in the wild.

"If we can't save the habitat of the tigers we might lose the tiger in another 30 [or] 40 years. They will disappear in the wild," Mr Sumampau said.

With production of palm oil and paper expanding, along with a recent proposal to build a coal truck highway through its natural habitat, the Sumatran tiger faces even more threats, including superstition.

The carcass of a dead tiger is worth up to $500,000 alone, with its skin sold as a rug and the rest cut up for Chinese medicine.

"The tiger's thought of as a walking drug store," said Sybelle Foxcroft, the director of an Australian Conservation group Cee4Life.

"So when you look at the complete tiger, you know; eyeballs for epilepsy, whiskers for toothache and then other things like cutting the paws off, hanging them over the doors to chase away ghosts ... it just goes on and on," she said.

Ms Foxcroft has been investigating and exposing the trade in Asian tigers for years.

She says it often involves powerful syndicates because there is so much money to be made.

"A lot of times with wildlife trafficking, the drug trade is also involved, so it’s a very dangerous business to address. It's a very evil business," Ms Foxcroft said.

The syndicates approach poor villagers in places like Indonesia, offering small fortunes for a dead tiger.

"They'll offer to a villager what might equate to six months' or a year's wage which might be something like, you know, 400 Australian dollars or 500 Australian dollars," she said.

"For a villager, that's a fortune. They're living in poverty, so they think it's fantastic."

Watch Foreign Correspondent: Cry Of The Tiger tonight at 8:00pm on ABC 1.

Topics: animals, human-interest, zoology, zoos, animal-science, science-and-technology, indonesia, sumatra

First posted