Plight of animals at Bangkok’s rooftop zoo above department store
From Guardian
By Ben Doherty
The ground floor of the Pata department store has cheap clothing: the polyester slacks for 200 baht (£4.20), the polo shirts for half that. Higher up is the electronics department: the fake Rolexes and the cheap TVs. On the seventh floor is the gorilla.
There are no trees in “King Kong’s” 15 x 10 metres concrete enclosure, just a tyre and a few ropes hanging from the low ceiling. He moves little, spending long hours sitting at the front of his pen, gripping the iron bars.
Ten metres away, a lone penguin stands in an air-conditioned pen, next to a pool of water, which is smaller than a bath and nowhere near deep enough for him to swim in. A few years ago, there were a dozen penguins, but only this one survives.
Bangkok’s Pata zoo sits atop the department store that shares its name, on a busy road in the northern suburbs of Bangkok. Crammed into cages and pens across the sixth and seventh floor of the ageing building are more than 200 species: a menagerie of pythons, turtles, flamingos, monkeys, leopards, tigers, bears, and even a Shetland pony. From the rooftop enclosures, you can see the advertising billboards and office blocks next door, while traffic roars past below.
The director of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, Edwin Wiek, wants the zoo closed: “Basically, it is an animal prison on top of a shopping mall. The space is too small, the animals have very little room, there is very little sunlight, the enclosures are dirty, they smell bad, and people are coming past all day, getting far too close to the animals, which makes the animals extremely stressed. In 200 steps you can see 50 different species. Most people know that this is not an acceptable way to keep animals. It is a hell for animals.”
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Thailand, like much of south-east Asia, faces myriad animal welfare issues: cockfighting remains a popular, hardly-underground spectator sport, elephants are still put to work on the traffic-choked streets of Bangkok, and the city remains a hub for smuggling animals across the world. Last month a sedated tiger cub was discovered in a bag at Suvarnabhumi airport disguised amongst soft animal toys.
But Pata zoo reflects the fundamental problem: a lack of legislation regarding animal welfare. The zoo is breaking no laws. The animals were all obtained legally, and the zoo’s licence was recently extended.
All the same, staff don’t like the animals being filmed or photographed in their cages. The Guardian visited twice to obtain its footage, and both times we were encouraged to move on if we stayed too long at one enclosure.
“There are no rules or regulations to say how much space each animal needs,” said the director, Kanit Sermsirimongkol. “It’s not about space, it’s about the way in which you treat the animals. The space that we provide to the animals is enough for them to freely move around, and to exercise. The zoo has a vet to take care of the animals. And we have many species of animals successfully breeding, which shows the animals are healthy and well-managed.”
Kanit says the zoo is a respite for people looking to escape the “concrete jungle” of Bangkok and to “reconnect with nature”. He says the animals are especially popular with children.
Earlier this year, Thailand’s ministry of natural resources and environment declared its support in principle for a universal declaration on animal welfare, and a draft act on the prevention of cruelty to animals has been written, but in Thailand’s current unstable political climate, the legislation is unlikely to be passed.
“There is an animal welfare law in Thailand, but it is very simple, very ineffective, and is rarely enforced,” Wiek said. “It says only that if you torture an animal, you can be fined. And the maximum is 1,000 baht (£20). That’s not a tool, that’s a joke.”
Pata zoo has been in Bangkok for nearly 30 years, but attitudes towards animal welfare are changing. Business is slow.
During the three hours the Guardian spent there, there were barely 20 visitors. The lunchtime “performance”, featuring primates who lift weights, ride bicycles, and fight with knives, drew fewer than a dozen people to an auditorium built for several hundred.
The building is tired and run down, latches are broken on empty cages, abandoned enclosures are filthy. A handful of jackals, held in a tiny concrete room, are barely visible through the grimy viewing window. Across a narrow corridor from King Kong, two orangutans share a sparse enclosure, concreted on all sides apartfrom the iron bars at the front. Here, too, there are no trees or any greenery. The orangutans have learned to beg for food, reaching their long arms through the bars of their cage, clapping their hands as they shriek at visitors.
Several years ago there was a second indoor zoo in Bangkok, but all the animals died when the building caught fire, said Roger Lohanan, chairman of Thailand’s animal guardian association. “Pata is an old building. If the zoo caught fire, those animals would all die. There is no way to get them out.”
His organisation has successfully lobbied other shopping centres and hotels to abandon plans for indoor zoos, but campaigning to close the zoo at Pata has foundered on a lack of legal support. “We are fighting a losing battle in animal welfare in Thailand, because anything that can make money is acceptable. When we explain the problems to people, they agree with us, but they go on doing it because the law is on their side.”
wake up humans
i have had enough
do you not understand
that life is tough
do you not feel the
pain of species
sad
that you consider inferior
well, you all are mad
where do you get off
with these indoor zoos
how would you feel
if this happened to you?Karen Lyons Kalmenson
Our Compass 
This is pure evil its time it stop . STOP ABUSE NOW SHAME ON YOU
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wake up humans
i have had enough
do you not understand
that life is tough
do you not feel the
pain of species
sad
that you consider inferior
well, you all are mad
where do you get off
with these indoor zoos
how would you feel
if this happened to you?
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Strangily enough 2 years ago on Care 2 Antoni Uni started this campaign and nobody, or hardly anybody reacted, Edwin Wiek didn’t want to help when I asked him.
Never mind, it is hopefully on the map now, for the animals, and not for the person who has more cloud.
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November 20, 2007 I visited the “zoo” and left more than shocked.
I tried to get a bit of support of some local NGO’s but they seemed to be blocked by workload and much more blocked by the weak Thai laws concerning animal-abuse. Shortly afterwards I had the same problem with the case of the begging street-elephants. Edwin Wiek offered premises to host the more than abused animals from Pata “zoo” in word to me, but the director of the “zoo” Mr. KANIT SERMSIRIMONGKOL, said once in an interview with a Thai newspaper very arrogant that he isn’t acting against the law and when the Thai government changes laws he will obey the new laws…… which means that his “money-makers” will stay under these circumstances until they die.
Furthermore one cannot protest publically as we are used to do in other countries without generating agressivity by the “business-people” involved.
A photo of March 20, 2008 with lots of explaining text and, very important, links can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_uni/2495973069/in/set-72157603255213793/
This photo is part of 120 photos concerning this “zoo” my public album in Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_uni/sets/72157603255213793/ , also with lots of explaining text.
Unfortunately there’s not a lot of coordination and cooperation under the NGO’s I have noticed, so I limited myself, disappointed, in publishing as much as possible photos to get at least a bit more worldwide publicity to denounce this abuse.
I mentioned shortly the elephant-abuse, which can be found in: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_uni/collections/72157624597691718/
Thank you Hilke for your tribute!
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VIA ANTONI UNI AND BY ANTONI UNI
November 20, 2007 I visited the “zoo” and left more than shocked.
I tried to get a bit of support of some local NGO’s but they seemed to be blocked by workload and much more blocked by the weak Thai laws concerning animal-abuse. Shortly afterwards I had the same problem with the case of the begging street-elephants. Edwin Wiek offered premises to host the more than abused animals from Pata “zoo” in word to me, but the director of the “zoo” Mr. KANIT SERMSIRIMONGKOL, said once in an interview with a Thai newspaper very arrogant that he isn’t acting against the law and when the Thai government changes laws he will obey the new laws…… which means that his “money-makers” will stay under these circumstances until they die.
Furthermore one cannot protest publically as we are used to do in other countries without generating agressivity by the “business-people” involved.
A photo of March 20, 2008 with lots of explaining text and, very important, links can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_uni/2495973069/in/set-72157603255213793/
This photo is part of 120 photos concerning this “zoo” my public album in Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_uni/sets/72157603255213793/ , also with lots of explaining text.
Unfortunately there’s not a lot of coordination and cooperation under the NGO’s I have noticed, so I limited myself, disappointed, in publishing as much as possible photos to get at least a bit more worldwide publicity to denounce this abuse.
I mentioned shortly the elephant-abuse, which can be found in: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_uni/collections/72157624597691718/
(the link with my photo and text has been made in 2007 and never been updated anymore)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_uni/2495973069/in/set-72157603255213793/
Don’t forget this innocent 23 years locked-in creature!
2 3 YEARS IN THE SAME CAGE UNDER QUIT DARK CIRCUMSTANCES, THE LAST YEARS ALONE: BARBARIC AND INSANE!!!
PLEASE KHUN KANIT SERMSIRIMONGKOL (DIRECTOR OF THE “ZOO”) RELEASE HIM; I HAVE SOLUTIONS TO BRING HIM AND ALL THE OTHER ANIMALS TO PROPER (REHABILITATION)-PREMISES!!!
I (re)place here one of the sad photos of Bwana or Buanoi who is suffering already more than two decades in a place in Bangkok which has been named as a “zoo” but which is not more than a miserable set of cages “housing” around 300 animals. My last shock was that all the Humboldt penguins died in a couple of months leaving only one behind in an “acclimatized” room of which I fear that once the airco will be switched off for economical reasons.
Pata “zoo” and other reported abuses like street elephants, the arrest of a mahout, Soi dogs and some other abuse
I sincerely hope that my photos will be a helpful tribute in trying to get rid of lots of injustice which is going on already for many years. As the Thai authorities are not willing or are not able to take action and as Zoo-director Kanit seems to insist that “the zoo had complied with the law and if there was anything more that needed to be done, the government should pass a clear regulation for it” it is now only up to animal-lovers and protectors WORLWIDE!
Please help and raise your voice: FILE COMPLAINTS!!!!!!!!:
Tourists can be of a big help when they boycott certain “amusement” which has been signalized as animal-abuse! They can file complaints to the THAI TOURIST ORGANISATION, send an eMail: center@tat.or.th or a fax: +66 (0)2250 5511 ( 2 automatic lines) or you can visit them:
Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT),
1600 New Phetburi Road, Makkasan, Rajatevee, Bangkok 10310.
Tel : +66 2250 5500 (120 automatic lines)
Open Monday to Friday 8:30 – 16:30 hrs.
Closed on weekends and public holidays
Send a mail to a Thai governmental office with a site only in Thai: 1111@1111.go.th
Call the Tourist Police (they are English speaking!) when you are confronted with begging elephants in the Sathorn-Silom and central Sukhumvit areas, tel. 1155 (free call from any phone). There address: Unico House, Soi Lang Suan, Ploenchit Road, Bangkok.
Warn the tour-operators in your country, fill in complaint-forms if they are locally available, join the action groups with money or with physical help and, indeed with as much photos as possible!!! Such photos can be send to the governmental offices, but also to the action-groups and can be published in certain sites publishing positive and negative experiences as a tourist and sites where you can publish stories.
News stories can be published in: NOW PUBLIC and in VIRTUAL TOURIST
Underneath I mentioned some of the sites of caring organizations but this list is far from complete.
more PATA “ZOO” images
haha, so funny….
webshots
theblogthatbelongstodavid
http://www.thaiaga.org/Home_EN.htm
Koh Cafe by Kohsija (Video of a TV-interview in Thai)
Bangkok Post
”Thai menagerie” by IPPL
IPPL (international Primate Protection League)
”to-day at Spike” (video)
NATUREALERT
PATA Zoo in Thailand first investigate 8/10/2550 (Thai language)
Born To Be Wild: In the heart of the sprawling, chokingly polluted city of Bangkok, there is an appalling zoo on top of the Pata department store. I had visited this horrific place years ago, but asked another friend to check it out for me this August. It really is a wild animals worst possible nightmare. For most people it is extremely upsetting. What follows is the report I received
“The cruel wild beast is not behind the bars of the cage. He stands in front of it.”
(Axel Munthe)
Here an extract from the “Expedition Report 2000”:
“IN THE COILS OF THE NAGA”
by
Richard Freeman
“On the roof of the building the mammals and birds are kept in truly appalling conditions. I am an ardent supporter of responsible zoos with good breeding programmes – they are vital to save many endangered species. But slapdash holes like Pata zoo belong in the dark ages. Here gorillas, tigers, leopards, orang-utans, and pigmy hippos were kept in enclosures the size of the average living room. Worst were the bears. Three sun bears and an Asian black bear in a bare concrete enclosure with no den or climbing facilities. It could not have been more than ten feet square.
A woman was selling cakes to feed to them so their existence was nothing more than sleeping and begging. Ironically the zoo had some rare animals hardly ever seen in British zoos such as umbrella birds, Burmese ferret badgers, and yellow martins. These were totally wasted as exhibits in such a vile excuse for a zoo.
We were meant to be interviewing the director of Pata zoo who had taken some film of an alleged naga swimming in the Mekong. However he had fallen over and banged his head. He was in critical condition in hospital at the time. It seems karma really works!”
This is not a set to offend the Thai, I should do this in any country I am living as in every country of the world animals has been mistreated and abused, for cultural reasons and, even worse, for greed, ” business” and “comfort” . For the last group there cannot be a punishment too harsh as animals are part of our globe, are part of our eco-system and cannot defend themselves against our cruelty and “inventions”!
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