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| Sunday, 27 January 2002 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Finale for Indian animal acts by MERRITT CLIFTON What if animal rights activists could suddenly stop the use of animals other than dogs and horses in travelling shows and circuses? And close all roadside zoos at the same time? What if major zoos and sanctuaries were suddenly asked to take in all the displaced animals, and give them quality care for life? And it all accredited zoos were ordered to meet higher standards very soon or close? It is all happening in India, through the edicts of culture minister Maneka Gandhi, founder of People For Animals, backed in May 2001 by the Supreme Court of India, who dismissed a decade of litigation by the Indian Circus Federation on behalf of 100 of the estimated 250 owners of Indian animal exhibits. After that precedent, the Mumbai High Court in August dismissed the last lawsuit obstructing confiscations of animals. Some animals were seized earlier in the summer, but the pace accelerated. The Gujarat forest department within two weeks of the High Court ruling reportedly cancelled permits for the private possession of 45 lions and 10 bears, and took custody of 20 lions, three bears, and two tigers, belonging to four different circuses. Other animals remained with the circuses-but were not to be exhibited-until arrangements could be made for their transport and accommodation elsewhere. Seizures of animals started even before the May ruling by the Supreme Court. In April 2001, for instance, in a case bringing a series of confrontations between activists and circus staff, PFA won an order from Ranga Reddy district collector Ajay Jain allowing the seizure from the Great Ravman Circus of 14 lions, nine tigers, a bear, and a monkey. Meanwhile, at request of the Gujarat SPCA, the Ahmedabad divisional forest office took a lion named Shanker from Samrat Circus owner Kailash Chauhan, who lacked the requisite permit to keep him, and awarded him to the Vadodara zoo. The Vadodara Zoo assigned Shanker to the Sayajiburg Zoo for rehabilitation. Allegedly purchased with his mate from Borivali National Park in 1988, Shanker had lived for 13 years in an eight-by-ten-foot cage near a train station. His mate reportedly died four years ago. Shanker never would have left Borivali if the 1972 Indian Wildlife Protection Act had ever been fully enforced. He would have been freed a year after the Samrat Circus acquired him, had Mrs. Gandhi received prompt co-operation at all levels when in 1989, as environment minister, she first tried to activate provisions of the act governing how zoos may operate, and prohibiting the use of lions, tigers, leopards, non-human primates, and bears in travelling shows and circuses. Taking large, dangerous animals out of public entertainment and closing substandard zoos would be logistically daunting anywhere, even with unlimited resources and a favourable climate of public opinion. Mrs. Gandhi may have more public support for this effort than for any of her other pro-animal crusades, especially her work to protect street dogs, but there is scarcely unanimous agreement that it ought to be a national priority. Almost everywhere the travelling show, circus, and roadside zoo owners insist that they, too, are animal-lovers, albeit badly misunderstood, who exhibit animals only because they must somehow earn the money to feed them like Jumbo Circus owner Ajay Shankar, The claim of Indian wildlife exhibitors being animal-lovers is belled in India by many of the exhibited animals having been captured from the wild, usually by the exhibitors themselves or members of their families, often at cost of killing older animals to get the young. Yet there can be truth in the claim, too. Many, of the exhibitors live in constant close proximity to their animals, some treat the animals as surrogate children, albeit disadvantaged children who must do tricks and beg for subsistence. Along with shutting substandard zoos, the CZA (Central Zoo Authority) is asking the 178 accredited zoos in India, plus three unaccredited zoos in Jammu and Kashmir, exempted from the Wildlife Protection Act, to undertake substantial upgrades. The first of the newly designated rescue centres to receive animals was the Arignar Anna Zoo, which took in four Himalayan bears, six sloth bears and a European brown bear taken from dancing bear acts during the first half of 2001. Construction of the bears, new quarters is still under way. Other new arrivals included 11 lions seized from two travelling shows in Tamil Nadu, 16 lions from a private zoo in Maharashtra, and 17 allegedly starving animals including six lions, a jackal, three macaques, two palm civets, a porcupine, two owls, a squirrel, and a python who came from a private zoo in Tamil Nadu on July 31. What Mrs. Gandhi really hopes to do, in her new capacity as federal minister for culture, is realise her lifelong dream of persuading fellow Indians that the defining characteristic of Indian culture is the ethic of kindness toward animals included among the basic teachings of the three great religions founded in India: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. |
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