Animal Cruelty in Bali Zoo
If you can touch a wild animal or take a photo with them, then there is animal exploitation.
I saw a flyer at Bali Zoo that said “breakfast with orangutans”. I went to the zoo with my camera to see what kind of exploitation they were subjected to.
The tickets for those who wanted to have breakfast with an orangutan were 700 rupees. The orangutans stand in the open restaurant area between 8-10 am. Everyone wants to take pictures and have their pictures taken. Imagine having to stand in the same place for 2 hours to have their pictures taken with you. And you have to do this every morning between 8-10 am.
As you can see from the photos, adult female orangutan got tired of having her pictures taken and put plants in front of her after a while.
Why do we humans want to ride on animals? No living thing exists because another living thing rides on it. In other words, no living thing is in this world for us to ride on. Therefore, its physiology is not suitable for this.
If you notice in the video, the elephant in the front is constantly looking at a point, in other words, it is looking at the elephant on that side. As if there is a problem. Even if the animal's caretaker calls it by name, it does not care. I think this is the decisive moment for an elephant. We know that recently in Thailand, an elephant was killed by a woman who wanted to wash an elephant as a tourist activity at an elephant rehabilitation center. I am not shocked by this news. However, I wonder how arrogant people are when they 'try to wash' an animal. The elephant coming from behind in the video has its teeth cut. When I asked the officer, he said they cut them because they were too big. I said big for whom? He did not answer.
There is a hammer-like material in the photos. They hit the elephants on the head with it. They give the elephant the direction it should go by hitting the animal's skull.
Riding on elephants and horses means exploiting them. In fact, horses labeled as 'riding animals' have many back ailments due to this reason. Despite their many pains, horses manage the situation and do not show their pain. On the other hand, people knowingly or unknowingly put saddles on the horse's already painful back and ride it.
If you are confused about whether any action is animal exploitation, if you put a human in the place of that animal, you will find a clear answer.
Feeding animals has become a way to make money. What do visitors who come to see animals that have been taken from their wilds and imprisoned expect to see? Repetitive stereotype behavior due to stress? Frustration? Aggressive behavior?
Although Charles Darwin said, 'There is no fundamental difference between man and higher animals in terms of mental abilities', I think when it comes to animals, human consciousness, which is at the very end of the evolutionary branches, fails.
Note: As an animal photojournalist, I went to Bali Zoo to get images about the living conditions of animals. I do not support zoos.
