I visited a petting zoo last 2 days in one of our states in Malaysia...and am not happy with the conditions..actually the conditions are actually disturbing... I am sorry to say.. the place is not properly maintain.. and the saddest part is the animals.. they are not being cared properly and the fact that the zoo is for petting ..and most of the animals are damn scared of the visitors,worst are of visitors that have no courtesy to handle them gently .. the spaces for each animals are also very small for them to be comfortable with..
The rabbits for example... I got there and have the ideas in my mind that it will be like the Rabbit Park I visited at the Cable Car langkawi.. running freely in a wide green field.. but stop!! the space is big yet the rabbits are confined and gated in small space below direct sunlight as many as 6/7 of them. I looked at the caretakers and felt like saying to him "Hello..I may not be the wisest human on earth but when I got my first rabbit, within 20 min I knew by heart that rabbits hates direct sunlight.." They are hopeless with few visitors taking them up and down ( sighing.. I walked away as I can't bare the mishandling of the visitors, the struggling of the rabbits and no comments from the caretakers
)
The monkeys on the other hand.. I am talking about the chained ones.. they are not well in health as I can see him develops skin problems ( as he climbs on me ) ..and chained.. It can be seen clearly that the chain has left chain-marks on him shows that he/she has been chained for quite a long time.. The sadden part is that no care takers are present at the moment.. as I saw stupid/uneducated/ungentle/and the most stupidest bunch of male teenagers at the aged of around 18/19 played prank on the monkeys by provoking the monkey until he wanted to attack and was pulled back by its chain..harshly ( and I think it hurts).. the monkey showed his aggresive temperament to those boys and other visitors walked away.. My other half went to the monkey and let him climb on..and slowly.. he played around.. and was very manja indeed.. and climbed down when gently put back to it place..It's such a shame as the zoo should be the place to educate the public as I think and I read that most of the animals there are rescued..but the actual phenomenon is the adverse of everything on print..the caretakers are just of those part timers as this happened to me:
Me : Ehh..apa nieh ( seeing a bunch of cute animals)..sembunyik kepala semua..
Caretaker : Kalau tak tahu tanya saya ( duhHH~) Nieh Hedgehog.. Tengah tido tueh..
Me : ( looking at the caretaker) nieh bukan tidur nieh abang ( talking to my other half ).. nieh dia takut sangat2 nieh... ( ignoring the caretaker)
caretaker : silence~
Me : kecian.. tempat nak sembunyik pun tak da...
The parrots?.. I can see that those are not happy parrots..they are aggresive most of the time..
I do not think it is wrong to try to reserve the nature and educate the public.. Bukit Merah does good by providing their animals with the close-to nature-immitation habitat and their care takers handled the animals professionally and saw them handled the animals full-heartedly, it is more like they have this hush communication/chemistry between both of them. And the animals are away from the humans and no humans can actually do harm to them.
From here, I am thinking of writing an official letter of disagreement to the management of the place. Unfortunately, I realized I did not snap any pictures as a symbol of protest.. The place does not educate the public to care for the animals / have heart for the nature..but more to 'they are just animals, they are forest creatures, they are aggresive and they are helpless"
So, what do you all think of this place / concept of petting zoo..is it good?