Tarini Awatramani: It's time to put Byculla Zoo to pasture

If there is anything to marvel at in Mumbai's Byculla zoo, it is human behavior. 

Fully grown people bang at the glass and concrete boxes that detain cobras and throw pebbles at the bear through the rusted bars of its cage. In another cell at the other side of the park children wait eagerly for the lone hyena to come out of its dark corner and grab the raw meat rotting on the ground.

Parents who do not want to see them disappointed call out to the hyena trying to provoke it out of inaction. They want the animals to do tricks. They want a circus.

But the animals at the Byculla zoo suffer from atrophy, boredom and stress, common behavioral tendencies noticed in caged animals. 

The lion and rhinoceros in their respective enclosures are no better off. Signs that request visitors not to tease the animals are neither heeded nor enforced. In fact, the zoo constantly finds itself having to account for the many unprecedented and mysterious deaths of its animals. 

Last year the zoo added a new controversy to its long record when a man, apparently a drug addict, broke into the elephant enclosure and was killed by one of the female elephants. 

The authorities at Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyaan (the zoo's official name) are hoping to resolve these issues through a Rs 430 crore proposal (pending approval) to improve security, provide better amenities for visitors and better enclosures for the animals. The proposal also includes bringing in (or shall we say squeezing) 25 new species of animals within the 53-acre premises.

Animal welfare organizations and environmentalists are worried about the consequences of this rather expensive plan. Poorva Joshipura, chief functionary of Peta India, says, "The Central Zoo has already acknowledged that zoos are not adequate environments for elephants but they are not suitable environments for any animal and this is particularly the case with the Byculla Zoo, which has records of especially poor animal welfare.

"Money that would be poured into any zoo to keep animals miserable in confinement would be far better spent protecting the animals’ natural homes in the wild." 

The Borivali National Park on the outskirts of Mumbai would be a perfect place to begin. I am sure tiger conservation efforts could also use the cash. In any case, we learn more about animals if we can observe them in their natural environments.

Dale Jamieson, director of environmental studies in New York University, further believes that zoos harm humans as well animals.

"Zoos teach us a false sense of our place in the natural order. The means of confinement mark a difference between humans and animals. They are there at our pleasure, to be used for our purposes," he says.

"Morality and perhaps our very survival require that we learn to live as one species among many, rather than as one species over many. To do this, we must forget what we learn at zoos. Because what zoos teach us is false and dangerous, both humans and animals will be better off when they are abolished."

Abolishing zoos, especially ones like this one, would be the ideal direction to move in. The Byculla Zoo, also known as Rani Baugh or, formerly, the Victoria Gardens, also happens to be a trove of botanical treasures, a great alternative attraction for visitors.

There is an astonishing variety of plant life here evident immediately in the two old baobabs at its entrance. Various birds and even bats and butterflies are naturally drawn to the trees. But environmentalists fear that plans to revamp the zoo will happen at the expense of this immense plant life.

This can be avoided if Rani Baugh, which at present feels like a well-gardened penal complex, is converted into the beautiful park it has the potential to be.

Furthermore, it would cost the animals less anguish and the government less money to maintain Rani Baugh as a park. No one can deny that Mumbai could use more open green spaces and that Mumbaikers could use some reprieve from all the gray.

After all, behind the desire for flowerpots in the window, a view of the Arabian Sea or a barefoot walk on grass lies a simple nostalgia for the natural world, and that is not served by confining it.

Tarini Awatramani works as a writer and has an interest in human and animal welfare.