The infamous Surabaya “Zoo of Death” is unfortunately far from the only animal facility in Indonesia facing charges of horribly mistreating the creatures in its care. This footage, taken recently by Scorpion Wildlife Trade Monitoring Group, shows the awful conditions faced by a group of sun bears being kept at the privately-owned Kebun Binatang Bandung (Bandung Zoo):
That footage was taken on January 8 and shows the bears, pacing around their dirty cement enclosures surrounded by stagnant water, begging for food from the zoo’s visitors. People can be seen freely throwing food at the pitiable creatures.
Scorpion has been monitoring the conditions of the sun bears at the Bandung Zoo for some times. Footage taken by the group in May of last year shows the bears looking even more emaciated, their rib bones clearly visible as they stand on their haunches begging for morsels from the crowd.
In another video from May, this emaciated bear can be seen eating his own dung (seriously, don’t watch this before lunch unless you want to completely lose your appetite), which seems like a very clear sign that the poor creature has been severely mistreated.
Scorpion has created a petition on Change.org asking for Environmental and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar to help save the bears, which has already gathered over 2,000 signatures. However, another Change.org petition, addressed to President Joko WIdodo asking that the Bandung Zoo be shut down entirely, has gotten nearly 200,000 signatures.
Bandung Zoo was also in the spotlight last May after one of their elephants died after not receiving any medical attention for a solid week.
Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil has criticized the zoo’s apparent mistreatment of animals and suggested that it may be due to financial issues. However, he said that his administration can’t meddle with the management of the zoo as it is a privately run institution.
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