Melani, a female Sumatran tiger, can only lay down at the corner of Surabaya Zoo (KBS). Her eyes are still able to look sharp. However, her body is no longer able to stand strong and her steps are unsteady. Melani's thinner body is out of ideal weight, from 100 kilograms (kg), now she is only 40 kg.
No more roar from the 15 years old tiger. Gastrointestinal disease has captured ferocity of the king of jungle. This disease eventually forced Melani to be evacuated from Surabaya to Cisarua Zoo in West Java. It was revealed that Melani has indigestion as she was fed with meats with formalin. Over the last five years, it made Melani lost her appetite and she is looked thin now.
Hundreds of animals in KBS also looked no different to Melani. Many animals with poor body condition were in the zoo, such as a female wild boar with visible ribs. An Orangutan chewed plastic scattering on the floor in the cage. While some other species, such as horses, bison, deer and elephants looked almost only eating dry grass. It makes them prone to suffer from gastrointestinal diseases.
Pieces of rat meat scaterred in parking lot. Body parts, rat tails with their skins were inside plastic. Civil Service Police Unit who served at KBS claimed they continued to find rat meats inside plastic bag in the last four days. Its weigh reached 10 kilograms.
"The rat meats was always found every 06.00 AM and it was suspected distributed to carnivorous animals in KBS," Head of Civil Service Police Unit in Surabaya, Irvan Widyanto said on Friday.
However, Head of Public Relation at KBS, Agus Supangkat denied the accusation that the zoo feed the animals with inappropriate meat such as rat.
"I know nothing about the discovery and for what purposes," Supangkat said and added that the zoo fed those animal with beef and chicken cooled in the freezer.
An environmental activist, Dian Paramitha said that what was happened in KBS was a form of torture to animals. Those animals is living in a hell if the zoo feed them with unfeasible daily meal. According to her, without any action to change the condition in KBS, sooner or later all animals will suffer like Melani.
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