Two More Casualties at Surabaya Zoo

Amir Tejo

Surabaya. The Surabaya Zoo, also known as the KBS, has lost more of its collection this week. Leli, a 17-year-old lioness, was found dead on Wednesday.

Two days earlier, a six-year-old female Papuan kangaroo was also found dead.

I Wayan Titib Sulaksana, the deputy chairman of the Surabaya Flora and Fauna Park Association, which oversees the zoo, said that the recent deaths highlighted flaws in zoo management.

“Lately, the zoo has had to deal with an increasing number of animal dying,” he said.

“If this continues, the zoo will have to close down.”

He said that his records showed that in June this year alone, the zoo lost 13 animals, including a Komodo dragon and a Bali starling, both endangered species. The other animal casualties included a Bawean deer, a babirusa, a proboscis monkey, two pythons and several birds.

However, a spokesman for the zoo, Agus Supangkat, dismissed the recent deaths as reasonably normal occurrences.“Our animal collection comprises some 4,200 animals. It’s only normal that every month there are some deaths,” he said.

“On average there are 25 to 50 deaths in a month, because of age or because of other factors.”

Agus said that the cause of death for both the lioness and the kangaroo remained unknown, but added that autopsies were being conducted by the laboratory at the Department of Animal Husbandry at Airlangga University, a state school in Surabaya.

“Usually two weeks are needed to ascertain the cause of death,” Agus said.

But Titib also said that he suspected that something was wrong with the management of the zoo and that several diseases had been found among the animals there.

“There have been four serious diseases found at the zoo: hepatitis, herpes, lung infection and avian influenza,” he said.

“This needs to be dealt with.”

The Surabaya zoo first opened in 1918. It sits on a 15-hectare plot of land in the center of the East Java capital.