A plea for Asokamala

By Anthea Peris Flambert

It has to be startlingly obvious now to all Sri Lankans, that one of the most horrible injustices we would perpetrate on one of our animals, Asokamala - the nine-year-old baby elephant, is to send it to a certain slow and painful death in the Yerevan Zoo in Armenia.

It is pertinent to enumerate once more the plight of the animals at the Yerevan Zoo. These facts are garnered from the internet and provided by people who have seen first hand the condition of the Yerevan Zoo and most importantly, from Armenians themselves.

• “The Zoo has three bears, not in bad shape, but the ground of the area in which they reside was almost completely covered by their own excrement. The water that was provided for them to swim in was littered with plastic bags and popcorn."
• Many of the animals were clearly sick and malnourished.”
• "The ostriches totally ignored the large tub of rotten apples and bits of bread thrown at them to eat."
• "The foxes in their pens were thirsty, pacing back and forth or curled up in a corner. We saw no water laid for them, although a slab of rotten meat had been thrown into one of the pens that had been ignored."
• "Almost all the animals stand and sleep on concrete or asphalt, which are in turn covered in their own feces."
• "There is no grass or anything organic for that matter for the ostriches or other birds to walk on."
• "The swans have a small pool of stagnant water 10 feet long and 3 feet wide for them to swim in. This was completely filthy with green muck and litter as were all the other pools in the Zoo."
• "Several trees have been cut throughout the Zoo, so now there is no shade for many of the animals that need it. Some of the slopes that line the zoo boundaries are completely void of greenery, leaving only sand and rocks."
• "The one seemingly confused elephant, for some reason has a chain winding around its front right foot, and is covered in dust and dirt."

Coming back to our Asokamala or any of our elephants for that matter is concern that Armenia regularly experiences sub-zero freezing temperatures. Cold weather can be fatal to elephants I have been told because elephants can find it very hard to warm up again, because of their size. Reports say many other animals too, freeze to death at Yerevan Zoo.

Elephant enclosure at Yerevan Zoo, Armenia: For six months of the year, during the winter, the elephants will be housed in the small brick shed without access to the outdoor enclosure.

According to reports in the 1992/93 winter season the zoo's elephant slipped on the ice and died. The report goes on to say this was more likely due to the elephant suffering from malnutrition and hypothermia. Reports also say that in 1970, Yerevan's solitary Bull elephant escaped into the city and authorities used tanks and machine-gun fire to stop it.

Our country is blessed with the majority belonging to one of the world's great religions; one that teaches above all, compassion and respect for all forms of life. How can we then, with impunity, take nine- year-old Asokamala away from her mother and the comfort of the other elephants she bonds with, to 'live' the rest of her days in a lonely, cold climate and in conditions which have been established as being hostile and cruel to all captive animals? We have known our captive elephants to grow on grass and the leaves of the kitul, kos, coconut and banana trees in particular. Will Asokamala survive in a zoo which is so bereft of any vegetation?

Let us always keep in mind these words attributed to Mahatma Gandhi; "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."