Zoos on Pitara Kids Network

The Truth about Zoos

Fri, 03 May 2002 15:04:59 +0000

Last week we carried a piece about the relevance of zoos as the last refuge of endangered species. But in India it appears that zoos should be the last place for animals of any sort, let alone the endangered variety.

It is no secret that most Indian zoos are in a bad state. Although zoos claim to educate people and preserve species, Indian zoos do neither. Most zoo enclosures are quite small, and labels provide little information. Visitors are more interested in entertainment, often at the expense of the animals, than in educating themselves.

It's a Zoo Out There!

Sat, 19 Oct 2002 11:04:02 +0000

Almost 400 years ago, Mughal emperor Jehangir acquired a new animal in his private collection or zoo – the zebra. This unusual, striped animal fascinated him so much that he wrote about it in his memoirs as a strange creature. Some even imagined that the animal’s stripes had been painted!

The emperor decided to find out whether the zebra was indeed coloured or not. After much investigation, he made it public that the zebra, too, was a creature created by god. The stripes were natural, they had not been painted upon!

Finding a Match for an Elephant

Mon, 26 May 1997 06:32:27 +0000

Where: Rome, Italy

July 1, 2000 : Calimero, a twenty-year-old African elephant, who has been pining for his lost love, may soon find a new love. But romance may not come easy for this lovelorn jumbo because he will have to travel across the Alps in order to find his dream girl.

Calimero was brought to the Rome Zoo when he was barely a year old. Soon after, Carla, an African she-elephant from Gabon, joined him. The two elephants fell in love. They were inseparable and spent nine blissful years together. Calimero’s companion died in 1991 and the besotted Calimero went into a deep depression. It was only last year that the authorities finally woke up to the fact that the zoo’s star attraction was wasting away, pining for his lost love.