The last couple of years phenomenon such as a contact zoo has become popular in Kazakhstan. On the Internet, a lot of happy children’s photos, along with raccoons and rabbits, but also there have been seen a lot of negative comments about the unsanitary and painful species of animals.
Here is an excerpt from the post of one of the staff of the contact zoo.
The problem of the founders of contact points is greed. They do not care about what their business leads to, how many souls it kills. If it brings money – it will exist.
However, the bigger problem is the visitors. All of this exists for the sake of them. There is a good rule: there is demand – there is an offer. This will never stop until people do not understand that it is not normal- visiting such places. In this appeal I will give examples of inadequate behavior of visitors, perhaps someone will find themselves and understand that this is wrong, inhumane, so it is not worth doing.
Svetlana AKULOVA(Светлана Акулова), Director of the Moscow Zoo:
– In contact zoos, only pets are allowed, wild ones are forbidden. This is our position. We have our own contact zoo, there are alive lambs, goats. Certainly, it is interesting for young children to feel the tail, to stroke the nose, they need such contact with animals. Nevertheless, our experts carefully monitor the diet of the beast. And the animals are replaced – today one lamb costs from 9.00 to 13.00, and then the other is taken out. So it’s not that some “victim” has been put and everyone is feeling it, feeding without a break. If any contact zoo wants, then we can advise how to properly maintain such an economy and take care of animals.
Irina NOVOZHILOVA(Ирина Новожилова), President of the Center for the Protection of Animal Rights “VITA”:
– Contact zoos are a big problem. They need to be banned. There should be no contact of animals with visitors. Sanitary norms of zoos have not changed since 1972, where it is stipulated that “contact with visitors is strictly forbidden.” Animals cannot be kept inside shopping centers. People do not even suspect how many pathogenic microorganisms they bring home on their outer clothing and hands. Especially when children put food into their mouths. Catastrophically, these contacts affect the animals themselves, and many of them die. Not night animals are sweet, but at every point there are owls, galago, hedgehogs. They cannot stay awake during the day, and parents with children come, turn over houses, shake out hedgehogs and all this for sake.
March 25 in Kemerovo, in the shopping center “Зимняя вишня” in addition to a lot of people, about 200 animals perished in that contact zoo. Based on this incident, I wondered whether there are fire safety measures in contact zoos. The maintenance of animals requires great responsibility and they must meet all the requirements. I would like to draw the attention of the government to contact zoos and to tighten the requirements for keeping animals in shopping centers.
Farida Karsybekova
