“The lives of animals in zoos are manipulated. They are not given the freedom to socialize, choose their partners, and have no control over when their babies will be taken away from them and sold on to some other zoo to be put on display”, says Jaitly. “Animals treasure their freedom as much as we do, so PETA and I are asking people to take a stand by steering clear of zoos.”
Hundreds of thousands of animals languish in zoos around the world. Because these animals are denied everything that is natural and important to them, they express their frustration and loneliness through obsessive, repetitive and even self-destructive behaviour, such as pacing, head-bobbing and self-mutilation. An Oxford University study based on four decades of observing animals in captivity and in the wild found that animals such as polar bears, lions, tigers and cheetahs “show the most evidence of stress and/or psychological dysfunction in captivity” and concluded that “the keeping of naturally wide-ranging carnivores should be either fundamentally improved or phased out”. PETA has conducted many investigations in zoos across India, revealing horrific conditions, including deficiencies in food, drinking water, housing, veterinary care, environmental enrichment, safety and security.
This isn’t the first time that Jaitly – whose movie in Kannada, Srimathi, was a major hit and whose last Hindi movie Thank You was a box office hit – has teamed up with PETA to help animals. She also shot an ad in which she was shown bound in chains and that carried the caption “Shackled, Beaten, Abused. Stop Cruelty to Elephants”. After a man was killed by an elephant at the Mumbai zoo, Jaitly sent a letter to the Central Zoo Authority urging the agency to relocate that elephant and another at the zoo to a forested area. – IANS