Written by Alice Battistino
Here in Malta, little is being done to safeguard animals from exploitative practices. Twenty-four-hours prior to publishing, a rather troubling decision was made to amend the draft legal notice in order to allow the petting of wild cubs. Using cubs as a means of a photo opportunity, and profit, all the same, is one example among many, of animal exploitation.
It is rather clear that the well-being of animals is placed secondary to commercial interests. As deputy-chairperson of ADPD, Mark Zerafa put it, the so-called zoos are simply “money-making enterprises or vanity projects”.
“They serve to reinforce the dangerous idea that animals should serve people and that we are above what happens to the natural world.” Said Miguel Azzopardi, a member of the non-governmental organization ‘Extinction Rebellion’.
It is scientifically proven that cub petting can provoke extensive and detrimental long-term consequences on the well-being of animals. Being passed from stranger to stranger can trigger effects such as dehydration and psychological stress. Illness rests not too far behind the former two, with cub immune systems too premature to handle the diseases they might find themselves exposed to. The last-minute changes to the Legal Notice is essentially terrible news for cubs who can now so easily be torn away from their mother and handled by human strangers.
In a paper published in response to the draft legal notice, Moviment Graffitti, a Maltese non-governmental organization and cause that speaks out against exploitation, they referenced a study carried out on caged animals in the National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; “While zoo animals may seem to live in proper conditions, the artificial environment in which they live for long periods may result in various forms of abnormal behaviors.”
Unfortunately, these zoos are far from concerned with the conservation efforts of wild species they so claim to admire. The environments that these animals are kept in will never be large enough for them to live comfortably and can never in any way, shape, or form come close to mimicking the wild.