Seven stories above a shop floor hawking cheap perfume and nylon underwear, Thailand’s “shopping mall gorilla” sits alone in a cage — her home for 30 years despite a reignited row over her captivity.
Activists around the world have long campaigned for the primate to be moved from Pata Zoo, on top of a Bangkok mall, with singer Cher and actor Gillian Anderson adding their voices in 2020.
However, the family who owns Bua Noi — whose name translates as “little lotus” — have resisted public and government pressure to relinquish the critically endangered animal.
Photo: AFP
The gorilla has lived at Pata for more than three decades, but her case made headlines again this month after the zoo offered a 100,000 baht (US$2,919) reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever graffitied “Free Bua Noi” on one of the mall’s walls.
The upset comes as Thailand welcomes back tourists after the COVID-19 pandemic, many drawn to the kingdom’s wildlife — and ease of access.
The zoo represents a snag in its shift from a country infamous for tiger selfies and abused elephants, to the kingdom trying to position itself as more environmentally friendly.
Authorities have passed new environmental legislation, mostly targeted at preventing the abuse of native-born animals, and these laws do not necessarily cover privately owned zoos such as Pata — or non-indigenous creatures such as Bua Noi.
“[Pata] can still open because the wild animal conservation and protection act zoo section has not been enforced yet,” said Padej Laithong, director of the national wildlife conservation office.
Animal welfare regulations are monitored at only eight state-linked zoos, and with private facilities, officials are more worried about them fulfilling licensing requirements.
Pata had applied for a license extension before theirs expired, Padej said, adding he was mostly concerned over the building’s fire safety — not the animals’ welfare.
“All of these details must be answered before the license can be renewed, suspended or revoked,” he said.
A representative for Pata Zoo did not return multiple requests for comment, but the zoo has blamed foreigners for the criticism, saying that zoos around the world house gorillas without problems.
“No citizens of any country in the world have attacked their country for possessing gorillas, except in Thailand,” the management said in a six-page statement published after the graffiti incident.
They said the gorilla has been well cared for throughout her life, despite the creature costing more to support than she has brought in.
Bua Noi was reportedly three years old when she was brought over from Germany in 1992. With the average lifespan of the Eastern Gorilla being more than 40 years, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, she has spent much of her life at Pata.
“She needs to get out of it,” said Edwin Wiek, founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, a sanctuary that aims to educate people and rehabilitate animals.
“She is not able to see the sun, the moon. She’s in a cement box with glass windows,” Wiek said.
As international pressure to release Bua Noi grew last year, the family owned zoo rejected a reported 30 million baht offer from Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, saying that the gorilla was too old to be rehomed.
However, activists say this misses the point, as the cage holding the gorilla — a highly sociable animal that would live in tightly-knit family groups in the wild — is unsuitable.
“She needs to be among her own kind, or at least be outside and have some chance to see things, experience nature, birds flying around,” Wiek said.
Other animal rights groups have gone further, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — which has staged multiple protests over the years — saying that Bua Noi was “suffering from extreme psychological distress.”
Each weekend, visitors take the rickety lift up to the zoo, eventually climbing out to a rooftop Bua Noi shares with macaques, orangutans and tropical birds.
Scruffy pygmy goats greet visitors before they are directed toward Bua Noi.
There the massive gorilla looks set to remain, stuck behind iron bars and glass windows, with only a swinging tire for company.
JUMPING BAIL: The democracy advocate said made the decision after ‘considering the situation in Hong Kong, my personal safety, my physical and mental health’ Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow (周庭), who was jailed over her role in massive 2019 protests, on Sunday said she had moved to Canada and would not return to meet her bail conditions. Chow was one of the best-known young faces of the 2012, 2014 and 2019 protest movements against Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian rule in Hong Kong. She spent about seven months behind bars for her role in a protest outside Hong Kong police headquarters in 2019, when huge crowds rallied week after week in the most serious challenge to China’s rule since Hong Kong’s 1997 handover. On Sunday
TAKING STOCK: It was not yet clear how damaging the espionage, dating to 1981, has been, as authorities are still assessing the situation, the State Department said A former US ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested and charged with spying for Cuba over a 40-year span, the US Department of Justice announced on Monday, detailing a shock betrayal by a suspect who called the US “the enemy.” US Attorney General Merrick Garland laid out the allegations against Victor Manuel Rocha, a onetime member of the White House’s National Security Council now accused of using his positions within the government to support Cuba’s “clandestine intelligence-gathering mission” against the US. The charges against Rocha, 73, expose “one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign
DARK WARNINGS: If Trump survives his court trials, neither the Supreme Court nor the US Constitution could stop him from becoming president for life, a ‘Post’ column said Former US president Donald Trump on Tuesday declined to rule out abusing power if he returns to the White House after Fox News host Sean Hannity asked him to respond to growing criticism of his rhetoric. The Republican presidential front-runner has talked about targeting his rivals — referring to them as “vermin” — and vowed to seek retribution if he wins a second term for what he argues are politically motivated prosecutions against him. As Trump has dominated the Republican presidential primary, US President Joe Biden has stepped up his own warnings, contending that Trump is “determined to destroy American democracy.” “Under no
ELECTION INTERFERENCE: Meta did not publicly link the account network to the Chinese government, but said it is based in China and sought to inflate divisions within the US Someone in China created thousands of fake social media accounts designed to appear to be from Americans and used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the US ahead of next year’s presidential elections, Meta said on Thursday. The network of about 4,800 fake accounts was attempting to build an audience when it was identified and eliminated by the tech company, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The accounts sported fake photos, names and locations as a way to appear like everyday American Facebook users weighing in on political issues. Instead of spreading fake content as other networks
RSS