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An example of the cages that are used to house the animals
A team from IWMG visited the Belgrade zoo at the end of March 2001 to carry out an initial assessment of this visitor attraction. Scott Crossett returned at the beginning of April 2001 for meetings with the zoo management and to carry out further inspections of the zoo. The zoo, which is situated on the grounds of the Kalemegdan Fortress, was opened in July 1936. It covers an area of 6.5 hectares and houses over 200 species of animal. In comparison to other zoos around the world this is a particularly small area of land for housing such animals.
Barren enclosure that the tigers inhabit
In this small sized zoo the enclosures and cages are designed to provide the greatest exposure of the animals to the public. The majority of enclosures have concrete floors and there is little or no attempt to provide any environmental enrichment within the enclosures. The zoo houses a variety of species, most of which are in cages that have too little space, including: hippopotamuses; reptiles, alligators, horses, wild cats: tiger, lions, lynxes etc.
Wolves were constantly pacing up and down in their enclosures.
The zoo houses a large number of wolves that are kept in small cages with concrete floors. The wolves exhibit the stereotypical pacing behaviour that is seen in enclosed animals in distress. Some of the wolves also exhibited great anxiety and fear of the public. A number of the foxes appeared to be particularly stressed by their captivity and were seen to be constantly running around their cages yelping.
The extent of the polar bears baldness can be observed
The zoo houses a number of bears and polar bears. These animals are kept in similar barren enclosures and cages. There was no vegetation in the enclosures and the bathing water for the polar bears appeared dirty and contained rotten foodstuff. Some of the polar bears were very bald on their hind legs, which could be a sign that they have been inactive for long periods of time. Feeding by the public is prohibited but it is obvious that this is not enforced. Many of the food and water troughs are contaminated with rotting food and faeces.
A lynx feeding on the main diet for the zoos carnivorous animals
There is a lack of information available to visitors for educational purposes and only a few of the enclosures having signs declaring the type of species inside. The zoo is in desperate need of assistance to improve the living conditions of the animals. There has been a significant amount of concern over the impact of the recent NATO bombing of Belgrade, on the welfare of the animals. It is likely that the noise from the warplanes and exploding bombs increased the levels of stress suffered by the animals. However, there are other issues that need to be addressed. These include: hygiene; the size of the enclosures and the lack of facilities within the enclosures to keep the animals amused.
http://www.iwmg.co.uk/serbbelgradezoo.htm
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One battle in the "Bangkok Six" orangutan smuggling saga, Milka Knezevic Ivaskovic, IPPL Representative in Yugoslavia
Taken From: Fond Memories, Kind Reflections
It seems like it was just a few years ago when I joined IPPL. Actually, it was in 1990, when the famous Bangkok Six case occurred.
At that time, I worked as a volunteer at the Belgrade Zoo and even kept a baby orangutan, Sanja, in my apartment. She was the "property" of Belgrade Zoo and I was some kind of substitute for her mother. Mr. Bojovic, the zoo director, ordered me to keep her presence a secret and not to mention that she was an orangutan. I didn’t know anything about primates-I was just very fond of all kinds of animals and Sanja...well she was definitely amazing!
But after a while, I became suspicious about Bojovic’s good intentions: Sanja hadn’t proper shipping documents, and I started to realize that her arrival was, for some reason, being kept a secret. I learned about IPPL and contacted Dr. Shirley McGreal. Soon I found out that Mr. Bojovic had been involved in several cases of smuggling primates and rare birds. He was also one of the important links in the Bangkok Six affair in which six baby orangutans being smuggled from Asia to the then Soviet Union were confiscated on Bangkok Airport.
So, I decided not to be silent, but to act. First I had to educate myself about primates. Then I started to write articles for various newspapers. I wanted to inform people about the terrible ways of killing orangutan mothers to get babies, about how babies were smuggled, and about Bojovic’s role as "middleman" in the "Bangkok Six" affair. Unfortunately, at that time, there was no freedom of the press in my country and I was accused (by Bojovic) of libel and slander. I was tried and found "guilty," although I presented all the evidence and despite many witnesses testifying on my behalf. The judge was Bojovic’s close friend, as were some journalists, and Bojovic himself had powerful political connections.
The trial lasted for five years. Finally I was cleared of all the accusations, but actually, I haven’t changed anything or anybody-except myself. In that time my country was at war and Bangkok Six case wasn’t considered important. During that period, Dr. Shirley McGreal and many IPPL members from all over the world were encouraging me, sending nice, comforting words in their letters. They became my best friends, even though I have never seen them.
Mr. Bojovic is still the manager of Belgrade Zoo. He never said that he was sorry for what he did. Unfortunately, there is no Sanja at the zoo-she has disappeared.
I used to dream about her every night. Last year I wrote a book about baby orangutans. My children and their friends like it. Maybe that is the best result of my "role" in Bangkok Six case-to put my feelings on paper and help others to learn and feel the same. I hope that it will soon be translated into English so every IPPL member can read it. It would be my "thank you" to all of you-for comforting me, during those difficult years.
http://www.ijms-wildlife.co.uk/belgrade_zoo.html
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....It covers an area of 6 ha, and has 2,000 animals of 200 species, and beside wild animals it abounds in domestic animals too. Its present beautiful look is contributed by many built facilities, infrastructure, new drinking-fountains and fountains, Wooden Sculpture Gallery, the work of the sculptor Vuk Bojović, nursery for young animals - Baby Zoo... For its 60th anniversary it was enriched with a monument dedicated to its once most interesting resident - Sammy the chimpanzee, the first of its kind ever in this Zoo.
Not a week passes in this zoo without the media present, to record birth of a cub, various promotions. So this zoo is almost daily in the life of Belgrade, enriching it with spirit of its gentle atmosphere, not without reason named the Good Hope Garden.
I know you'll recognise which bits I've emphasised.AND Goodness !! it seems that the sculptor shares the same name as the Zoo director looking for punitive damages ? Belgrade Zoo Director Brings Charges Against NATO to International Court of Justice in the Hague NATO Aggression Threatens Animal Reproduction
BELGRADE - Vuk Bojovic, Belgrade Zoo Director, brought to the International Court of Justice in the Hague charges against all NATO member states participating in the aggression on Yugoslavia, on grounds of threatening lives and biological survival of animals at the Belgrade Zoo.
 "By its activities amounting to criminal offenses, the Accused have disturbed the natural balance, preventing the reproduction course of animal species at the territory of the Prosecutor, thus influencing the global survival of the fauna population. Without animal species man is doomed to die of sorrow, and the Accused, by their genocide activities in the last ten days of strikes, have caused a partial extermination of some fauna population in the tract of the Prosecutor," a Belgrade Zoo Director charge says.
 "At the sound of air raid alarms, animals lose their natural reproductive instincts by ignoring the members of the opposite sex.
"Such behavior of the animals also affects the performance of the Zoo employees who, due to the above reasons, are witnessing a disappearance of the animal species they cared for with love and attention, thus contributing to the education of children in this, currently bloodbathed, country."
$9.5 million Damage Compensation Request
"Belgrade Zoo appeals to the International Court of Justice, upon investigation and fact-finding, as well as veterinary examinations, to bring a verdict against the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Norway, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Greece, Finland and Luxembourg, and fine them with total $9.5 million on grounds of:
- the pain suffered by the animals in attempt of male members to establish physical contacts with their females and the aggressiveness they showed after the desired but failed contact - $1,000,000 fine
- the fear experienced by animals - $1,000,000 fine
- the reduction of general sexual activities among the male population - $2,000,000 fine
- the marginalized status symbol of masculinity among the population of larger animals - $1,500,000 fine
- the mental sufferings caused by unrealized sexual contacts among animals - $2,000,000 fine
- material expenses of stimulation and medical treatments - $1,000,000 fine
- the reduced personal income of the Zoo employees due to the sharp decrease in the number of visitors and the degradation of educational conditions of the institution - $1,000,000 fine.
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The Orang-utan Trade
Only about 20,000 orang-utans still live freely on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Orang-utans are highly prized by zoos, circuses, animal trainers in the entertainment business and wealthy private collectors.
Because of their rarity, orang-utan babies fetch a high price - as high as $50,000 in the United States.[10] Trappers usually kill the mothers - and sometimes other adults and babies - to obtain one young orang-utan. Taking into account the high mortality rate suffered by captured animals, animal rights advocates estimate that certainly two or three, and perhaps as many as ten, animals die for each one who survives the long journey to a zoo or other destination.[11]
The case of one group of captured orang-utans, known as the 'Bangkok Six', has focused public attention on the international primate trade. The six orang-utans were transported without food or water from Borneo to Singapore to Bangkok, Thailand, stuffed into two wooden crates marked 'birds'. The crates, their lids nailed shut, had only pencil-diameter holes for ventilation. One box, carrying three orang-utans, was shipped upside-down. Had officials at Bangkok airport not become curious enough about the un-bird-like cries coming from the crates to X-ray them, the animals would have gone to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and from there possibly to a Moscow zoo.
The shipment, marked 'personal baggage', also included two sia-mangs, who were presumably to go to Belgrade Zoo as payment for overseeing the orang-utans' passage to Moscow. Although Thailand is a member of CITES, in 1990 it allowed the import and export of non-native species. [12] In fact, officials at Bangkok airport seized the orangutans and siamangs not because of their endangered status, but because they were labelled incorrectly.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:hv7yYx-e6kMJ:www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/cantor01.htm+Belgrade+Zoo&hl=sr
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MIAMI, Florida--Victor Bernal, 57, director of zoos and parks for Mexico state, Mexico, was convicted on May 18 of trying to bootleg a gorilla from Florida who was actually a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent in disguise. Bernal paid $97,500 for the "gorilla," in one of two stings set up by convicted primate trafficker Matthew Block of Worldwide Primates as part of an attempted plea bargain. The other sting nabbed alleged bird's egg smuggler Clement Solano.
Bernal is to be sentenced on July 18. In the most recent similar case, a Texas exotic bird dealer who was convicted of smuggling parrots was on April 28 fined $10,000 and sentenced to five years in prison.
Block is currently appealing a 13-month sentence issued for his part in the 1990 "Bangkok Six" orangutan-smuggling case, and was recently fined $16,000 for multiple Animal Welfare Act violations, also dating to 1990. A major laboratory primate supplier, whose customers include most of the laboratories whose work on primates has become controversial, Block may escape jail time entirely, according to International Primate Protection League president Shirley McGreal, who exposed the Bangkok Six case, because key documents have disappeared.
McGreal has asked the American Civil Liberties Union to investigate the entrapment aspects of both of the Block-arranged stings, pointing out that neither Bernal nor the other arrestees had previous criminal records. Further, she said, "No animals were shipped, and no animals suffered or died, as happened in the Bangkok Six case." The defendants were never offered the chance to plea-bargain, as Block was; they spent 10 days in jail while trying to arrange bond, while Block has never been jailed; and one defendant, Maria Villada, lost a baby she had tried to conceive for seven years when she miscarried at her arraignment.
Ironically, former Belgrade Zoo volunteer Milka Knezevic-Ivaskovic, who helped expose the Bangkok Six case by revealing how her boss, Vukosav Bojovic, helped set it up, may become the only person to serve time in connection with it. A Serbian court on January 26 upheld her three-month jail sentence and fine for purportedly libeling Bojovic---who is under indictment in the U.S. as result of the same evidence. Knezevic-Ivaskovic has appealed again.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:dUSsod4umMwJ:www.animalpeoplenews.org/94/5/frame_up.html+Belgrade+Zoo&hl=sr
***
The Primate Pipeline
The more endangered the ape, the more smugglers will risk in illegal trade
By Jessica Speart
...Additionally, CITES documents that verify a shipment as legal frequently are stolen or simply used over and over again if an official is amply paid to turn a blind eye. Other methods are equally blatant. In the case of the Bangkok Six, a half dozen baby orangutans were drugged, stuffed inside two tiny boxes, and mislabeled as birds. The boxes were then checked into the airport in Singapore as personal baggage -- a loophole widely exploited by wildlife smugglers to avoid the pesky problem of receiving an air waybill. With less of a paper trail, there is little evidence to follow, which allows smugglers to move illegal wildlife around the world with ease. Though the six orangutans were discovered and confiscated in Thailand, their final destination had been listed as the Belgrade zoo, where they were to be laundered before traveling to the Soviet Union.
http://www.jessicaspeart.com/magprimate.html
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There are 600 monkeys missing in Serbia. How do you lose 600 (600!) monkeys?
According to Reuters the country of Serbia is trying to account for the 600 monkeys who were delivered from Africa. All we know right now is that the monkeys were imported from Tanzania two years ago. The shipment weighed two tons and contained about 1,000 monkeys.
400 of the 1,000 were bought for polio vaccine testing. No one is sure where the other 600 are. The Belgrade Zoo director said that he has not bought a monkey in 20 years. The Serbian Chamber of Commerce says that it’s highly unlikely that the other 600 monkeys were sold to individuals.
Apparently, customs was supposed to keep all the data on the live imports but could not immediately supply the information when called upon.
There are many possibilities as to what happened to the monkeys ranging from the probable (they were sold on the black market) to the ridiculous (maybe they escaped and ran away?). It has, however, been 2 years and the possibility of locating the monkeys is a bit bleak. It kind of makes you wonder though; why is this story just coming out now?
http://www.100monkeys.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=145
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06] ASSISTANCE TO THE BELGRADE ZOOThessaloniki, 31 August 2000 (15:21 UTC+2)
A truck carrying animal feed, medicine and an electricity power generator left for Belgrade yesterday within the framework of the municipality of Thessaloniki assistance to the Belgrade Zoo.
In a letter to Belgrade Zoo director Mr. Bojovic, Thessaloniki's mayor Vasilis Papageorgopoulos pledged the city's full support to the Yugoslav capital zoo that suffered serious damages during last year's bombings.
http://www.hri.org/news/greek/mpab/2000/00-08-31.mpab.html
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Three Bears from Belgrade's ZOO Travel to Greece
 ATHENS - Three bears from Belgrade's ZOO, who are close to starvation, will be transfer to a park in northern Greece, the spokesman of the Institution specialized for taking care of bears, in northern Greece Katherine Christofilidou said.
According to her words, one Greek biologist and one veterinarian arrived in Belgrade to take over the bears that are about three years old.
The bears will be examined and appeased by medicaments before their travelling on Friday.
Christofilidou explained that the Greek ecologists decided to make this step, when they heard that there is no enough food and keepers in Belgrade's ZOO because of the ongoing NATO bombings.
"This is symbolic step. They are something like bears - refugees. Maybe some other institutions could do the same thing for other animals", she added.
http://arhiva.glas-javnosti.co.yu/arhiva/1999/06/10/en-latest-news-0609.html |
