Zairil Khir Johari, Member of Parliament for Bukit Bendera, has publicly expressed his serious concern regarding alleged corruption and maladministration at Zoo Negara.

This news comes as no surprise to us and we are grateful to Zairil for highlighting one of the ongoing problems within Malaysia’s zoos. We have filed many a report on this zoo, but Perhilitan have never shown any interest.

We know Perhilitan does not care about animals, captive or wild, but they can never say they didn’t know of the multitude of animal welfare problems that plague our zoos, despite the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010. In fact, as far as we can see, this otherwise good law has never been enforced.

Zoo Negara, like Zoo Melaka and A’Famosa, are all members of the Malaysian Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria (Mazpa). We have to assume, therefore, all the cruelty and law-breaking we witness in their member zoos is something they accept, even condone.

If you want to see elephants cruelly treated, go to A’Famosa. When we tried to find out from Perhilitan and Mazpa what has happened to ‘missing’ animals at A'Famosa and Zoo Melaka, no one would tell us.

If you really care about animals the best thing to do is to avoid all Malaysian zoos and wildlife parks.