Elephants to leave Indian Zoos

In the last mail out of Zoo News Digest I covered the link 'Elephants to be banished from all Zoos' and commented on the same. I did not mince my words and expected a flurry of letters but there was nary a one....till today. I am not quite sure how to read the lack of response but I suppose it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. The one response I have had suggests that the comment I did make was correct....ZooCheck have wormed their was into the Indian Zoo community.

Here is the letter:


Dear Mr Peter Dickinson,

I am the former project coordinator of the Indian Zoo Inquiry sponsored by Zoocheck Canada and the attached comment of yours was passed on to me by a friend:
Re the first link 'Elephants to be banished from all Zoos'. The thought that first shot into my mind was that the inmates have taken over the asylum. I read and re-read the story and based on the little information available to me I concluded that my first thought was the correct one. It is a daft idea. If you disagree with me or have some great argument you would like to put forward then use the comments in this blog. What is next I wonder? Tigers? No doubt that will be a bit of a gift for the poachers too. (and okay I have now upset the entire Indian zoo community but so be it).
My first reaction was that it was the comment of a thug criminal who has been pronounced guilty and cannot digest the sentence. Then I saw your name and thought maybe it is otherwise. The Indian zoo community or conservation community does not need diktats from the likes of you because conservation and animal protection started in India with Emperor Ashoka's edicts 4000 years ago when your ancestors in the Western world were naked savages. How long do you think the zoo community will hoodwink the public? What purpose do elephants serve in captivity apart from filling the fat wallets of zoo proponents like you who are incapable of earning their bread in any other respectable social industry? Zoo proponents like you are basically a bunch of people who would run at the sight of an equation to make a beeline for ecology and conservation principally because they are incapable of doing nothing else in life and your reaction to the Indian ban shows your ignorance and your arrogance so typical of your zoo world cronies. How many elephants have suffered and are suffering in zoos? How many elephants have been reintroduced from zoos especially from the West where you consume loads and lecture a lot on how Indians should conduct animal welfare and conservation? Honest people in the zoo world can be counted on the fingers of one hand, you are evidently not one of them. I am challenging you or any zoo director or any zoo proponent to come out in the open and defend your infinite meaningless pseuoscientific acronyms in public, will you dare do it? And yes, tigers are next in line too. And Polar Bears and other species of Bears and many other species whose fat you are living off. I am daring you to a public debate on this issue in any venue in the world, if you have the courage take it up please. But knowing what immoral obnoxious liars work in the zoo industry I very much doubt that you will have the moral integrity to do so because if you do, your pathetic arguments for captivity of elephants will be stripped bare in a matter of half an hour.
Best wishes,

Shubhobroto Ghosh

So there we go. Shubhobroto Ghosh does not mince his words either. Obviously knows nothing about me though as the implication to 'fat wallet' could not be further from the truth. The choice of venue for debate is tempting though I would be the first to admit that I am not the most eloquent of debators. I am honest though and certainly not a immoral obnoxious liar (though I know some in the zoo world). Shubhobroto sadly demonstrates ignorance of the general zoo mission with the sentence "How many elephants have been reintroduced from zoos...."

Please use comments below if you feel so inclined.