Palakkad: Politicians are changing parties, national broadcaster logos are changing colours and zoo authorities in West Bengal are changing lions’ names: Akbar may soon become “Suraj”, and Sita, “Tanaya”.
As per a report in the Times of India on April 18, the West Bengal Zoo Authority will rechristen the captive lions that arrived earlier this year at the Bengal Safari Park in Siliguri from Tripura, if the Central Zoo Authority gives its nod. The move to change their names came after a right wing group in the state petitioned against the christening of the pair of lions as Akbar and Sita, and the Calcutta high court in turn asked why the animals were named so ‘controversially’ in the first place.
But really, there’s not much in a name as far as zoo animals are concerned, experts say. We need to look beyond names when it comes to not just big cats but zoo animals in India: for while captive animals’ living conditions have improved they still leave much to be desired, researchers told The Wire. At the same time, well-run zoos are important for the public awareness and conservation they promote, a wildlife veterinarian said.
The Akbar-Sita ‘controversy’
In what is likely to be a first, the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) – which oversees the management of zoos in the country – will possibly take a call on new names for a pair of Asiatic lions in the Bengal Safari Park in Siliguri that arrived from Tripura’s Sepahijala Zoological Park in February this year, reported the Times of India on April 18. Per the report, the West Bengal Zoo Authority has written to the CZA to rename the lions.
It all began when a local chapter of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a right wing group, found that the male lion went by the name of Akbar, a common Muslim name, and also the name of one of the most successful emperors of the Mughal empire. The female that came with Akbar was listed as Sita: a common Hindu name, and also the name of a deity from the Hindu epic Ramayana. Their names made them an “interfaith” pair, and the VHP chapter filed a petition in a circuit bench of the Kolkata High Court on February 16. Jalpaiguri’s VHP district chief Dulal Chandra Ray told The Wire that the naming came as an attack on the Hindu religion.
On February 24, the Tripura government suspended one of its top state forest officials, the Chief Wildlife Warden, for listing the animals’ names as Akbar and Sita. The suspension came after the Kolkata High Court asked who caused such a “controversy”, and why name zoo animals after deities and historical figures in the first place.
But there have been interfaith ‘zoo couples’ before. And naming animals after deities, historical figures – or even celebrities – is not unusual in India, as a quick peek into some names of zoo animals across species show.
‘But when it comes to zoo animals in India, we need to look beyond names and into larger issues such as their living conditions.’ Photo: Philip Larson/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)
Names of mythological characters and deities have always been hot favourites when it comes to naming zoo animals. Last year, the Minister of State for Environment Ashwini Kumar Choubhey named two lionesses and a lion in the National Zoological Park (Delhi Zoo) Sreegowri, Shailja and Mahaveer on the occasion of Navratri. Sreegowri and Shailja are synonyms for the Hindu goddess Parvati, the consort of Hindu god Shiva (who is also called Mahaveer). Sita is not a rare name for big cats in India’s zoos: in August last year, the Delhi Zoo also celebrated the first birthdays of white tigress Sita’s cubs.
But also popular are ‘regular’ names. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa named four female white tiger cubs born in the Arignar Anna Zoological Park near Chennai in 2015 as Anitha, Preetha, Suneetha and Sangeetha. Tiger cubs Dhatri and Dhairya were born to tigers Karan and Siddi at Delhi Zoo last year. A pair of lions named Vicky and Lakshmi (the latter is also the name of a Hindu deity) of Hyderabad’s Nehru Zoological Park featured in the news after entrepreneur Upasana Kamineni Konidela, Vice Chairperson of CSR Apollo Hospitals Group and Managing Director of URLife adopted them both for a year.
Naming animals behind historical figures is not new either. Perhaps the best example that combines all these is that of a family of tigers in Arignar Anna Zoological Park in 2012. That year, three cubs were born to two white tigers named Bhisma (a lead character in the Hindu epic Mahabharata who took a vow of lifelong celibacy) and Anu. The adults arrived at the Park from the Delhi Zoo in 2006. The then-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, named the male cub ‘Sembian’, after the Chola kings who ruled Tamil Nadu and other parts of southern India between the 9th and 13th centuries (the royal emblem of the Cholas was a jumping tiger). Karunanidhi also named one of the female cubs born to Bhisma and Anu ‘Valli’, after T. Valliammai, a teenager of Tamil origin who fought against unjust laws in colonial South Africa alongside M. K. Gandhi in the early 1900s.
Some zoo animals have been named after celebrities. In July 2019, Bengaluru’s Bannerghatta Biological Park named a tiger cub born there after Assam teenage ace sprinter Hima Das who won five gold medals in European races that month.
Or vice-versa: some zoo animals rise in popularity and bring higher footfall to their zoo when a celebrity – whose name they share – shoots to fame. A tiger named Prabhas in Hyderabad Zoo became popular as the ‘Bahubali Tiger’ after a photo of the tiger went viral on social media, many years after Prabhas-starrer Baahubali released in 2015.
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But…what’s really in a name?
But do the names we give our zoo animals matter? Not really, experts told The Wire.
“The animals don’t care what you call them,” said a wildlife veterinarian who has worked with zoo animals across the country for the past three decades. “Call Akbar and Sita Champa and Chameli, it doesn’t matter.”
But they do need a name: names come in use for management purposes, the veterinarian who did not want to be named because they work with government-run zoos, told The Wire. And names have to be short, and easy to use. “Names come in use only when keepers need to conduct positive behaviour reinforcement.”
Positive behaviour reinforcement in psychology refers to a reward-based method that is used to train animals to perform some actions, such as moving into indoor enclosures. Many zoo animals respond to their names because of the repeated use of their names along with positive behaviour reinforcement.
So even if the names of seven-year-old Akbar and six-year-old Sita are indeed changed, the animals will take time to get used to their new names, the veterinarian told The Wire. And the older the animal, the more it will struggle to get used to a new name — though it will happen eventually. Asiatic lions live up to around 16 years of age; so Akbar and Sita are almost middle-aged by lion standards.
“Requesting that the CZA permit changing the names of Akbar and Sita is a purely political move and has nothing to do with zoo science,” the veterinarian commented.
Looking beyond names
But when it comes to zoo animals in India, we need to look beyond names and into larger issues such as their living conditions, biologist Nagarajan Bhaskaran, Assistant Professor at the Department of Zoology and Wildlife Biology at A.V.C. College in Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu, told The Wire. Social animals should be kept in social conditions, he said.
Space is a major limiting factor for many Indian zoos and many don’t have proper enclosures that mimic the natural habitat of the animals in the wild, said Bhaskaran, who has studied zoo animals such as tigers and leopards across India. For example, tigers need large enclosures and ideally, a pool to cool off in, like they do in the summer heat in the wild.
“The complexity of enclosures is also important for tigers,” Bhaskaran said. “These include aspects such as vegetation strata and microhabitats that replicate the natural habitat as much as possible.”
On the other hand, leopards – which are smaller and more adaptive than tigers – do not require such large enclosures. They, instead, need more tree cover – for the big cats are good climbers. Thus enclosure requirements change from species to species and while the CZA has insisted on this not many zoos can implement it, Bhaskaran added. Moreover, while the CZA provides guidelines on the basic requirements for enclosures, these are not updated often as per latest research, he added.
An Indian leopard (Pantera pardus fusca) in Satpura National Part, Madhya Pradesh. Representative image. Photo: Davidvraju/Flickr, CC BY-SA 4.0
The wildlife veterinarian who spoke to The Wire on condition of anonymity also agreed that while some zoos have been modernised efficiently – the effort put into Mumbai Zoo over the years for instance, is “phenomenal”, the source said – modernisation of zoos in India is still lagging behind. And it’s important that zoos are modernised efficiently and quickly: the institutions play a crucial role in conservation education and public awareness for the common man, the veterinarian added.
While the challenges that zoos face are often very site- and context-specific, fund crunches are a common issue for many zoos because animal welfare is often contrasted with human welfare in India, said Baiju Raj, director of conservation projects of Wildlife SOS, an NGO that also rescues and rehabilitates wildlife.
But many zoos that do have the money are being upgraded to international standards (such as the use of glass instead of wire mesh so that animals do not hurt themselves), said Raj, who is trained in captive animal management and has visited many zoos across the country and several across the world.
The pursuit of ‘happiness’
Improved and modernised enclosures mean lesser stress levels for many zoo animals.
Leopards that had more trees in their enclosures and access to dens and pools showed barely any stress-related stereotypic behavior – such as pacing to and fro in their cages and chewing their paws – found a study led by Bhaskaran and a team of researchers in 2017.
One extremely important factor that is often overlooked but greatly influences the health of animals in zoos is the attitude of their zoo or animal keepers, and the bonds that the keepers and animals share. If zookeepers have a “positive” attitude towards the animals, it makes a huge difference, Bhaskaran said.
“A friendly behaviour towards the animals is crucial versus aggression,” he told The Wire.
While the government imparts training to wildlife veterinarians and zookeepers, it is definitely something that needs to be improved on in the country, Bhaskaran added.
Another aspect that needs to be improved in most Indian zoos is the relationship between administrative officers such as curators and zookeepers, Raj told The Wire.
“Zookeepers face problems with the hierarchy in the system. They are at the lowest rung and their suggestions to improve their animal’s welfare are often ignored even though they are the ones who know the animal best,” said Raj, who also trains zookeepers on captive animal management.
Raj, like Bhaskaran, also commented on how crucial the bond between keepers and their animals is. This emotional attachment makes the animals comfortable in captivity; but this does not happen in many zoos across India, he added. And in zoos where it does – the efforts of zookeepers are not acknowledged or appreciated, according to Raj.
Bhaskaran calls the animals’ ‘comfort’, “happiness” – an emotion that humans can better relate to.
“What really matters is the animals’ happiness,” Bhaskaran told The Wire. “It doesn’t matter what name you call them by, a Muslim name or Hindu one.”
