Thailand’s ‘Mall Gorilla’: No freedom on the horizon for innocent prisoner Bua Noi
Bua Noi was three years old when she was brought to Bangkok from Germany. She has spent much of her life at Pata Zoo, stuck behind iron bars and glass windows on the seventh floor of a shopping mall with only a swinging tire for company.
THANAPORN PROMYAMYAI: Seven storeys above a shopfloor hawking cheap perfume and nylon underwear, Thailand’s “shopping mall gorilla” sits alone in a cage — her home for 30 years despite a re-ignited row over her captivity. Activists around the world have long campaigned for the primate to be moved from Pata Zoo, located on top of a Bangkok mall, with singer Cher and actor Gillian Anderson adding their voices in 2020.
But the family who owns Bua Noi — whose name translates as “little lotus” — have resisted public and government pressure to relinquish the critically endangered animal. 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 ($2,800) reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever graffitied “Free Bua Noi!” on one of the mall’s walls…
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 like Bua Noi…
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 over 40 years, according to IUCN, she has spent much of her life at Pata.
“She needs to get out of it,” Edwin Wiek, of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, a sanctuary that aims to educate people and rehabilitate animals, told AFP. “She is not able to see the sun, the moon. She’s in a cement box with glass windows.”
As international pressure to release Bua Noi grew last year, the family-owned zoo rejected a reported 30 million baht ($880,000) offer from Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, saying the gorilla was too old to be rehomed.
But activists say this misses the point, insisting that 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,” said Wiek.
Other animal rights groups have gone further, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) — which has staged multiple protests over the years — saying Bua Noi was “suffering from extreme psychological distress”…
A representative for Pata Zoo did not return multiple requests for comment. But the zoo has blamed foreigners for the criticism, noting that zoos around the world house gorillas without problems… They said the gorilla has been well-cared for throughout her life, despite the creature costing more to support than she brought in. SOURCE…
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