Visitors with a green message

CHENNAI CAN play a good host and two recent visitors who got a warm welcome were specialists in their own fields: working to achieve a better understanding of animals.

Mr. Bruce Friedrich is a vegetarian who turned ``green,'' deeply influenced by Gandhi's message. He spoke about the cause to college students in the city, asking them to stop abuses against animals.

If non-violence was one message, herpetologist Mr. John Burkeet from the Melbourne Zoo in Australia, told city animal enthusiasts what makes good zoo keepers, something of crucial importance considering the bad times that Indian zoos are going through.

For Mr. Bruce Friedrich, transformation came in the form of the film Gandhi.

``When I was in my high school, I got a chance to see the movie, which had a strong impact on my life and I gave up eating meat'', he recalls.

Six months after that he was able to convince his mother, who also turned vegetarian. Soon, Dad was also converted. ``That was fourteen years ago'', he says.

He then started campaigning for vegetarianism in various parts of U.S., Europe and Canada. The main target group are the college and university students, who are independent enough to take decisions on their own.

With a degree from the London School of Economics, Mr. Friedrich took up ``Theology'' and has an anecdotal defence of his ``religion'' of compassion towards animals.

``Animals are the most suppressed, abused and neglected creatures'', he feels. During a visit to Calcutta, he saw the loading of cattle in a small truck. ``It was an horrifying sight to see the cattle being cruelly hit and goaded into a vehicle'', he says.

Similar kind of cruelty was meted out to animals in the mechanised slaughter houses and dairy farms in U.S. also, Mr. Friedrich says. When people realise the cruelties involved in producing meat, they boycott the products.

Cut to Mr. Burkeet. He has a lot to say on zoos. He was here for ``amphibians conservation in captivity'' a meet organised by the Arignar Anna Zoological Park (AAZP), Vandalur.

A good zoo keeper is one ``who understands the needs of animals, providing environment enrichment'', he says.

Zoo keepers in India are not professionals, he says, after an interaction with some of the zoo keepers in the AAZP. ``To become a zoo keeper no extraordinary qualifications are required. Anyone who is able to read the animals can become a keeper'', he says.

Zoos will benefit a great deal if sponsored programmes are taken up on conservation. For example a chocolate company has adopted the ``World of Frogs' an amphibian conservation and research area by creating a chocolate in the shape of frogs. This is popular among children all over Australia. ``I don't see such sponsored enclosures here'', he says.

Melbourne zoo is an independent body, as the Australian government wants it to be self sustaining.

What is his view of the Arignar Anna Zoological Park, Vandalur: It is very progressive, with abundant space to create large outdoor enclosures. Any sponsors?

Mr. Burkeet says zoo admissions are relatively cheap in India, considering the resources that go into maintaining them. Admission rates to zoos in the developed part of the world are very high by comparison. But then, this also keeps them insulated from bureaucratic and political interference, enabling them to function professionally.

The visitors came with different messages, but both were deeply rooted in Nature.

By P. Oppili

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