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The Surabaya Zoo in Indone­sia is on the verge of clo­sure due to cor­rup­tion and dis­agree­ment about the way the zoo should be managed.

Vol­un­teers are run­ing the Zoo, and are inde­ci­sive how to deal with the prob­lems they are con­fronted with. Per­son­nel have been steal­ing the meat which was sup­posed to be used as feed for the preda­tors, rare ani­mals have been sold, and not enough money was left to buy feed or organ­ise basic main­te­nance. This became pub­lic when many ani­mals died, with the death of the rare Suma­tran tiger last week as a neg­a­tive high­light. Last year more than 300 ani­mals died of star­va­tion, hepati­tis, lung dis­eases or avian influenza. An interim man­ager has been appointed to try and reverse the col­lapse. Accord­ing to this gov­ern­men­tal employee all the ani­mals are in a very bad con­di­tion and dras­tic mea­sures are needed to pre­vent clo­sure of the Zoo. But not only the ani­mals are in bad shape, the zoo infra­struc­ture as well. The Zoo has been built nearly a cen­tury ago when Indone­sia was a Dutch colony, and no seri­ous improve­ments have been made since. There­fore, finan­cial resources (for­eign investors) are much needed to try and save the Zoo. The refur­bish­ment requires 7 mil­lion euros, which is a lot of money for a run­down zoo which future doesn’t look too bright, to put it mildly. (Source: de Volk­skrant, 21.08.2010)