The Surabaya Zoo (KBS) was once home to more than 4,000 animals. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it had the best animal collection in Southeast Asia. The zoo has since gone way downhill, hurt by a seemingly endless leadership struggle. The death rate outweighs the birth rate. In 2011, for instance, 315 animals died and only 271 were born. Many of the animals died or exchanged for material goods.
Management once traded 39 animals--birds, deer, bulls, kangaroos and orangutans--for Kijang Innova cars and motorcycles. The recipient of the animals was the Green Valley Conservation Institute in Bandar Lampung.
"They were swapped for operational vehicles we needed," KBS spokesman Agus Supangkat said.
The zoo used to be managed by the Surabaya Zoo Association, a private company. Stany Soebakir, then speaker of the Surabaya Regional Council, was the association's executive chairman. Stany resigned in 1997 as a result of an internal conflict.
In 2001, the association granted the zoo's land to the Surabaya government. Stany rejoined the zoo leadership after association leaders, Kamilo Kalim and I Komang Wirasa Sardjana, were detained by the police after some rare birds went missing.
Different camps within the association became apparent when some of its leaders rejected an accountability report Stany authored in 2009. When Basuki Rekso Wibowo, a law professor at Airlangga University, was named chairman, Stany filed a lawsuit.
From that point on, the zoo's condition aroused deeper concern. Many animals died from neglect. The Forestry Ministry intervened in 2010, revoking the conservation license and forming a provisional management team involving the provincial government, the Forestry Ministry, the Surabaya city government and the All-Indonesia Zoo Association. But members of the team, headed by Tony Sumampouw--owner of the Taman Safari wildlife park franchise, became embroiled in the conflict themselves, and it took three years for a definitive executive board to be formed. Stany and Basuki jointly sued the Forestry Minister; the case is ongoing.
The Surabaya administration will have to work hard to restore the zoo's reputation. Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini, who is determined to take over the zoo, promised to build a water treatment facility, a sea world and a night zoo so it can be provide conservation and education, as well as entertainment. With proper management, she is convinced the zoo can be revived. She hopes that within 12 years, management can turn a profit. The Surabaya Regional Council has provided a budget so the government doesn't need to seek investors.
But the dispute is far from being settled. The camp of Stany and Basuki, after their peaceful settlement, threatened to sue the mayor unless they were involved in the zoo's management.
AGUS SUPRIYANTO, ENDRI KURNIAWATI, AGITA SUKMA LISTYANTI, ARIEF RIZQI HIDAYAT
