Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Con­sul­tant for the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo John Sey­ja­gat has as­sured that the Red Kan­ga­roo named “Jack” is not sick, starv­ing or suf­fer­ing and should be al­lowed to live out the re­main­der of its life in cap­tiv­i­ty.

Re­spond­ing to the pub­lic out­cry sparked by a so­cial me­dia video of the kan­ga­roo, Sey­ja­gat point­ed out that the an­i­mal was “in­de­pen­dent­ly mo­bile and mov­ing to its shel­ter, its food sta­tion and eat­ing on its own”.

How­ev­er, he fault­ed the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo for not ad­dress­ing the pub­lic’s con­cerns soon­er and keep­ing the kan­ga­roo on dis­play with­out ad­vis­ing vis­i­tors of its health con­di­tion through prop­er sig­nage.

“Ed­u­ca­tion goes two ways. You have to im­part ed­u­ca­tion to the peo­ple who vis­it and the pub­lic has to use com­mon sense. If you have a ques­tion ask and if don’t know, don’t make things up!” he said.

Sey­ja­gat sus­pects white mus­cle dis­ease might be the cause of Jack’s ema­ci­at­ed phys­i­cal state.

“When the kan­ga­roos were at Habib’s place (Sa­fari Eco Park) they were be­ing fed grass, some fruits and veg­eta­bles. One thing you have to un­der­stand about kan­ga­roos is that they need se­le­ni­um, if they don’t get se­le­ni­um they suf­fer white mus­cle dis­ease where the body de­gen­er­ates,” he ex­plained.

“It is my opin­ion that this is what’s hap­pen­ing with these an­i­mals, so when the an­i­mal came to the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo it was al­ready in poor con­di­tion, al­ready old and los­ing its mus­cle mass.”

A med­ical his­to­ry and as­sess­ment showed that “Jack” was in poor con­di­tion when he was moved to the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo on Jan­u­ary 26, 2023, from the Sa­fari Eco Park where he had spent most of his adult life.

A re­cent as­sess­ment of the 15-20-year-old kan­ga­roo con­clud­ed that there was “no ev­i­dence of dis­ease or wel­fare con­cerns.”

Sey­ja­gat ex­plained: “As an­i­mals age, their me­tab­o­lism slows down and mo­bil­i­ty re­duces, re­sult­ing in loss of mus­cle mass. Phys­i­cal wear and age at­tri­tion may al­so con­tribute to a re­duc­tion in mo­bil­i­ty, low­er food in­take and loss of mus­cle mass.”

He added that in an en­clo­sure like the one where the kan­ga­roos are kept in the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, a lack of mus­cle is ex­pect­ed as op­posed to the wild where kan­ga­roos have more room to be mo­bile to get food, fight oth­er males, and evade po­ten­tial threats.

Chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer (Ag) at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Den­ny Dipchans­ingh and Di­rec­tor of An­i­mal Pro­duc­tion and Health Dr Michelle Mel­lows, al­so said the kan­ga­roo is in “fair health.” They found that since the kan­ga­roo had en­tered the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo the di­et has been whole­some and rou­tine checks for par­a­sites and oth­er pathogens have been con­duct­ed.