Does your grandma, complain of aches and pains in her joints? Does grandpa insist it is chilly and wraps himself in a shawl even in summer? Have you noticed how most old people refuse chaklis saying their teeth can no longer handle ‘hard’ food?
All of these are the common problems of old age. The body, like any machine, suffers the wear and tear brought on by years of use.
Old animals too have similar problems. But because they cannot talk, we tend to forget that they too might be in pain. Thankfully, the people who have been with the animals for years can ‘hear’ the old bones creak. And they do their best to ease the animal’s suffering.
At 18, Tiki is a grand old lady. That is because Tiki is a giraffe. At the Oakland zoo, California, the caretakers noticed that the lanky ‘grandma’ was having difficulty with her movements and set out to provide her some relief without using drugs. They got a chiropractor, a masseuse and an acupuncturist to visit her regularly. (A chiropractor is a practitioner of alternative medicine who treats the mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system by hand, by carrying out adjustments in the joints and soft tissues) This year, Tiki has been unable to withstand the winter chill of the Bay area. More so because the 13 feet tall Giraffe is too big to be herded into a covered stall. So the zoo got in touch with a designer to tailor a coat for Tiki. The jacket will be a tasteful forest green and have a removable liner. To get precise measurements for the tailoring, the tailor had to scramble up a ladder!
A coat for a giraffe may be a novelty but dogs and horses are commonly protected by their human owners with a fitted cover. This is clearly an unnatural practice as Nature is known to provide the right kind of ‘coat’ suitable to the habitat. The need has arisen because we humans have moved the animals out of their natural homes.
As if to compensate for this interference, the zoo staff everywhere is doing its best to make the animals comfortable. And many animals are now living longer in captivity thanks to the tender care provided by zookeepers.
This winter, the jumbos at the Lucknow zoo are being given a special oil massage to prevent them from chill.The mahouts at the zoo use about two and half kilogram of lukewarm mustard oil and massage each elephant for at least one hour after bath to keep their body warm. Such a massage helps in improving blood circulation and generating heat. Their skin starts shining and the oil also helps them get rid of many infections.
A female Asian elephant at Ueno Zoological Park in Tokyo is believed to be 55 years old. To protect her hooves and joints, the zoo replaced the concrete floor of her cage with natural soil.
At another Tokyo zoo a fifty plus elephant has lost three of her four teeth. The zookeepers serve her an easy-to-digest diet of finely chopped sweet potatoes and carrots and grated apples and bananas. They also cut her grass into five-centimetre long pieces before serving her.
A female chimpanzee at Osaka zoo spends her days in a special sunroom. She is 50 years old, making her over 100 in human terms. She developed a cataract around 1969 and was kept in a small room outside visitors' view. But in 1992, the zoo spent millions of yen and constructed a glass-covered sunroom for her. To the keepers' astonishment, her cataract disappeared, and she once again appeared before visitors.
