AR-News: (US) HI: editorial on Rusti the Orangutan

[cathy goeggel]

Posted on: Friday, May 14, 2004
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/May/14/op/op02a.html

EDITORIAL
We don't deserve Rusti; send him away

Enough already. Rusti the orangutan did nothing to deserve the years of
shabby treatment he has received at the hands of the Honolulu humans
entrusted with his care.

By now, those humans have demonstrated, to our satisfaction and certainly to
that of Rusti, that they lack the means, the motivation or the conscience,
perhaps all three, to do right by this badly wronged zoo animal.

Rusti has spent the past seven years rotting in an obsolete gorilla cage at
the Honolulu Zoo, and indications are that won't change any time soon.

Mayor Jeremy Harris wants a private foundation to build the popular ape a
$200,000 pen at the zoo, which would have been great if it had come to
fruition seven years ago.

Instead, zoo officials worry about whether the arrangement might jeopardize
the zoo's accreditation, lawyers bicker over whether Rusti might be an
insurance liability, and politicians postpone meetings to debate Rusti's
fate.

We've done nothing to deserve this animal. If we cannot do what is right -
which is to build him a suitable home here in the Islands - he should be
sent to a facility that wants and can care for him, now.

Sure, travel under sedation might be traumatic for Rusti. But not as bad by
far as slow death in a jail cell.