Looking to be entertained by wildlife, Yuki Rifana, 22, was instead appalled when she arrived at Bandung Zoo with her family.

She was caught off guard by the appearance of sun bears so emaciated and hungry that they were begging visitors for food.

“The sun bears I saw in the movie looked fatter,” she said.

These skeletal bears recently caught public attention after footage of them, shot by the Scorpion Wildlife Trade Monitoring Group, went viral on internet.

The discovery of these shabby bears has raised the question, can the Bandung Zoo ever be trusted to properly keep animals?

The zoo’s spokesman, Sudaryo, said the bears were well-fed and were actually healthy, despite their gaunt appearance.

“Our animals have to be healthy. Their food is enough. Their health is also monitored by our veterinarians,” he said in front of the bears’ cage.

Commenting on the video, Sudaryo said the Scorpion Wildlife Trade Monitoring Group should have talked to the zoo’s management first.

“They said they wanted to feed [the bears] with fruit. For us, the animals here are well fed. If they wanted to help, why didn’t they talk to us directly?” he said.

Echoing Sudaryo, Indonesia Zoo and Aquarium Association (PKBSI) secretary-general Tony Sumampau said the condition of animals at the Bandung Zoo was satisfactory.

“In general, the animals there are in good condition and healthy. Even the carnivores are too fat,” he said.

It is not the first time the zoo has been implicated in alleged neglect. Last year, a Sumatran elephant died in the zoo after it fell ill.

Following the death of the elephant, the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) audited the problematic zoo twice, the last time in December.

“The management [of the zoo] is very poor because we saw many cases like the starving sun bears. First, their cage is very small, only around 4 by 4 meters, with eight sun bears inside. The bears are entering adolescence and adulthood so the size of the cage is very small,” JAAN head Benvika told The Jakarta Post.

Furthermore, the quarantine room in the zoo is also too small, he added. Benvika said cases like Bandung Zoo were common in Indonesia.

In 2013, the Surabaya Zoo made headlines after reports and photos of alleged animal cruelty went viral, earning the zoo the dubious honor of being labeled by some the world’s cruelest zoo.

“And then there is also a zoo in Kalimantan that is very poorly managed. So much so that we were asked to come just to cut the nails of its bears,” Benvika said.

Fanny Wiriaatmadja, a member of the Animal Care Community, said the condition of the zoos in Bandung and Surabaya should be enough to show that keeping animals behind bars was inherently cruel to animals.

Benvika argued that keeping animals inside zoos was a form of animal abuse.

“One of the requirements to achieve animal welfare is to maintain the normal behavior of the animals. How can they behave normally if they’re kept in cages?” he said.

Despite mounting calls for the closure of the Bandung zoo, with an online petition looking to shut down the zoo reaching over 200,000 signatures, Benvika doubted that the zoo would be closed by the authorities.

“Even if there are laws that state that zoos could be closed, there hasn’t been a single case where a zoo has been closed because of animal cruelty in Indonesia,” he said.

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