‘World’s Loneliest Gorilla’ Is Kept on a Department Store’s Rooftop

This department store sells cruelty. The Pata Department Store in Bangkok is home to the Pata Zoo, a decrepit facility perched on the building’s upper floor. A PETA Asia investigation reveals what happens to the animals suffering in cramped, barren cages above shoppers’ heads.

Meet the Animals Suffering at Pata Department Store’s Rooftop Zoo

According to PETA Asia’s investigators, nearly every animal is imprisoned inside this mall-top menagerie in a cage with little to no enrichment. One orangutan’s only source of entertainment was listlessly poking at a muddy puddle, and on another occasion, a piece of plastic.

Bua Noi, known as the “world’s loneliest gorilla,” has no trees or grass in her joyless enclosure—let alone a companion. Gorillas are intelligent, curious, and highly social animals with complex physical and psychological needs. In nature, their lives revolve around their families. Bua Noi is deprived of everything natural and important to her atop the Pata Department Store.

PETA Asia investigators documented several other animals who appeared in need of urgent veterinary care, including a sick hornbill lying flat on a concrete ledge, a horse suffering from open sores, and a monkey with a severe skin disease pacing endlessly in a concrete enclosure.

Animals Suffering at Pata Zoo Need Help Urgently

This shoddy shopping mall zoo needs to shut its doors and send the animals to get the care they desperately need. PETA Asia is renewing its offer to help transfer all the animals at Pata Zoo to a reputable sanctuary where they can receive proper medical care and live in enriching environments.

Multiple tenants of the Pata Department Store—including MR.DIY, Watsons, and Lotus’s—stopped supporting the Pata Zoo by ending their leases at the mall after hearing from PETA Asia. The pressure is now on Bigsu Graphic, the mall’s only remaining tenant, to follow suit.