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A CAMPAIGN to take Bua Noi - a female gorilla held in the Pata Zoo - to a better home has gained fresh momentum as the chief of a key agency has now agreed to look into the case.

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The Pata Zoo is on the top two floors of the Pata department store, an ageing building on a busy street in Bangkok.

It houses more than 200 species of animals, reptiles, turtles, birds, monkeys, leopards, tigers, bears, and the lone gorilla, Bua Noi.

Animal lover Sinjira Apaitan started an online campaign to help Bua Noi through change.org nearly a year ago.

Now, she is preparing to sit down with the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) chief Nipon Chotibal tomorrow for talks on |how to improve Bua Noi's fate.

"This is going to be another |historic chapter in Thailand's zoo industry," Sinjira said via her website.

Sinjira, a Thai woman who lives in New Zealand, has been trying to raise public awareness, saying a gorilla like Bua Noi deserves a |home better than being locked up in a caged area on the top of a Bangkok department store.

Sinjira lamented that such a loving and intelligent creature had lived in such conditions for nearly three decades when it should have been allowed to enjoy a better home elsewhere.

"I need to speak up not just for Bua Noi but also for other rare wild animals facing a similar fate," she said.

Sinjira plans to ask the DNP to revoke the licence to operate the zoo at the Pata department store.

"The licence expired last year anyway," she claimed.

Sinjira's online campaign on change.org had attracted 34,824 supporters as of yesterday. She will submit the list of her supporters to Nipon when they met.

One of Sinjira's supporters, Wallaporn Bodhimu, said Bua Noi might not be able to live in the forest after its long years in captivity but hoped it would be allowed to live in an open zoo instead.

"Please let it go," she said.

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