ISLAMABAD, April 28 — Before it was pressured to shut over its “insupportable” therapy of animals, the Islamabad Zoo was residence to uncared for elephants and underfed lions pacing backwards and forwards behind the bars of their enclosures.
Now, 4 years later, it is a rehabilitation centre for Pakistani wildlife, offering a refuge for motherless leopard cubs, tigers seized from homeowners who stored them as standing symbols, and bears pressured to bop — or struggle — for the amusement of crowds.
“The entire power of the place has modified ever because the zoo was emptied… The care exhibits, go searching,” Rina Saeed, the pinnacle of Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB), instructed eNM.
The zoo discovered worldwide notoriety in 2016, when the singer Cher launched a marketing campaign to take away its shackled Asian elephant Kaavan, the final within the nation and dubbed the world’s loneliest elephant.
But Kaavan’s therapy wasn’t an remoted incident — two lions died on the facility when zookeepers tried to pressure them from their pen by setting hearth to piles of hay. And through the years, tons of of animals listed on the zoo’s stock merely vanished.
Pakistan’s local weather change ministry mentioned it was “significantly involved” concerning the “insupportable and inhumane” therapy of animals on the zoo in 2020 — the identical 12 months the courts ordered it shut and Kaavan was moved to Cambodia.
Within months of its closure, a small rescue centre started to take root on the facility, and now proof of its previous as a vacationer attraction is fading — silence hangs over the empty, overgrown car parking zone and the shabby ticket stand sits idle subsequent to a swing set.
“Now it is a correct rehabilitation centre with over 50 animals,” Saeed mentioned, including that the workforce had rescued greater than 380 animals.
A rescued monkey sits inside its enclosure on the Margallah Wildlife rescue centre. — eNM pic
‘Unrecognisable’
The IWMB workforce rescues animals from throughout the nation, lately taking in two indigenous leopard cubs poached from their mom, bears as soon as pressured to struggle canines in underground competitions and monkeys made to bop for ideas.
Amir Khalil, a veterinarian who directs the worldwide animal welfare organisation Four Paws, which oversaw Kaavan’s relocation, lately made an emotional return to the zoo, saying it “now holds hope”.
Vets from the Austria-based NGO had come to the centre to see after three black bears whose claws had been eliminated by their earlier homeowners, treating them within the shadow of an deserted Ferris wheel within the zoo’s former cafe — now a makeshift clinic.
In this image taken on April 5, 2024, Amir Khalil (left), veterinarian and director of the challenge improvement for Four Paws International, and Frank Goeritz (proper), head veterinarian of Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, go to the Margallah Wildlife rescue centre, previously a zoological park, in Islamabad. — eNM pic
“This place is unrecognisable,” Khalil instructed eNM whereas inspecting one of many animals, an obese former dancing bear referred to as Anila.
Anila was additionally affected by a nostril an infection from a hoop pierced via her snout to assist maintain her beneath management.
“We hope this place seems to be a spot for animals with a greater future,” Khalil mentioned.
Last 12 months the IWMB seized a tiger cub with damaged bones from a vet clinic in an upscale neighbourhood within the capital, later relocating the animal to South Africa.
Owning a wild cat is a logo of wealth in Pakistan despite the fact that it is unlawful in some elements of the nation.
“We suppose animals are toys,” mentioned Ali Sakhawat, deputy director of analysis and planning on the IWMB.
The animals dropped at the centre will not be solely bodily injured but additionally mentally traumatised.
“We maintain them occupied to assist them erase the recollections of the trauma inflicted by poachers,” Aneis Hussan, a wildlife ranger, instructed eNM as he performed with Daboo, one of many rescued black bears.
“The bears you’ve noticed right here exhibit indicators of pleasure — roaming freely, climbing bushes — a stark distinction to the captivity that disadvantaged them of happiness,” Hussan added.
Rescued Asian black bears are pictured at an enclosure on the Margallah Wildlife rescue centre. — eNM pic
Bumpy quest for survival
Wildlife authorities are pushing for brand new legal guidelines concentrating on poachers and bear baiters who repeatedly entice and site visitors wild animals.
A brand new Islamabad Nature and Wildlife Management Act would strengthen animal protections, however Saeed says it nonetheless “wants the president’s signature”.
The final presidential order on animal welfare — proscribing bear baiting — was handed over 20 years in the past by President Pervez Musharraf.
“No one within the authorities listens, I’ve gotten previous making an attempt to make them perceive how essential this is,” Safwan Ahmad, vice chairman of the non-profit Pakistan Wildlife Foundation, instructed eNM.
IWMB desires to determine a everlasting sanctuary on the web site of the rehabilitation centre, however the native authority that owns the land intends to reopen the ability as a public zoo.
“There is one (zoo) in nearly each metropolis worldwide,” mentioned Irfan Khan Niazi of the environmental division of the Capital Development Authority, which oversees planning and improvement in Islamabad.
“Just as a result of guidelines weren’t adopted as soon as doesn’t imply it will occur once more”, he added.
“No matter what number of zoos we make for teenagers, this received’t train them that animals are to be taken care of,” mentioned IWMB’s Sakhawat.
“Wild animals are to be stored within the wild, not cages”, he added. — eNM
