Islamabad Zoo had abandoned elephants and underfed lions roaming behind enclosure fences until it was forced to close due to ‘untolerable’ treatment of the animals .
Four years later, it is now a rehabilitation center for Pakistan’s wildlife, including orphaned leopard cubs, tigers captured by their owners as status symbols, and forced to dance and wrestle to entertain the crowds. It provides shelter for the bears. .
“Ever since the zoo emptied, the whole energy of this place has changed. When you look around, you can see how the zoo is. I understand,” he said.
The zoo gained international notoriety in 2016 when singer Cher launched a campaign to remove Kaavan, the country’s last shackled Asian elephant and the world’s loneliest elephant. I did.
But Kaavan’s treatment was not an isolated incident. Two lions died at the facility after zookeepers tried to force them out of their cages by setting haystacks on fire. And over the years, hundreds of animals listed in zoo inventories disappeared.
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Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change said it was “gravely concerned” by the “intolerable and inhumane” treatment of animals at the zoo in 2020, the same year a court ordered its closure and Kaavan was transferred to Cambodia. said.
Within months of its closure, a small rescue center began to take root at the facility, but now vestiges of its past as a tourist attraction are fading—silence hangs over the empty, grassy parking lot, A shabby ticket stand is deserted. swing set.
“Currently, it is a proper rehabilitation center with more than 50 animals,” Saeed said, adding that the team has rescued more than 380 animals.
The IWMB team rescues animals from across the country, including recently two native leopard cubs who were poached from their mother, a bear who was once forced to fight dogs in an underground competition, and a bear who was once forced to dance for tips. I adopted a monkey that was in the house.
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Amir Khalil, a veterinarian who heads the global animal rights group Four Paws, which oversaw Kaavan’s relocation, said recently of Kaavan’s emotional return to the zoo: “There is hope now.”
Veterans from an Austria-based NGO visited the center to care for three black bears that had been declawed by their previous owners, and were housed in an abandoned building in the zoo’s former cafe (now a temporary clinic). The patient was being treated in the shadow of the Ferris wheel.
“This place is unrecognizable,” Khalil told AFP as he examined one of the animals, an overweight former dancing bear called Anila.
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Anila also suffered from nasal infections caused by a ring inserted into her nose to control herself.
“I hope this place will provide a better future for the animals,” Khalil said.
Last year, the IWMB seized a tiger cub with broken bones from a veterinary clinic in an upmarket area of the capital and later transferred the animal to South Africa.
Although illegal in some parts of Pakistan, owning a wild cat is a symbol of wealth in Pakistan.
“We think of animals as toys,” said Ali Sakhawat, IWMB’s deputy director of research and planning.
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The animals brought to the center are not only physically injured, but also psychologically injured.
“We’re keeping them occupied so they can erase the memory of the trauma caused by poachers,” wildlife conservation officer Aneis Hassan told AFP while playing with one of the rescued black bears, Dabu. Ta.
“The bears observed here are showing signs of joy, such as roaming freely and climbing trees. This is in stark contrast to captivity, where they were deprived of happiness,” Hassan said. he added.
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Wildlife officials are pushing for new laws to target poachers and bear baiters who regularly trap and traffick wild animals.
The new Islamabad Nature and Wildlife Management Act will strengthen animal protection, but it still “needs to be signed by the president,” Saeed said.
The last animal welfare executive order restricting bear feeding was passed by President Pervez Musharraf more than 20 years ago.
Safwan Ahmad, vice president of the non-profit Pakistan Wildlife Foundation, told AFP: “No one in the government is listening. I have spent the last year trying to get the government to understand how important this is. I took it,” he said.
IWMB hopes to establish a permanent sanctuary on the site of the rehabilitation center, while the local government that owns the land intends to reopen the facility as a public zoo.
“Almost every city in the world has a zoo,” said Irfan Khan Niazi of the Capital Development Authority’s environment department, which oversees planning and development in Islamabad.
“Just because the rules were broken once doesn’t mean it will happen again,” he added.
“No matter how many zoos we create for children, we cannot teach them that animals should be cared for,” said IWMB’s Sakhawat.
“Wild animals should be kept in nature, not in cages,” he added.
