Pakistan's "terror zoo" reborn as a rehabilitation center for abused wild animals April 25, 2024

The Islamabad Wildlife Management Board's team searches for animals across the country, recently taking in two native leopard cubs that were stolen from their mother and bears that were once forced to fight dogs in clandestine competitions Aamir QURESHI

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Pakistan's "terror zoo" reborn as a rehabilitation center for abused wild animals

Before it was forced to close because of its "intolerable" treatment of animals, Islamabad Zoo was home to neglected elephants and malnourished lions who roamed around behind the bars of their enclosures.

Now, four years later, it is a rehabilitation center for Pakistani wildlife, offering a haven for motherless leopard cubs, tigers seized from owners who kept them as status symbols, and bears forced to dance - or fight - for the amusement of crowds.

"The whole energy of the place has changed since the zoo was emptied... The care is evident, just look around," Rina Saeed, head of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB), told AFP.

The zoo gained international notoriety in 2016 when singer Cher launched a campaign to remove her shackled Asian elephant Kaavan, the last in the country and dubbed the loneliest elephant in the world.

But Kaavan's treatment was not an isolated incident - two lions died at the facility when zoo staff tried to force them out of the enclosure by setting fire to piles of hay. And over the years, hundreds of animals listed in the zoo's inventory have simply disappeared.

Pakistan's Ministry of Climate Change said it was "seriously concerned" about the "intolerable and inhumane" treatment of animals at the zoo in 2020 - the same year that the courts ordered its closure and Kaavan was transferred to Cambodia.

A few months after the closure, a small rescue center began to take root at the facility, and now evidence of its past as a tourist attraction is disappearing - silence hangs over the empty, overgrown parking lot and the dilapidated ticket office sits idle next to a swing.

"Now it's a proper rehabilitation center with more than 50 animals," said Saeed, adding that the team has rescued more than 380 animals.

The IWMB team rescues animals from all over the country, having recently taken in two native leopard cubs who were stolen from their mother, bears who were forced to fight dogs in underground competitions, and monkeys who were forced to dance for tips.

Amir Khalil, a veterinarian who runs the global animal welfare organization Four Paws, which oversaw Kaavan's relocation, recently made an emotional return to the zoo, saying that "now there is hope".

The vets from the Austrian-based NGO came to the center to care for three black bears whose claws had been removed by their former owners, treating them in the shadow of an abandoned Ferris wheel in the zoo's former café - now a makeshift clinic.

"This place is unrecognizable," Khalil told AFP while inspecting one of the animals, an overweight former dancing bear called Anila.

Anila was also suffering from a nasal infection caused by a ring drilled into her snout to help keep it under control.

"We hope that this place will become a place for animals with a better future," said Khalil.

Last year, the IWMB seized a tiger cub with broken bones from a veterinary clinic in an upscale neighborhood of the capital, later transferring the animal to South Africa.

Owning a wild cat is a symbol of wealth in Pakistan, although it is illegal in some parts of the country.

"We think animals are toys," said Ali Sakhawat, deputy director of research and planning at the IWMB.

The animals brought to the center are not only physically injured but also mentally traumatized.

"We keep them busy to help them erase the memories of the trauma inflicted by illegal hunters," Aneis Hussan, a wildlife ranger, told AFP while playing with Daboo, one of the rescued black bears.

"The bears you have observed here exhibit signs of joy - walking freely, climbing trees - a stark contrast to the captivity that deprived them of happiness," Hussan added.

Wildlife authorities are pushing for new laws targeting illegal hunters and bear poachers who regularly trap and traffic wild animals.

A new Islamabad Nature and Wildlife Management Act would strengthen animal protection, but Saeed says it still "needs the president's signature".

The last presidential order on animal welfare, which restricts the capture of bears, was passed more than 20 years ago by President Pervez Musharraf.

"Nobody in the government listens, I'm tired of trying to make them understand how important this is," Safwan Ahmad, vice president of the non-profit Pakistan Wildlife Foundation, told AFP.

The IWMB wants to establish a permanent sanctuary on the site of the rehabilitation center, but the local authority that owns the land wants to reopen the facility as a public zoo.

"There is a (zoo) in almost every city in the world," said Irfan Khan Niazi, from the environmental department of the Capital Development Authority, which oversees planning and development in Islamabad.

"The fact that the rules weren't followed once doesn't mean that it would happen again," he added.

"No matter how many zoos we create for children, it won't teach them that you have to take care of animals," said Sakhawat from the IWMB.

"Wild animals should be kept in the wild, not in cages," he added.