Islamabad Zoo launches $7.5m makeover plan
ISLAMABAD: A rundown Pakistan zoo once home to what was dubbed the “world’s loneliest elephant” and notorious for housing animals in cramped concrete enclosures has launched an ambitious $7.5 million makeover plan.
Animal rights activists had campaigned against the plight of Islamabad Zoo’s biggest atraction — a 35-year-old bull named Kaavan, the last remaining Asian elephant in the country — who had lived alone since the death of his mate eight years earlier.
Kaavan was transferred to Cambodia late last year in a blaze of publicity ater his plight caught the atention of US superstar Cher, who helped raise funds for the jumbo relocation.
Islamabad Zoo was beret of any natural vegetation and many animals there developed classic caged behaviour, such as constant swaying or repetitive pacing.
Established in 1978 and eventually growing to 30 acres, keepers struggled to care for the zoo’s residents. Conditions were so bad that a High Court judge last year ordered it closed, and every animal to be relocated — an exercise in itself that ended in tragedy. Pakistan’s climate change ministry has now taken charge of the zoo’s rehabilitation, with plans to establish a vastly improved conservation centre.
“We have temporarily shited some 380 different animals — including monkeys, nilgai (antelope), zebras and bears — to different sanctuaries within and outside Pakistan,” said Waqar Zakriya of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board ( IWMB).
“They will all be brought back — not to be kept in captivity but in a national park in a natural habitat.” The centre will also include facilities to treat and rehabilitate injured indigenous wildlife — the first of its kind in the country.
The initiative was “brilliant and extraordinary,” said Rab Nawaz, the Director of World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan.
Kaavan’s departure for happier pastures proved biter sweet for at least one man connected to the zoo — his last keeper, Imran Hussain. “I feel something breaking inside me when I come to the zoo and see his empty cage,” he said.
“He used to welcome me with a loud trumpet and by raising up his trunk every morning. He would throw water over me to express his pleasure — and anger.” Still, he knows the beast is now in a beter place. “I have seen video clips of Kaavan... he looks very happy,” he said. “I pray to God for his long life.”