KARACHI: The staff at the Safari park is hopeful about the survival of a baby mouflon whose mother died just three days after its birth. The orphaned sheep being taken care of by the staff is now two weeks old.

“We were hoping that the other female with a newborn would adopt it, but she didn’t. So, we had to intervene,” additional director of Safari Dr Kazim Hussain told Dawn.

The staff, he said, started bottle-feeding the baby within two days of its birth since the mother, around 10 years of age, was weak and suffered from some stomach disorder and metritits (a common infection in animals that occurs within 10 days of delivery).

“It’s healthy and has all the indications that it will survive. Right now, it’s taking both goat and powdered milk every four hours and will gradually be offered grass and powdered grains,” said Dr Hussain.

The mother’s death came as a big disappointment to the staff as the Safari is now left with only two females, one of them born last year. The number of males, however, stands at 12.

The absurd difference in the number of male-female ratio, the staff say, is only because more male births occurred at the Safari.

According to Dr Hussain, it’s not the first time that the staff is taking care of an orphaned animal. Earlier, the staff hand-fed babies of zebra, nilgai and spotted deer.

“The most difficult one to take care of is a fawn since spotted deer are very shy. The hand-fed animals, however, show no problems in getting adapted to living with a group,” he said, adding that the young ones had been separated from the males soon after their birth as there was a fear that they could harm them.

At present the mouflon species exists only at the Safari park. The Garden zoo lost its entire herd of mouflons five years ago — two males and four females — that died within 11 days following a disease outbreak.

It was the second time in a decade that the complete herd of mouflons was wiped out at the zoo by a disease.

Mouflons for the Safari and the zoo were imported from Europe in the late 1990s and the same breed exists at the Safari.

The mouflon (Ovis aries orientalis group), according to the information available on the internet, is believed to be one of the two ancestors for all modern domestic sheep breeds, and inhabits the Caucasus, northern Iraq and north-western Iran.

The species is classified as vulnerable in the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red Data list.

The animals were also successfully introduced to Europe and America. Their habitat is steep mountainous woods near the tree line. In winter, they migrate to lower altitudes. The males and some females are horned.

The wild sheep species found in Pakistan include the Marcopolo sheep found in the northern areas and the species of urial: the Punjab urial, Ladakh urial and Afghan urial. The urial species of Sindh, locally called gadh, has not been given a specific name.

Habitat loss and hunting are considered major threats to the species.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2016