PESHAWAR: Amid debate over the plight of animals in the country’s zoos, a team of conservationists visited the Peshawar zoo on Wednesday and found its conditions to be largely satisfactory.

It expressed reservation about the size of few enclosures.

A delegation of the Pakistan Wildlife Foundation headed by its vice-chairman, Safwan Shahab Ahmad, and animal rights activists visited the sprawling facility in the provincial capital and looked at animals in enclosures and allied facilities.

They will give final recommendations and scientific input to the management to improve conditions in the zoo.

The wildlife experts and ecologists will be taken on board for finalising recommendations. The Peshawar zoo, which was opened to public in 2018, is in the spotlight due to the animal deaths. Also, a petition about it has been pending with the Peshawar High Court. A group of animal rights activists had filed the petition.

The zoo has over 155 animals, including local and exotic species, and around 800 birds. A pair of Persian cats has also been kept there despite the opposition of experts.

Voice reservations about size of few enclosures

PWF vice-chairman Safwan Shahab Ahmad told reporters that the overall zoo conditions were satisfactory except some negative points.

“The team conducted species-to-species visit and analysed all animals. Some things are positive and some negative but we found Peshawar zoo a little bit improved compared to others,” he said.

Mr Ahmad said Peshawar zoo would be made one of the finest zoos in the country and the specialists would give their inputs for it.

“We found some success stories in the zoo, especially the breeding of Arabian Oryx, which has happened for the first time in Pakistan and India,” he said, adding that the breeding of Arabian Oryx was common in the Middle East.

Mr Ahmad opposed the shifting of an elephant from Islamabad zoo to a Cambodian sanctuary and said the move brought a bad name to the country.

“No animal should be shifted to another country in future,” he said.

The PWF vice-chairman said the shifting of elephant Kaavan was a failed story for Pakistan as discussion was under way at different forums to ban the export of wild animals to the country.

He said he had joined protest against poor zoo conditions in which Kaavan was kept but it didn’t mean that the country should be defamed for a single elephant.

“Instead of moving Kaavan to Cambodia, the government should have built an enclosure over 25 acres of land and arrange a trained mahout and a cow elephant for it,” he said.

Zeba Masood, who runs an animal protection shelter centre in Peshawar, opposed the establishment of a play land on the zoo premises and said noise disturbed animals.

She demanded trained handlers, veterinarians and other services for zoo animals.

Acting zoo director Mohammad Ashfaq told visitors that the animals were provided with facilities in line with the capacity of the staff and more were in the pipeline.

He said different animals had given birth to around 35 live offspring in the current year including fallow deer, while eight animals had died.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2020