KARACHI: Elephant Noor Jehan is in critical condition. The poor animal collapsed in the afternoon following her rescue from a pond in which she seemed to have slipped and remained stuck for hours, sources told Dawn.

A late evening visit to the Karachi zoo by Dawn found the elephant, surrounded by zoo officials and vets, lying on the ground, hardly making any movement. Her head rested on piles of sand and her eyes were partially shut as she took slow deep breath.

The staff was trying to keep the elephant hydrated and cool with the help of water therapy and intravenous drips.

“We are trying to boost her energy levels as she seemed to have collapsed due to stress,” Dr Shehla Hayat, a senior vet acting as a volunteer for elephant care at the zoo on a request of Four Paws, the international animal welfare group which recently diagnosed Noor Jehan with multiple health problems.

Senior vet says zoo staff is trying to boost her energy levels

The elephant, Dr Hayat said, seemed to have panicked during the rescue operation that was carried out to take her out from the pond with the help of a crane.

The sources said that Noor Jehan apparently slipped into her pond and could not get out of it due to her partially paralysed hind legs.

Rejecting this information, Knawar Ayub, who took over the charge of zoo director three days back, said the zoo staff had informed him that this was not the case. “She went into the enclosure’s pond on her own this morning. The staff found her relaxing and resting there till the afternoon,” said Knawar Ayub, adding that the pond was hardly four-foot deep.

According to him, the staff got worried when she did not come out of the water. “We immediately contacted the Four Paws, rescued Noor Jehan on their suggestion using a crane, and have been in constant touch with them since afternoon.”

When this report was filed, the team was stated to be trying to help Noor Jehan sit upright.

The 17-year-old elephant Noor Jehan was last week diagnosed with a large hematoma in her abdomen, causing edema in the reproductive organs and blocking the passage of urine and stool.

The Four Paws’ team had recommended medication and physical therapy for the elephant, whom they described as “an intensive care patient”.

The zoo staff, however, was back to its laid-back style of operation as soon as the team left, creating heightened concerns among animal activists over the survival and well-being of the ailing Noor Jehan.

Last Saturday, the media reported that the ailing animal could not timely get its daily doses of medicines, her feed comprising tree branches, and was being shouted at and maltreated by the keepers.

In August last year, the Four Paws’ team had performed major tusk surgeries on Noor Jehan and Madhubala, the other female elephant.

In 2021, the team submitted a report to the Sindh High Court, recommending a series of steps on elephants’ welfare after it was approached by a group of citizens worried over animals’ plight.

The team strongly suggested shifting the zoo elephants to Safari Park and also housing two female elephants, on the grounds that the latter facility had comparatively lower noise pollution and a better species-specific environment.

Both Noor Jehan and Madhubala, along with two other Safari elephants, were caught and separated from their mothers at a very young age in Tanzania in 2010 and brought to Karachi under a controversial agreement.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2023