Adil Najam and Owais Mughal
The phase of unrest and ‘zulm’ that Pakistani society is passing through, now seems to have made inroads in the Animal Kingdom.
Three precious animals have died in Lahore area zoos in the past 1 week and from news it looks like all deaths were preventable. A giraffe, a Bengal tiger and a neel gaaye (an antelope) are those who lost their lives.
Following two news have appeared in national press which give details of these accidents.
(1) Daily Times of January 2, 2009
A zebra attacked a female giraffe in the city zoo on Thursday afternoon and killed it in presence of zoo staff and dozens of visitors. According to sources, three giraffe, a male and two females, were imported from Australia in 2007 at a cost of Rs 7.4 million and were kept in one compound without keeping in view the risk factors.
On Thursday, a zebra attacked the giraffe and kicked it to death. The zoo staff was also present, but could not do anything to save the animal. An inquiry committee has been set up to investigate the incident. It will present its report to the Wildlife Department director general in a couple of days. aaj kal report
(2) The Daily Jang – Web Update, January 9, 2009
After eating the meat of a dead antelope (neel gaaye), the Bengal Tiger of the Woodland Zoo located on Raiwind Road Lahore also died. Earlier the neel gaaye had died after being bitten by some poisonous insect. The staff of the zoo used dead neel gaaye’s meat to feed the Bengal Tiger who also died after eating the meat. The deputy director of Woodland Park claims tiger did not die because of eating ‘neel gaaye’s meat. They will conduct post mortem to find out the exact cause of tiger’s death. The exact news as it appeared in jang is below:
Some Other Posts at ATP:
1. Baluchitherium: The Beast of Balochistan
2. The Leaping Oxen of Kanjwani
“Eidee man”, you’re also a “Good man”! …… “Tina”, once I got rare access into the cages of the Lahore zoo (snake section) to photgraph some poisonous snakes (cobras, and vipers) for a newspaper article after demonstrating some knowledge to the zoo’s curator/director – Dr. Naseer, if I remember correctly. You’re right – trained staff, at least at the time, were hard to come by – they had a snake charmer (Madaree/Sapayrah) in charge of the snake section. This is not to take away from the love and dedication he showed to the beautiful serpents, besides the lengthy experience with snakes even before working at the zoo! :)
Owais Sahib,
Thank you for the correction and the Wiki photo of Neel Gaaye; they are beautiful animals, though wild boars have their own scary beauty.
By the way great posts, as usual. And I can’t wait to see one about the blind Indus Dolphins. Indeed, there was a news article recently that one such dolphin had to be rescued from a small canal near Sukker.
I hear there are some gene-repositories where threatened species’ genes are stored for possible future revival. Indus Dolphin, like the Indus River flow itself, is under threat.
PS. ANOTHER REQUEST! How about some article Wild Boars of Pakistan one day?! I hear they are quite a nuisance. There was recently a news about wild boars getting into the Pakistani President’s palace itself! (Okay, there have been insinuations about who really were the wild boars in the presidential palace but….that’s for a political topic!)
If the neel gaaye’s death was preventable from a poisonous insect; it had to be in a pen!
Becharay Watan Aziz sahib burra maan gaye :-)
Yes, any dictionary will do… please try one in your free time (since you seem to have so much of it). You do NOT have ‘pens’ in zoos any more. You try to have open spaces as close to the animal’s original habitat. Even in Lahore Zoo it is so.
Pens are cruel and cruel people think of them!
Do go a zoo some day. It will do you good. May even learn a think or two on “ANIMAL BEHAVIOR”. If only all of us could behave like animals the world would be so much better. Very few animals kill their own kind for no reason (and by ‘no reason’ I mean silly things like nationalism, patriotism, sectarianism, religion, ethicism, etc.).
Kaash humm sabb jaanwaroun say kuch seekh laytay!
pen2 /p?n/
noun, verb, penned or pent, pen