Noor Jehan lies stumped on a pile of sand inside her enclosure in Karachi Zoo-deflated and weak after a fall into a pond that caused internal bleeding and a hematoma, the once-majestic elephant is in critical condition and may not survive the fall. It was later revealed that the pond in her enclosure had been left open for months before the accident-it was a disaster waiting to happen. Karachi Zoo, like many other zoos across the country, doesn’t deserve Noor Jehan or any other animals for that matter. Underfed, cramped into small spaces and robbed of the opportunity to develop their full range of interests and needs, animals in Pakistani zoos live difficult lives, often dying well before their time. These are not places where diversity can thrive. These are places where animals come to die. Covering 33 acres, Karachi Zoo is one of the largest in Pakistan however like most state institutions in Pakistan, the zoo is severely understaffed. It can take more than an hour to clean a large animal, and with hundreds living at the zoo, the staff has a hard time keeping up. Cleanliness aside, contractors who supply animal feed to the zoo have complained about not being paid on time. Requests for veterinary examinations are often ignored, leaving the zoo’s animals to suffer in pain until a disastrous incident forces them to meet their end. The death of an endangered lion last year sparked outrage when it was revealed that he wasn’t being fed properly. A few years before that, a snow leopard accustomed to low temperatures, one of the only 200 in Pakistan, was found dead in its cage at Peshawar zoo when moved to a lower altitude area. There appear to be no limits to the injuries that Pakistani zoo authorities inflict on their animals. Over the years, more and more animals have died owing to adverse living conditions but we remain intent on keeping zoos open to appease the public’s childish desire for entertainment. How many more animals must die for zoos to create favorable conditions for their survival? If this is something they aren’t willing to do, it might be easier to just shut them down. *