Sir: Just two months after the death of a female giraffe imported from South Africa, another giraffe has died at the Lahore Zoo. This is the latest tragedy in a spate of animal deaths this year that have brought the competency of the Lahore Zoo management into question. Earlier this year, two Bengali tigresses, aged 12 and eight years, also died at the zoo.
It is clear this institution — which was founded in 1872 — has failed to protect the animals who’s care it is charged with from neglect and abuse. Not only do animals at the Lahore Zoo die very frequently, their lives are generally miserable. Take the example of the only Chimpanzee currently housed at the zoo. It lives in a bare marble enclosure which is unsuitable for the species. Furthermore, Chimpanzees are highly intelligent social creatures. Keeping a lone Chimp in a tiny enclosure like the one at the Lahore Zoo is akin to keeping a human being in solitary confinement. If this wasn’t bad enough, even the crowds the Zoo attracts are full of abusive people who enjoy throwing things and jeering at the animals, causing the already suffering creatures more stress.
I would like to request that the Punjab government close the Zoo down and sell the animals to foreign governments who can keep the animals in proper reserves which imitate (or are found in) their natural habitats. Zoos are a relic from mankind’s dark past anyway, from a time when there was no concept of animal rights.
MURTAZA HASSAN
Lahore
Published in Daily Times, August 29th 2018.