SHC directs KMC, zoo management: ‘Provide environment close to natural habitat to baby bear’

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday directed the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and Karachi Zoological Garden to take immediate action to provide an environment close to natural habitat to a precious baby Syrian brown bear at the zoo.

The direction came on a petition of Mashal Khan and others, seeking a direction to the zoological garden’s administration for keeping the baby brown bear, named Ranoo, in a natural habitat environment.

The petitioners submitted that the bear required special attention for survival. They submitted that Ranoo belonged to a breed called Syrian brown bear and claimed that it had been forcibly separated from its parents, which was cruelty as the baby bear was still in its early age and could not survive without the parents in severe hot conditions of Karachi.

They said the Syrian brown bear could only survive in a cold atmosphere and habitat with snow, forests, grassland and meadows of the mountain regions and due to the lack of such atmosphere, the species had become extinct in Syria and the neighbouring region.