SHC wants Lahore zoo official to examine elephants with foreign expert

The Sindh High Court on Monday rejected the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s request for the replacement of foreign veterinary specialists for inspection of four elephants being kept at the Karachi zoo and Safari park.

The court told the Lahore zoo administrator to appoint either the head of its veterinarian service department or other senior official to conduct along with foreign veterinary expert Dr Frank Goritz an examination of the elephants at the Safari park and Karachi zoo in three weeks.

The KMC had earlier expressed reservation about the appointment of Dr Goritz for the inspection of elephants on a petition filed by a non-government organisation (NGO) that claimed that four elephants at the Safari Park and Karachi zoo were in a miserable state. An NGO’s representative had said one of the elephants, Malika, was in need of medical attention because according to veterinary experts, she was forced to put her weight on two legs since all four of her feet could not carry her weight.

The KMC, however, rejected the NGO’s claims, stating that all the four elephants at the Karachi Zoo and Safari Park had no health issues and needed no medical assistance.

Later, Dr Goritz was appointed to inspect the elephants, to which the KMC object and requested the high court to appoint some experts from the Lahore zoo or the Tando Jam University toexamine the overall health and habitat of the elephants. A division bench of the SHC comprising Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput and Justice Mohammad Faisal Kamal Alam observed that the request to replace Dr Goritz with some other person was unreasonable, and rejected it.