Lahore Zoo: An assessment

If you replaced the entire management of Lahore Zoo with vets, they would have the knowledge on how to take care of the animals; if instead, you replaced them all with businessmen they would at-least know how to handle the funds. An entire committee of PR Managers would likely disagree amongst themselves but on the surface, they would manage to keep the semblance of control.

Alternatively, if you went for the Orwellian approach of ‘Animal Farm’ and let animals govern animals, the management may not be a democracy, but it would still show more empathy to its subjects than the present management of the Lahore Zoo which simply seems to know nothing about running a zoo at all; and for anyone willing to read about the zoo’s recent history, it is clear that Lahore Zoo’s elaborate facade of running a zoo is crumbling apart.

Our expectations from the Lahore Zoo have dropped so low that we have lost sight of what expectations from a zoo truly look like. Where we expect any zoo to be a sanctuary and safe-haven for endangered species, the Lahore Zoo continues to dedicate the majority of its expenditure to purchasing exotic animals that it cannot properly take care of.

Where we expect any zoo to be a leading light in the guardian of animal rights in a country such as ours where animals already suffer from gross abuse on a daily basis, the Lahore Zoo only adds to the outdated mentality of showcasing animals in cages as ‘entertainment’ to the people. Where we expect any zoo to bring positive attention through scientific research regarding the conservation of zoo animals in the global circuit, the Lahore zoo instead brings unnecessary global media attention for all the negative reasons:

After the death of the zoo’s oldest elephant, the transfer of the ‘world’s loneliest elephant’ and the death of two rare white tigers, the Lahore Zoo has become attuned to the sound of global outrage converging from officials that recognise the reason for these deaths to be pure negligence. Back on our soil, it seems that we still haven’t been able to mark down this trend. Instead, we continue to try and extinguish the fires produced without ever stopping to investigate the cause.

Evidently, for too long now we have been judging the zoo’s performance from the lowest criteria possible. A zoo’s responsibility is to keep its animals in the next best home to its natural habitat, making extensive efforts to supply to its every need that might turn up in the wild. Meanwhile, financially restrained facilities responsibly restrict themselves to smaller zoos and second to best enclosures.

However, the Lahore Zoo with its glorious 25 acres of land is having difficulty digging itself from the trenches of the worst arrangements possible, therefore it should really do itself a favour by closing off the areas of the zoo that it can’t maintain. In the visitor’s case, trips taken to the zoo in hopes for a cheerful outing may take a depressing turn when they come across a barren giraffe enclosure, an abandoned rhinoceros cave, multiple rusted lion cages and an utterly chilling elephant enclosure filled with ghosts of its captives. Alas, there will always be those who will find ways to derive amusement from the suffering of weary and exhausted animals by hurling sticks and stones on metal cage bars to get cheap reactions.

Displays of provocative and insensitive behaviour from a large proportion of visitors are hardly something we would want to introduce to the minds of impressionable young children; and although the Lahore Zoo’s management is aware of this frequent and prohibited occurrence they make little to no effort in educating its visitors against such behaviour.

My conclusion is not much different from those of others forged many years ago: change in the Lahore Zoo is long overdue to a state where the mismanagement has reached a level of criminal negligence and if the situation remains unaddressed animals will continue to suffer and die in vain. —Muhammad Aizaz Salahuddin (therealaizaz@gmail.com)