Animals dying fast at Baghdad Zoo

The entrance gate at Baghdad’s only working zoo is painted with cheery pictures of elephants, lions and tigers grazing on a vast savannah, but the schoolchildren rushing inside see none.

They gape at eight chickens, two cocker spaniels and a family of goats.

They taunt a northern Iraqi bear and a dirt-caked, bone-thin camel with bald spots on its legs and neck, and laugh as two tired chimpanzees unwrap pieces of chewing gum passed through a chain-link fence.

The nameless zoo, which sits in a sorry, dusty corner of the Rasafa amusement park, is not Baghdad’s main zoo. The government zoo is being renovated and is due to reopen later this month.

Until then, no one can visit.

But at the nameless zoo, there were once lions, tigers and ostriches.

“They have all died,” said owner Saddam Jolan, 59. He shrugged as he ticked off the problems on his fingers. “Sickness. Lack of medicine. The heat.”

The animals’ conditions are bad – but could soon get worse. There are few plans for their care if a threatened US-led war on Iraq begins, and Jolan conceded that even what plans there are could easily fall apart.

“We have a guard who says he will stay and feed the animals, but in such times our words may mean little,” Jolan said.

“We will be busy defending ourselves, and maybe we won’t be thinking about caring for the animals.”

Jolan, for one, said he will pick up his Kalashnikov and fight if an invasion begins: “My country is more important to me than my animals.”

Jolan said conditions at the zoo started to decline when the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq 13 years ago for invading its neighbour Kuwait.

Medicine and specialised food became more expensive, and more difficult to import.

The entry fee of 100 dinars became nearly worthless, and is now the equivalent of just over 3c. He cannot raise the prices because nobody would come.

Blame also rests on Jolan and his workers. Animals sit in cages without water. Attendants feed chocolate bars to the bear and poke the hyena with a stick to make it more lively.

“I thought there would be more animals,” said Ala Thabet, a seven-year-old girl in a red dress and pigtails visiting the zoo.

“I wanted lions, tigers, elephants, horses and giraffes.”

Jolan said he has tried. Last month, he spent his savings to buy a tiger cub for the outrageous sum of €5000. Two weeks later, it was dead.

“We don’t have the best conditions here,” he said with resignation.