Lion couple Leila and Palawan offered to Kabul zoo
Date: 12-Feb-02
Country: PAKISTAN
Author: John Fullerton
"We have decided to offer them to Kabul," said Mirwais Achakzai, a member of the family that owns the two animals in the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province.
Leila and Palawan are about three-and-a-half years old and in fine fettle, consuming some 40 kg (88 lbs) of fresh meat every three days, their roars of appreciation and rivalry over the last morsel of fresh goat audible across Pushtunabad, the Quetta suburb where their owners live.
The last lion of Kabul, Marjan - the name means stone - was a gift from Germany 38 years ago.
He endured the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, coups, civil war and most recently U.S. bombing raids that helped oust the hardline Taliban. He was half-blind, lame and almost toothless when he finally succumbed to old age last month.
"Palawan (Wrestler) and Leila have mated, and we hope that if they have more room and are well-treated they may produce cubs," Mirwais told Reuters. "We're going to extend their cage here in Quetta and in the meantime contact Kabul."
Palawan and Leila are not the first lions touted to be new residents in Kabul.
A wildlife park near the Chinese capital Beijing said earlier this month it wanted to donate a young lion. It was the second offer within days after a Canadian roadside zoo operator said he had two 18-month-old African male lions ready to be shipped to Kabul.
But Mirwais said he was unsure how Palawan and Leila could be moved.
They share a cage that runs along the side of a courtyard. The door is low and narrow. "We can't just put them in a pickup and drive them into Afghanistan," he said.
An avid watcher of National Geographic wildlife programmes on satellite television, Mirwais has heard that a non-governmental organisation has promised to refurbish Kabul zoo and he wants advice on how to move them.
"My own feeling is that if they'll probably have to be carefully sedated."
Like Marjan, Leila and Palawan are no strangers to violence.
Last April, the Achakzais were raided by Pakistani security forces, ostensibly searching for illegal arms.
"They poked their rifle barrels and the stocks of their Kalashnikovs through the bars and taunted the animals," said keeper Mohammed Isa. "They beat them and so now they cannot stand the sight of someone in uniform. They go crazy."
Once Washington's declared war on terrorism - prompted by the September 11 attacks on the United States - is over, and peace returns to Afghanistan, there should be no uniforms to bother Leila and Palawan in their new home.