A Year On, Baghdad Zoo Faces Uncertain Future
Date: 26-Jul-04
Country: IRAQ
Author: Dean Yates
For 14 months, Brendan Whittington-Jones has been operations manager and friend to the animals at Baghdad zoo, playing a key role rebuilding a park that is one of the few safe public places in a city where bombs and crime make life a misery for Iraqis.
The zoo reopened a year ago in a wave of publicity after being bombed during the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam in April 2003. Donations and offers of help flowed.
Now, the future is less certain. The zoo has enough money to feed and care for the animals and pay salaries, but little else.
There is no budget for maintenance. Donations have dwindled.
Funds are so tight Whittington-Jones has worked for free since around January, when the former U.S.-led administration stopped paying him. He is leaving Iraq at the end of July, and worries about the challenge for the Iraqi management.
"The big question is whether they can take it forward and plug into the international community," said Whittington-Jones, an affable, strapping 27-year-old from Cape Town who has worked with the Thula Thula game reserve in South Africa. "There is no support to keep me here. I've got nowhere to stay."
When the war ended, Baghdad zoo was in dire straits.
Once the largest zoo in the Middle East, only 80 animals were left. Many were killed by U.S. bombing, carried off by looters or eaten by Iraqis.
UDAY'S PET CATS
The zoo's population has increased to 100 animals spread across a large park. It includes 10 lions, a tiger, two bears, a camel, some ostriches and two very tame cheetahs that once belonged to Uday, who thought big cats symbolized his manhood.
In the next week, the zoo will take three more adult lions and six cubs from cages still in one of Uday's former palaces inside the Green Zone complex that houses the interim Iraqi administration and U.S. Embassy.
Farah Murrani, 28, the zoo's assistant director, said she needed $250,000, partly to build better enclosures for two Iraqi brown bears and a lone Bengal tiger - the zoo had two until an American soldier killed one in September after it bit off the finger of a colleague during an army party.
While the animals were getting the minimum they needed, she expressed concern that things would slip when Whittington-Jones left. Benefactors had moved on to other projects, Murrani said.
"He works hard with the guys (at the zoo) to get them to do simple things ... I think when he goes, things will not go well for a while," Murrani said.
Asked why no one would pay his wage, Murrani said: "I don't know why, nobody cares ... He needs to get paid."
Whittington-Jones said donations had probably exceeded $500,000 following the war. The U.S. military had been generous, while support had also come from the Zoological Society of London, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and Thula Thula park.
Apart from rebuilding enclosures, the zoo now has an X-ray machine and stocks of medicines.
CAN'T ESCAPE SOUNDS OF BAGHDAD
Even with free admission, visitors never top more than a few hundred a day.
With temperatures hitting 122 degrees Fahrenheit during Iraq's summer months, most families wait until evening before coming.
"We came to enjoy ourselves, we feel trapped at home. It's unsafe doing other things with your family," said Hashim Salman, a bodyguard who brought along his 14-year-old son Ali.
It does feel relaxing, apart from the heat. There are no checkpoints, no soldiers, just some guards on the gate.
A man-made lake beckons, and with a coat of paint an amusement park and its rusting rides could be alluring.
Then gunfire echoes in the distance. It's still Baghdad.
Whittington-Jones said he would leave knowing the animals were in good condition, unlike before the war when the lions were being fed mainly bread and dates.
Now they get meat every day. The monkeys have bars to clamber on and the bears have pools to cool off in.
More veterinary equipment is needed, as were ca
