Animal welfare

Zoo officials get away with excuse-mongering, deflect blame away from themselves since there is no accountability.

Perhaps, because of the many other problems we have, animal welfare has never quite been taken seriously as a civic issue in this country. What our own apathy does is embolden zoo officials, who know that they can get away with doing their jobs in an unserious manner. Thus we have had another incident at the Karachi Zoo, where around a dozen deer, most of them fallow white deer, have died in mysterious circumstances. Initially, zoo officials claimed that the deaths were caused by faeces left in the deer pen by birds. This time, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, under whose authority the zoo falls, set up an independent committee to investigate the matter. The preliminary findings suggested that it was an infection that has yet to be completely diagnosed, which had killed the deer although so far no suggestions have been proffered on how to better take care of animals at the Karachi Zoo.

There was a similar incident at the Karachi Zoological Gardens last year when three deer died and officials initially blamed the deaths on ‘excessive mating’. Similarly, a couple of years ago, when three lion cubs died at the Karachi Zoo, officials trotted out the equally ludicrous suggestion that the cubs were eaten by the mother lion. Subsequent investigations revealed that the cubs had died because they were not given shelter from rain. Zoo officials can get away with such excuse-mongering and deflecting blame away from themselves because there is no call for accountability. When no one cares how well you are doing your job, there is no incentive to actually ensure the safety of animals.

Part of the problem is that we as a country do not take animal rights seriously and hence do not care about the dilapidated conditions of our zoos. There is no call for officials to be fired and for reform commissions to be set up. Until that happens, the poor animals suffering in ours zoos will continue to die at an alarming rate and no one will be held responsible for this crime against nature.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2013.