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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 June 1999 Issue No. 433 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 June 1999 Issue No. 433
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Books Living Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 
Life behind bars
In a city where green spaces are few and far between, the Giza Zoo is one of the few places low-income families can spend the day. But as Gihan Shahine discovers, this is often at the animals' expense
A baby camel once asked his mother why camels have long eyelashes. "To protect our eyes from the sand," his mother answered. "Why do we have big humps?" he wondered. "To store food and water to survive long walks," she said. "And why do we have big hooves?" he asked. "So we can walk on the sand," she explained. "Then what are we doing in a zoo?" he demanded.
ALL CREATURES, GREAT AND SMALL: The gazebos, grottoes and shaded nooks that have delighted visitors since the Zoo was opened to the public have been renovated in the recent campaign to upgrade the premises, but the animals are still suffering from cramped quarters, often inappropriate conditions and insufficient care
This is more than just a joke. These could be the unspoken frustrations of many animals kept in captivity at the Giza Zoo, far from their natural habitat, with precious little to enrich their lives. Despite the government's recent efforts to refurbish the premises and improve the conditions of the Zoo's inhabitants, many specialists insist much more should be done to revitalise the educational and conservation roles of the Zoo, and to place more emphasis on enriching the life of the fauna and flora inside.
The century-old Giza Zoo was built by Khedive Ismail in 1871, but was opened to the public in 1891. "The Orman Gardens were part of the Giza Zoo, which was built with the aim of providing the khedive's palaces with fruit," explains Thérèse Labib, a veteran botanist at the Orman Gardens. Khedive Ismail acquired botanical specimens from all over the world to enrich the Giza gardens and brought in French agronomists to carry out his designs. In 1910, the gardens were put under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture and in 1934, Cairo University was established, and the avenue leading from Giza Square to the University was paved, separating the Orman Gardens from the Zoo. Many plants were removed, and a large lake had to be filled in, according to Labib.
The original premises of the Giza Zoo were 50 feddans in surface, but in 1938 the southern part of the Orman Gardens was added, bringing the total up to 80 feddans. The original collection of animals were brought from the private zoo which the Khedive Ismail established in the grounds of Saray Al-Gezira, now the Marriott Hotel.
The Zoo, which currently houses 1,300 animal specimens and 342 types of plants, 90 of which are rare and 31 virtually extinct, still bespeaks past splendour. The main gate is a triumphant arch with stucco designs in bas-relief, embellished with inscriptions of Pharaonic soldiers spear-hunting their prey in a dense forest -- hardly comforting to the animals, surely.
"Until the early '50s, the Zoo was a favourite venue for many picnickers from all social strata," remembers Salah Abdel-Fattah, a retired professor of chemistry at Ain Shams University. "The Zoo was the traditional haunt of many lovers, with its manicured landscape and picturesque gardens. It was also an educational facility for the kids."
After the revolution, however, priority was given to social and economic issues considered far more pressing than the khedive's legacy; the Zoo, like many architectural treasures, fell into neglect. "The Giza Zoo is an important part of Egypt's heritage," says conservationist Mindi Bahaaeddin, national coordinator of a study on hunting management for the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) and organiser of bird-watching tours. "It was the best in Africa, with one of the rarest animal and botanical collections in the world. Something should be really done to save it."
Two years ago, the Born Free Foundation (BFF), a British non-profit animal welfare organisation, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), sent a committee of consultants, vets and designers to survey the Cairo and Alexandria zoos and help upgrade them. The committee met with officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and managers of the two zoos and produced a report with short-, medium- and long-term plans to upgrade the facilities. The costs of the report were equally split between the Ministry of Agriculture, on one hand, and the BFF and the IFAW, on the other.
At the time, Mustafa Awad had just been appointed general supervisor of the Cairo Zoo. Things appeared to be improving. Only a few months later, Al-Ahram Weekly paid the Zoo a visit and recorded official efforts to "remove garbage heaps, clip overgrown trees, trim lawns, plant new beds and clear away vast areas of tangled bush, which in one area had completely enveloped an artificial coral cave."
The grottoes, the most striking architectural structures within the Zoo, were renewed, a reminder of the good old days when Abdel-Halim Hafez sang to Faten Hamama as he followed her along the garden's winding pathways and bridges. The "Royal Grotto", built in 1867 by a Turkish landscape architect, is now home to an exhibit of rare cacti, unique ornamental stone designs, rare corals, a throne and a beautiful fountain. Picnickers can also saunter down the promenades of the Sham'idan cave, built in 1869, and glimpse a variegated and rare collection of bird species. The "Grotto of Creativity", built by a French designer between 1873 and 1875, was renovated in a bid to provide a haven for art and artists.
After long years of neglect, the two hanging bridges of the Zoo and the picturesque music kiosque have been restored and opened to the public. The Tea Island (Geziret Al-Shay), one the Zoo's famous landmarks and the rendezvous of many lovers in the past century or so, was also refurbished.
"Nothing significant, however, has been done for the animals, which are what a zoo is actually for," exclaims Richard Hoath, a fellow of the Zoological Society of London, contributor to the BBC Wildlife programme, the author of many books on Egypt's wildlife, and the person assigned by the BFF to follow up on the implementation of its 1996 recommendations. Hoath insisted on giving an interview while taking Al-Ahram Weekly on a tour of the Zoo. "The animals are kept in such appalling conditions, it's criminal," he explained.
Visiting the Zoo on the last day of Eid Al-Adha, we made our way through hundreds of thousands of picnickers playing games, singing and dancing. Many had spread out ground sheets to eat on. The animals, suffering the din in silence, were largely a sideshow.
The Reptile House was our first stop. The crocodiles are kept in receptacles with not a drop of water. Most of those on show are babies -- a clear sign that they do not survive to adulthood. The Egyptian tortoises, an endangered species protected by law, fare no better.
But it is the big cats, bears and monkeys that suffer the most. Black bears are kept in very small cages. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, they lie about helplessly, gazing at the crowds in stupefied bewilderment. The polar bears, who should be kept in subzero temperatures, as is the case in their natural habitat, are even worse off. "You can only imagine how they suffer in summer," Hoath noted angrily.
The big cats are suffering too. Five to six lions or tigers are often kept in one pen. In all cases, the space is barely sufficient for the animals to pace back and forth.
Many of the monkeys are also showing psychopathic symptoms, pacing back and forth, rubbing their foreheads against the cage bars, or banging their heads against the walls. The majority of visitors do not realise that these are signs of mental illness. They laugh at the desperate animals' "funny dance", some banging ruthlessly at the cages, and throwing litter in for the monkeys to eat. The keeper, eager for tips, teases the animals with a stick.
The baboons, social animals that live in groups in their natural habitat, are kept in very small single cages, while Grivet monkeys are still kept in cages dating back to the Victorian era. Even the four new monkey cages were built in the same design, with very limited space, no branches to climb on and nothing to distract the monkeys from their captivity. Only a few lucky animals have been transferred to an open space which was recently provided with swings.
The elephants, on the other hand, are chained to the ground with iron manacles fettering their legs. The Barbary sheep, now extinct in Egypt, find it hard to walk too. They originally lived in rocky areas, yet are kept in sandy pens at the Zoo. Their hoofs have thus become overgrown and twisted.
Some animals, like the chimpanzee, the black bear, and the orangutan, are overweight. "Animals are haphazardly fed, and sometimes overfed, by the public, and they don't exercise or exert any effort to get the food," says Magda Sharafeddin, head of the animal diversity section at the EEAA's National Biodiversity Unit. "The public should be strictly prohibited from feeding the animals. Feeding should follow a strict schedule to avoid animals' obesity."
The noise made by the crowds, adds Sharafeddin, also disturbs the animals, and can cause depression. In England, she said, zoo goers are told to keep quite while watching the animals, and the sounds of the wild are artificially echoed in the zoo, to give animals the impression of their original habitats.
"But despite the animals' anguish, this is where the money goes," Hoath moans, pointing at a recently renovated grotto. "The Zoo has been turned into a park with animals as a sideshow. But a zoo is not just a place for human entertainment. Rather, it is a venue for education and conservation. Animals should be given a priority. I, for one, feel guilty sitting here when I know that many animals are suffering in captivity."
Awad, however, insists that animals have always been a top priority. Pointing at the many US and British awards hanging on his office walls, he prides himself on the many accomplishments for which he says he is responsible. When first appointed, Awad started by doubling the money allocated for animal food supplies. Today, LE2,200,000 are spent annually on the animals' diet, following international standards of nutrition, he said. Dens have been cleaned and painted. The lakes and ponds, home to hippopotami and seals, were also cleaned and filled with fresh water. Open exhibits encircled with high fences to guarantee minimal human interference were established for almost 80 per cent of the animals and planted with the same kinds of vegetation available in the animals' natural habitat. The bears, big cats, and monkeys, however, are among the underprivileged "15 per cent of animals" who still have to battle for space behind bars. But a plan to provide them with open pens will be put into action once funds are available, Awad says. Private investors have also promised to build an ice rink for the polar bears.
The most recent, and perhaps the best, of Awad's achievements is the advanced lab, furnished with the most updated equipment for medical check-ups. The lab, which cost LE1,300,000, is the first of its kind in the Middle East and will be inaugurated this month. A morgue and a lab will also soon be open for veterinarians to conduct research work. A hospital is on the Ministry of Agriculture's agenda and, again, will be established "once necessary funds are available".
Awad is proud of the results. "After three years of hard work, the number of animals has doubled and tripled," he boasted. The extra animals have been transported to the Alexandria Zoo and a number of zoos in different governorates nationwide. A suggestion to establish a safari park in Toshka is also under consideration.
Are Awad's achievements anything to shout about? "The Zoo does not need more animals: it is already overpopulated," says Hoath. Many critics concur that an increase in the number of animals will entail a decrease in care and space. And after all, the animals the Zoo is breeding -- mostly lions -- are not endangered species that require conservation.
Specialists also believe that, despite recent efforts to upgrade the Zoo, it falls short of its role as a place for education and conservation. There are few signs providing information on different species of animals and their natural habitats, for instance; as for the conservation of rare species, lack of funds and bureaucratic snafus keep getting in the way.
In 1987, the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP), a British bird charity, established an environmental education centre inside the Zoo. The centre, which cost LE250,000, was the first ever established in Egypt. Its role was to increase public environmental awareness and educate people on how to participate positively in natural conservation. Children were the main target of the programme. The centre was thus furnished with a conference room, a lecture room with big screens, computers, slides, videotapes, booklets and other educational material for children. "The centre remained active until 1993," says Sharafeddin, who worked there as an educational officer. Although it is still open, and was recently furnished with a very good library, a cinema and a theatre, the centre is no longer achieving its original target. It is mostly used as a conference hall where workshops and conferences on environmental issues are held. Orientation programmes for children are organised once in a very blue moon. "It is really very sad: people just go to the Zoo and they don't know what they are seeing. They're not given any information," mourns Bahaaeddin, who was also a coordinator at the centre.
Should conservation of rare species be the role of the Ministry of Environment? "What is the point of having rare species of animals when they are not part of any breeding programme and are not going to be reintroduced into their original habitats?" Hoath demands.
Sharafeddin explains that "we carry out breeding programmes for endangered species in the animals' natural habitat." But bureaucracy may be one obstacle to implementing such programmes inside the Zoo, which is affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture. Again, Sharafeddin explains, many animals cannot be bred in cages and in such depressing conditions. Conservation programmes, furthermore, are very expensive and need an appropriate environment as well as expert staff. Sharafeddin, however, asserts that "the Ministry of Environment is willing to provide expertise and cooperate with the management to carry out conservation programmes inside the Zoo."
Still, funding -- or the lack thereof -- continues to pose an obstacle to the realisation of such ambitious projects as launching a conservation programme, establishing a hospital and building open exhibits for the animals, especially when the entrance fee is still 20 piastres. "The Ministry of Agriculture is launching many giant projects, and the Zoo normally comes at the very bottom of fund priorities," says Bahaaeddin. To raise funds, Bahaaeddin suggests increasing entrance fees. Zoo administrators, however, have shown resistance to the idea, since the Zoo is one of the few venues low-income families can afford.
Would privatisation solve the problem? "It depends on who is in charge," Sharafeddin maintains. "If the private entity taking charge is qualified and interested in running a zoo, then this may be a possible solution." But again, Hoath warns, privatisation will probably make the Zoo an unaffordable venue for working class families, and, after all, it has proved useless in Alexandria.
"Money will not be a concern if spent in the right direction," Hoath maintains. Instead of spending millions of pounds on grottoes, he suggests the same money be spent on improving conditions for the animals, which will not be as expensive. "All it takes is larger cages and branches that are already cut from the trees to keep the animals occupied. The number of animals should be reduced, and veterinary science should be given more prestige to produce qualified vets," he explains.
NGOs are also willing to help. Members of the Tree Lovers' Association, who saved 15,000 pairs of rare Eucalyptus trees at the Zoo from the chainsaws in the early '90s, will organise a public walk campaign to acquaint people with the botanical value of the park. Mohamed Habashi, former supervisor of the Zoo and current secretary-general of the Biodiversity Union for Environmental NGOs, is also willing to offer help and expertise to improve the animals' living conditions and organise preservation programmes for endangered species.
Bahaaeddin has another idea, too: "Perhaps we need someone like Mrs Mubarak, who understands the value of natural conservation and education, to revitalise the Giza Zoo."
photos: Emile Karam; Randa Shaath; Nour Sobeih; Mohamed Wassim; Khaled El-Fiqi
