THE Baghdad zoo has fallen on hard times like the rest of the country, and its six lions are now reduced to eating donkey meat because beef is prohibitively expensive.
President Saddam Hussein’s elder son Uday presented the park with five of the big cats — two males and three females ? over the past two years.
They joined Sukar (Sugar) and two tigers as the main attraction, said director Adel Salman Mussa.
”They are African lions that Mr Uday received as gifts and in turn he gave them to the zoo,” he explained.
But Mussa said the price of beef is out of reach, ”even for many humans in Iraq.
”Two donkeys bought at the market are slaughtered here every day and their meat is then cooked to avoid passing on any viruses and to get rid of the smell of blood, which sets off the carnivorous instincts of the cats,” he said.
Even the donkeys are not cheap by Iraqi standards. Each lion eats eight kilos of meat a day, and a donkey costs 8 000 dinars (four dollars), a monthly salary in Iraq.
”Normally we should provide mule and beef but we don’t have the money,” Mussa admitted. Lionesses Warda, Bushra and Samar, and males Sami and Khaled, all under five years of age, are lazing around in cages specially designed to provide shade even during the hottest parts of the day.
”After feeding, cleaning and looking after them for so long they have become my friends,” says keeper Salman Daoud (50). ”The most moody is Sami; he only wants to do what he wants to do,” smiled Daoud, who has looked after lions at the zoo since it opened in 1973.
Mussa recalled that the last lion to die in Baghdad was in 1996 and was only nine years old, when ”a lion can live in captivity for 25 years.”
But with Iraq under UN sanctions since 1990 after invading Kuwait, the zoo is not only short of proper food, but also of vaccines and medicines.
”The temperature goes beyond 50 Celsius in the shade in summer but there is no air-conditioning in the cages,” said Mussa, who qualified in veterinary medicine at Baghdad university.
The zoo spreads over 4,5 hectares and also houses mountain goats, pigs, camels, birds of prey, ponies and six monkeys.
”We started breeding pigs in 1996 to feed the cats when the price of donkeys soared,” said Mussa, explaining the presence of pigs, which are considered unclean by Muslims.
Nearby, a gang of boys jumps back when a camel suddenly appears at the wall. Young lovers flirt on wooden benches scattered around the open grassy areas.
”It is one of the few places where Baghdadis can relax and enjoy themselves,” said Mussa, although the zoo has not bought any animals since the embargo began and has had to become self-financing.
Entry costs 50 dinars (2,5 US cents) per adult.
”Last year we sold 850,000 tickets without counting the
schoolchildren who come on organised trips,” he said. ? Sapa-AFP