South African conservationists are rescuing nine lions in war-ravaged Baghdad from certain death by giving them the chance to spend the rest of their lives in the African bush.
The nine lions were part of the private menagerie kept by Uday Hussein, son of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Now abandoned, they are starving, shell-shocked and have no future in Baghdad.
Two of the big cats, estimated to be about 12 months old, are destined for the SanWild sanctuary and rehabilitation centre in Limpopo. The others — a lioness and her six recently born cubs — will be given a new home at Ngome Community Game Reserve, near Greytown in KwaZulu-Natal.
One of the objectives behind the move is to use the predators as ”ambassadors” to help raise money for the Baghdad municipal zoo.
The post-war civilian administration is struggling to cope with the humanitarian disaster in the city and does not have the funds or capacity to deal with the animal crisis at the zoo.
”It will be great for those lions to go home to Africa. If they are not taken out, there is no place or money to keep them,” says Barbara Maas, chief executive of Care for the Wild International, one of the organisations behind the move.
Maas returned this week from a two-week visit to Baghdad.
Uday Hussein’s private collection included lions, dogs and cheetahs. When some animals from his menagerie were moved to the munici-pal zoo earlier this month, they were stolen by looters.
The zoo has only one lion enclosure, and it is already occupied by 10 hungry, traumatised lions.
South Africans stepped into the breach to help Baghdad’s zoo animals soon after coalition forces invaded Iraq. One of the first NGOs to get into the country was a rescue team made up of conservationists and veterinarians from South Africa and Kuwait.
Lawrence Anthony, leader of the team, says the quest for the relief of the animals originated during a conversation he had with United States diplomats who were staying at his game lodge in KwaZulu-Natal, called Thula Thula. He flew to Kuwait and managed to get the team into Baghdad with the assistance of the coalition forces.
Anthony described the situation they found at the Baghdad zoo as ”hellish”. At the height of the invasion, a tank battle took place in the middle of the zoo. Survivors of the battle escaped, were stolen or were abandoned to die.
”There are dead animals everywhere, decomposing in their cages. Many animals that are alive are in horrific conditions, and many are lame,” he said soon after arriving.
In the past month Anthony and Care for the Wild International have established a zoo committee, with the zoo’s director and a US-based NGO called WildAid. The committee helps to run the zoo and is raising funds to pay staff, feed the animals and repair infrastructure.
The director and ”every other civil official we could find” have approved the removal of the nine lions to South Africa, says Maas. They have also given permission for a blind brown bear to be moved from the zoo to a sanctuary in Europe.
The move is expected to take place in early July and is not expected to cost much because United Emirate Airlines has offered sponsorships to fly the animals from Kuwait to their new homes.
For the Ngome Community Game Reserve, which is to be officially launched in July, the arrival of the lioness and her cubs will be a huge boost.
The reserve is owned by the Ngome Community Land Trust, for the benefit of the Zondi community, and is set on 6 300ha that used to be a hunting farm.
”The vision of the community is to establish Ngome as a big five ecotourism reserve that will be marketed in the international leisure market. The introduction of lions would go a long way towards making that vision a reality,” says Sakkie van der Westhuizen, a management consultant who is helping set up the reserve.
Louise Joubert, founder of the SanWild Wildlife Trust, says the two youngsters will be released into an open camp of 450ha at her sanctuary in Limpopo.
”If we don’t take these lions, I don’t want to imagine where they will end up,” she says.
By all accounts, it should not be the municipal zoo in Baghdad. ”It is an 18th-century zoo,” says Maas. ”It has cement floors, bars and tiny, dark cages. The zoo staff has been isolated for 20 to 30 years from modern zoo husbandry concepts.
”Small, concrete, indoor cages are no place to keep lions.”