A rescue mission for the animals
Jim Farrell
The Edmonton Journal
April 26, 2003
BAGHDAD - In postwar Baghdad, there is a group of forgotten casualties -- local zoo animals that suffered horrendously during and after the conflict.
But a team of animal specialists is recapturing, feeding and caring for these animals, which even include beasts belonging to the son of Saddam Hussein.
On Friday, the South African game manager who organized the international campaign to care for these animals, took Baghdad zoo workers, Kuwaiti animal specialists and seven American soldiers to one of Saddam Hussein's palaces to teach them the fine art of herding cats.
"These lions were the personal toys of Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son," Lawrence Anthony explained.
Uday had kept six large lion cubs and two cheetahs in cages within a two-hectare compound in the sprawling grounds of one of his father's palaces.
That palace was one of the main targets of the American "shock and awe" campaign. Smart bombs, 450 kilograms in weight, exploded within 500 metres of the cages.
Following the collapse of the Hussein government, looters came into the compound to steal refrigerators, air conditioners and even the cats' food. While they were at it, the looters opened the cats' cages.
On Friday, Anthony and his crew used guile, charm and chunks of meat to coax the cats into transportation. The caged animals were taken in a U.S. Army truck to the Zawra Park Zoological Gardens.
The park was a confused mess when the U.S. took control of the area 10 days ago. Iraqi soldiers had dug foxholes within the park, some even within the zoo. Rifle, rocket and cannon fire swept the area when the Americans went through on their way to Saddam Hussein's nearby Republican Palace.
"At the parade ground over there, 28 tanks fought a pitched battle and the animals were subjected to horrendous noise," Anthony said.
After the fighting was over, looters arrived to pilfer air conditioners, building materials, animal food and some of the animals and smash holes in walls and open cage doors.
"They'll steal the water troughs, they'll steal the bloody plastic bowls," Anthony said.
Two freed camels disappeared one night after American soldiers recaptured them and tied them to a tree near a park. It's believed the camels were led out of the park by looters, then killed and butchered for food.
Staff Sgt. John Daigneault watched as looters went after the water birds. "They would swim under the ducks, grab their legs and hold them under until they drowned," said Daigneault. Mules, donkeys and a camel all tore the flesh off their legs on the razor wire barricade guarding the various entrances of the park area.
When Anthony arrived on the weekend, the zoo animals were in a desperate state. Some hadn't eaten for three weeks. A wolf and several boars died. The Americans fed them to the carnivores. "The badly injured mules, we shot with our rifles. We cut them up with the machetes in our engineer vehicles and used them as animal feed," Daigneault said.
Aided by local zoo workers who hadn't been paid in over a month, the Americans herded three adult lions, two tigers, two black bears and a badger into cages but had to shoot one adult lion that wandered into a residential area.
Even though they've now been fed, most of the animals are in pathetic condition - malnourished, dirty, shell shocked and nervous or near catatonic.
© Copyright 2003 Edmonton Journal