KARACHI: Maintaining the zoo’s heritage status but discarding the concept of caging animals forms the basis of the draft prepared by an eight-member team of professional architects who gave a presentation on their proposed design on Friday at the zoo, with officials manning the facility present.

The effort, the first public-private venture aimed to improve zoo conditions, aims at providing each species an environment closer to its natural habitat and would be submitted to the government once fine-tuned in the light of feedback from stakeholders.

“We want to keep the heritage feel alive since the zoo is part of our history,” said Zain Mustafa, an animal rights activist and architect. He heads the team volunteering its time and expertise for the project.

It is noteworthy that the present initiative has been taken in the backdrop of media reports that the government plans to allocate major funds for the zoo’s uplift and is looking for ‘good proposals’ to improve its image.

The key features of the zoo design draft, he pointed out, included setting up an animal-centric environment, building moats to minimise chances of human-animal contact, creating botanical themed gardens, a sculptor garden, public viewing sports, kiosks with informative material on the zoo, and walkways at the entrance with the purpose to educate the public on animal behaviour.

A sculptor garden showcasing giant metallic or wooden exhibits based on the city’s culture and history would not only be a beautiful addition and raise visitor profile, but also be easier to maintain.

Answering a question, Mustafa said that though none of the team members had any expertise related to zoo/wildlife, the draft was based on international zoo guidelines and the Karachi zoo master plan, and would be reviewed by foreign experts once the government approved it.

“International guidelines suggest that the minimum area required for elephants should be 60,000 square feet while in our zoo they live in an area of hardly 250 square yards,” he observed, adding that the team was recommending 80,000 square feet for the species.

Animals such as big cats, chimpanzees and elephants were described as ‘charismatic megafauna’ the world over as they attracted widespread public appeal. “They are also very sensitive so they must not be caged like birds. They are needed to be treated in a special way which takes care of their physical and psychological needs,” Mustafa explained.

In reply to another question, he said the team would prepare a zoo design within the government’s financial constraints and the 33-acre land currently available to it.

The team, he said, had also studied in detail the PC-1 of the zoo uplift project already developed by the government before coming up with its own design.

“We will tell officials about the level of construction and demolition in the design and how it should be executed. It’s a practical option to shift some large animals to the Safari which has a large unutilised area instead of disturbing the green landscape of the zoo dotted with many old trees.”

Other members of the design team — Raja Yousuf, S.M. Hasan, Huzefah Haroon, Farrukh Salman, Masood Javed, Abdul Fateh Saif and Ariba Zaman — all interacted with the zoo staff and answered their queries relating to human and animal safety in the plan.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2016