KARACHI: A female chimpanzee named Bibi, who had been living in solitary confinement at the zoo for a long time, died on Saturday.

Sources said the chimp had been under treatment for months.

Speaking to Dawn, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) official Daniyal Sial confirmed her death, saying that “senility” had been declared the cause of death in her post-mortem report.

“Bibi has been under treatment for a long time for multiple health complications, mainly resulting from old age,” he said, adding that she was around 40 years old.

According to the KMC sources, Bibi was handed over to the zoo after being caught by the police in an operation

Bibi was captured after she and her mate had escaped from a PECHS house in 2000; the male chimp was killed in police operation in the year 2000. She, along with her mate, had escaped from a house in the PECHS area where they had been kept illegally as “pets”.

“The male chimp had to be killed when it had grabbed a police official while Bibi was captured and brought to the zoo where she was later paired with another male chimpanzee. He died three years’ later due to malignant growth on his ear,” explained an official, adding that the zoo is now left with only one surviving female chimp.

Chimpanzees are listed as endangered species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They have already disappeared completely from four countries and are under tremendous pressure everywhere else they live, mainly due to illegal wildlife trade and habitat destruction.

Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora regulations and laws, chimpanzees are classified as an Appendix I species, completely banning the trade in chimps and parts, except in rare cases such as scientific research.

“In compliance to the international law, we have the Pakistan Trade Control of Wild Flora and Fauna Act 2012, strictly monitoring all movements concerning wildlife,” said Sindh Wildlife Conservator Javed Ahmed Mahar.

He pointed out that the Rule 86/Sub-rule 7 of the Sindh Wildlife Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management Rules 2022 didn’t allow import of primates.

“The primates kept in the zoo were among the species once brought to the country under shady deals, prior to the enactment of these laws. Now, there is strict surveillance at the international, national and provincial levels over trans-boundary movement of wildlife species,” he said, adding that these laws banned trade of all wildly caught species.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2025