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KARACHI: The Karachi zoo has recently exchanged its three fallow deer with a pair of urial — a protected species in the country — without acquiring a mandatory permit from the Sindh wildlife department (SWD), Dawn has learnt.
The pair of urial, a wild sheep classified as ‘vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List, was offered by the owner of a private mini zoo.
The animals, between the ages of six and eight months, were found frail during a recent visit to the zoo, which, according to sources, once kept urial species but all were ‘lost’.
Last month, the Safari Park administration had accepted a ‘donation’ of a pair of chimpanzees — an endangered species listed in the appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) without seeking information about the conservation status of the species and without looking into the donor’s credentials.
Trading in endangered animals is strictly restricted under the relevant international laws and an import permit could be issued only to a government-run facility for wild species. The pair of chimpanzees is still at the Safari Park and no corrective measures in this regard seem to have been taken by the authorities concerned — the SWD, responsible for monitoring wildlife in the province and implementing the relevant rules and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), which mans Karachi and Landhi/Korangi zoos and Safari Park in the city.
About keeping wild animals in captivity, the Sindh Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1972 clearly states: “No person shall be in possession of any wild animal dead or alive, trophy or meat of a protected animal or the horns of goral, ibex Sindh, wild goat, markhor and urial, or skin of beech or stone martan, jungle cats and desert cats unless he be in possession of a certificate of lawful possession granted in respect thereof by the officer authorised in this behalf.”
The ordinance also bars transfer of these animals to any other person having no certificate for it.
When asked whether the ordinance applied to the Karachi zoo and Safari Park and whether the SWD could take action under these rules, SWD chief Saeed Baloch failed to give a straight answer and also declined to offer any comment.
Mr Baloch was reluctant to reply probably because the Karachi zoo and Safari Park function under another government administration, the KMC. But senior wildlife experts argue that the SWD is bound to implement its rules across the province and that also includes monitoring of all facilities for keeping wild animals, both public and private, since the Sindh Wildlife Ordinance 1972 is meant for the whole province.
“The Sindh wildlife department doesn’t give permit to individuals for keeping highly endangered indigenous species in captivity and that includes houbara bastard, black bucks and urial. This is in accordance with its defunct wildlife management board’s decision taken in the 1970s,” said a former head of the department on condition of anonymity.
The Karachi zoo was bound to consult the SWD under the law even the animals were solely for exhibition purposes, he added.
Upon contact, Karachi Zoological Gardens director Bashir Saddozai, however, claimed that prior permission had been obtained from the Karachi administrator and all necessary details were documented.
“The animals were exchanged in public interest. The zoo didn’t have a urial but has deer species in abundance. So, we exchanged two female and a male fallow deer with a urial pair,” he argued, adding that the species belonged to Balochistan.
Amir Mustafa, who offered the urial pair, however, claimed that the species was from Punjab. “I got the pair from some friends in Lahore. I have a mini zoo, largely comprising deer species, in Memon Goth, Malir,” he said.
According to SWD sources, the department registered Mr Mustafa’s zoo many years back and he gets a renewal for his permit every year.
Urial is found in Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab and the federal government allows trophy hunting of the animal for community welfare.
