KARACHI, May 29 The Zoological Garden and Safari Park authorities have announced that they have done away with elephant rides — the most popular feature at the two amusement parks — at least for the next 15 years.

Speaking at a press briefing on Saturday, Manzoor Kazi of the Zoological Garden and Raza Abbas of the Safari Park cited 'animal welfare ethics' that caused the authorities to take such a decision. The briefing was arranged on the occasion of relocating two of the four baby elephants at Safari Park to the zoo.

When asked why the authorities did not think of animal welfare ethics for decades and used 'Anarkali' — the female elephant which entertained children visiting the zoo for several decades until her death in 2006 — for rides, they argued that they wanted to avoid hue and cry from children and their parents.

They said that after the death of Anarkali now, these rides had already stopped and the baby elephants available at the two recreation spots were also too young to be used for rides. “They would take approximately 15 years to be used for the purpose,” the officials said.

Mr Kazi insisted that an elephant ride was against the internationally accepted animal welfare ethics.

The officials said that the baby elephants had been tamed and made human-friendly. They said that the baby elephants had been given names for identification.