Gaza Zoo Puts Stuffed Animals in Cages to Cut the Cost of Feeding Live Ones

 There is an afterlife for animals at the Khan Younis zoo in the impoverished Gaza Strip.
Animals who die in the dilapidated park return to be displayed as stuffed creatures, giving visitors the unusual zoo experience of petting a lion, tiger or crocodile. But because taxidermy in the largely isolated Palestinian territory is not advanced and expertise and materials are in short supply, the experience can be grim.

Flies swarm around some of the 10 animals that have been embalmed so far. The makeshift cages housing the exhibits — fashioned from fencing salvaged from Jewish settlements that Israel dismantled in 2005 — are littered with empty soda cans and other trash.
An emaciated-looking stuffed lion, its coat patchy and mangy, lies on an exhibit cobbled together from crates and shipping pallets. A monkey had missing limbs. A porcupine had a hole in its head.

The zoo’s 65 live animals, which include ostriches, monkeys, turtles, deer, a llama, a lion and a tiger, don’t fare much better. During a recent visit, children poked chocolate, potato chips and bread through the wire. There’s no zookeeper on the premises. Gaza has no government body that oversees zoos, and medical treatment is done by consulting over the phone with zoo veterinarians in Egypt.
Still, the zoo is one of the few places of entertainment here in Khan Younis, a city of 200,000 people at the southern end of the Gaza Strip. It’s one of five zoos in the Gaza Strip, a densely populated coastal enclave of 1.7 million people ruled by Islamic Hamas militants.


 

'I did not realize how ignorant and uncaring the world had really become, until the other day when a picture was posted on facebook of the "evil" President of Spain posing with an elephant that he had legally, with a license shot while in Africa.    The anger at his "legal" actions and the "poor, poor dead elephant" were incredible, just incredible.   After posting the pictures and clip above of the Gaza zoos starving and dead animals, before some nit wit made me angry whining about the "poor, poor caged animals" in Gaza, I thought I should post these pictures of the starving and dead children in Gaza also, to possibly put life in reality for them, so they don't die of a feel good, bleeding heart.    Maybe when Bob Barker get's the Toronto Zoo elephants unloaded in Calif., if he has a few buck's left he could bring any children not dead in Gaza to Calif. and build them one of those climate controlled bio sphere homes, so they can "adjust" to the weather, and feed them for the rest of their life, like he built in Colorado and pledged to do for the poor, poor rescued  circus lions.'

The arrival of the lions in Colorado was met with fanfare and celebration.  Television personality and animal advocate Bob Barker was on hand to greet each lion as its crate was removed from the plane. 

Barker helped finance the $200,000 airlift operation. 

 In an interview with The Associated Press Bob Barker said this about the lions, “They will be the happiest little babies you ever met.”

'No Bob, you are as wrong as you have ever been.  This little baby above, would be the happiest little baby you have ever met........., if the same effort and finances were spent rescuing him, as was spent rescuing 25 worthless lions from Bolivia and airlifting them to Colorado.  You, Jan Creamer, Jorja Fox, and Mel Richardson need to really look deep in your hearts, and  possibly come back to the human race, and start doing something of real value and good.'

 And as the first cage was moved off the plane, Barker yelled, “Lion No. 1, come on down,” mimicking the way contestants were introduced on his game show, “The Price is Right.”

'Glad you had so much fun that day, Bob..........'