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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2006

Wildlife rehab center, zoos, farms try to survive under fire

BEIRUT, HAIFA--As vulnerable as dogs and cats were during the July and August 2006 fighting along the border of Israel and Lebanon, captive wildlife and livestock were in even in greater danger, having little or no opportunity to even try to survive on their own.

The nonprofit Animal Encounter Educational Center for Wildlife Conservation in southern Lebanon, directed by Mounir and Diana Abi-Said, had animals of more than 35 species to look after, most of them rehabilitation cases, the Saids e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE. Among the animals, they said, were "brown bear, wolf, hyena, fox, deer, ostrich, pelican, white stork, imperial eagle, jungle cat, wild boar, and jackal."

"Situated outside the bombarded area," the Saids explained, "the center has become a shelter for abandoned animals. Lots of people cannot afford to take care of their animals any more, or have left the country for a safer place, and have been referred to Animal Encounter. Moreover, animals are giving birth here," including the hyena.

"Space is getting crowded, more food is needed, all the workers have left, and volunteers are unavailable to help," the Saids added, noting the increased expense and transportation difficulty involved in getting adequate food for the animals, especially after bridges were extensively bombed.

"Fuel is getting scarce," the Saids noted. "Using big vehicles or pick-up trucks to get food is dangerous, since lots of these vehicles have been bombed in other regions."

As a result, the animals were fed "just to maintenance level in terms of both quantity and quality," the Saids lamented. "However, for the children of the refugees, some activities are being held. Sessions about the importance of wild native animals have been given to more than 500 children at the schools that are used as shelters for the moment."

Held for two hours a day, three days a week, "The sessions help to distract the children from the war," the Saids said with pride.

Two Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals volunteers on July 25 evacuated a baboon, a macaque, and three kittens from a mini-zoo in the southern suburbs of Beirut, reluctantly leaving behind "a camel, a donkey, some goats, some rabbits, an owl, eagles, a lot of exotic birds, a lot of chickens, a family of 3 velvets, and an alligator," BETA e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE, "due to lack of time, as attacks were to start at any second."

The animal keepers at the Maison Zeder Zoo near Beirut "left the area at the beginning of the war," reported the Austrian organization Vier Pfoten, "and abandoned the animals. Luckily refugees who found shelter at the zoo and the family of the owner took care of the animals."

Vier Pfoten sponsored feeding Simba, the resident lion, and also helped to fund the Hakol Chai relief effort on the Israeli side of the fighting.

The Haifa Zoo "moved all the carnivores, bears and monkeys indoors at the start of the fighting, both to protect them from rocket strikes and to keep an errant missile on a retaining wall from setting them loose into Israel's third-largest city," Associated Press writer Delphine Mathieussent reported.

After 34 days in confinement, "The lions gained weight, but they look basically okay," zoo manager Etty Ararat told Mathieussent.

"A troop of baboons scrambled to get outside through a little gate before it was even fully opened on the first day they were allowed out," Mathieussent observed. "Bears paced nervously, and a tiger blinked hard in the morning sun."

The keepers did everything they could during the siege to help animals made nervous by frequent explosions burn off nervous energy. "We play with them and try to keep them calm," Ararat told Orly Halpern of U.S. News & World Report early in the siege, "but the baboons are going stir-crazy. They look at us as if asking 'What is going on?'"

"July and August, usually the busiest months for visitors, were wiped out financially because of the war," Mathieussent noted.
"We had no revenues and a lot of extra expenses," Ararat summarized.

Relatively little information was available about the plight of farm animals.

Tamara More, president of the Israeli animal rescue group Ahava, asked Israeli armed forces to avoid bombing pastures, stables, and dairy farms in south Lebanon, wrote Orly Halpern of U.S. News & World Report.

"Egg farmers report that due to stress, cows are producing less milk, and the shells of chicken eggs are so thin they fall apart in their hands when they try to pick them up. Seventeen cows and seven calves were killed by bombs falling on Kibbutz Amir, near Kiryat Shmona," CHAI founder Natelson reported.

World Society for the Protection of Animals campaigns director Leah Garces spent much of July trying to help prevent livestock from becoming stranded at sea. About 27,800 cattle were believed to be en route to Lebanon, mostly from Brazil, just before the Lebanese ports were blockaded.