Pain, malnutrition, apathy make zoo animals' life miserable.

KARACHI -- As elephant Noor Jehan's condition remained serious at Karachi Zoo, attracting attention of the media and government officials, several other animals continued to suffer in silence, invoking little public outcry, it emerged on Tuesday.

Sources said that Noor Jehan's illness was a sign of the institutional decay that the zoo had been suffering from for decades, with little or no interest from the government in animal welfare.

In fact, the sources said, there had always been a war over resources between the two tiers of the government as far as the zoo was concerned.

'Lets' admit it; there has been no sincere effort ever to improve the quality of animal life. Zoos still exist in the developed world where they function as places for wildlife rehabilitation and conservation. Why can't we implement this concept here,' asked a former official of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) under which facilities for captive animals run in the city.

Citing Noor Jehan's case, he said local institutions had no expertise in elephant care and management.

Ailing elephant's condition still precarious

'This means we should only keep those animals that we can look after. The government needs to hire competent staff, train the existing personnel and create species-specific environments for zoo animals,' he said.

Solitary confinement

A visit to the zoo revealed that the facility had a number of animals kept in solitary confinement. The list includes two female African lionesses, a female Bengal tiger, a female bear and a female chimpanzee.

These animals, zoo staff shared, had been left alone following their mates' death years ago. Among them, the oldest resident was the female chimpanzee housed in a messy, tiled-floor cage found partially broken.

Her plight of loneliness could be felt from her excitement when she saw people around her enclosure as she clung to the cage and made noises to attract the visitors. Unlike her, the old bear remained peaceful in her pit, showing no sign of joy.

According to the zoo staff, the female chimp was brought to the zoo following a high-profile police operation in 2000 in a Karachi locality in which her enraged mate was shot dead. Both chimps being kept as pets had run away from their place and stormed a neighbourhood.

'The animals are living alone because there hasn't been an effort by the zoo to find their mates. This could have been done through an animal exchange programme within zoos in the country or by...