Baghdad Zoo improving a bit

[Guest guest]

http://news./s/nm/20091117/wl_nm/us_iraq_zoo Baghdad's once

ravaged zoo comes back to life[image: Reuters]

<http://news./nphotos/US-soldiers-stand-guard-outside-cage-Riley-and-Ho\

pe-two/photo//091117/ids_photos_india_wl/ra1393178891.jpg//s:/nm/20091117/wl_nm/\

us_iraq_zoo>Reuters

– U.S.

soldiers stand guard outside the cage of Riley and Hope, two rare Bengal

tiger cubs that were donated …

 

- By Muhanad Mohammed Muhanad Mohammed – Tue Nov 17, 7:46 am ET

 

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – More than six years after the U.S. invasion left Iraq's

main zoo a wasteland of starving animals and deserted cages, the park in

central Baghdad is enjoying a vigorous revival and needs to grow.

 

Few Iraqis ventured into Baghdad Zoo during the violence that surged after

the 2003 invasion. But as the bombings and shootings receded, families

started to return in droves -- so many, in fact, that officials are now

desperate to expand the park which is home for the zoo to make space for

them all.

 

The zoo has replaced the hundreds of animals that escaped, were stolen, died

of thirst or hunger or were shot by U.S. troops and now has 1,070 animals,

said the director general of parks and gardens, Salah Abu al-Lail.

 

" In the coming days we will receive an elephant and a giraffe. Their arrival

will complete our collection of animals living in the zoo, " he said.

 

The Al-Zawraa park containing the zoo -- once the largest in the Middle East

-- now teems with families on Fridays.

 

A sharp fall in overall violence in Iraq over the past 18 months and the

withdrawal of U.S. troops from city centers in June has restored a tentative

normality to the daily lives of many Iraqis. Attacks by insurgents,

including massive suicide bombings in which dozens die, remain common,

however.

 

" When security improved, we started to live our normal lives again after a

dark period of violence, " said teacher Basima Abbas, visiting the zoo with

her children. " We want to live normal lives like everyone else in the

world. "

 

The Zawraa Park is guarded inside by special police units assigned to

government facilities. Visitors are frisked for weapons while bags and

picnic baskets are checked for explosives. During holidays, all roads

leading to the park are closed.

 

FEELING SAFE

 

The measures have persuaded people that the park is safe.

 

In 2005, around 200,000 people visited the park over the three or four-day

Muslim festival of Eid. But this year, 3 million Iraqis from all over the

country swarmed into its 400 acres during the holiday at the start of

October, said Abu al-Lail.

 

" I expect the number of visitors to the park by the end of the year will

number 8 million, from all Iraqi cities, " he said. The numbers could not be

verified.

 

Visitors to the zoo pay a small fee, equivalent to around 40 U.S. cents. The

animals -- which include lions, tigers, monkeys and ostriches -- are kept in

new cages and appear well-fed. A small train carries families around the

park.

 

The surging popularity of the zoo and park have prompted park officials to

ask the government to return 350 acres of land that had been swallowed up by

the Green Zone, a district of government offices and embassies once

controlled by U.S. forces.

 

That section of the park contained a theater, a cinema and an aircraft

museum, behind the Crossed Swords monument where Saddam Hussein's military

forces used to parade. They should be returned to public use, said Abu

al-Lail.

 

(Editing by Michael Christie; editing by David Stamp)