Animal rights activists have contacted the central zoo director (I refuse to capitalize this title), the Minister of Agriculture, other zoo officials, Egyptian embassies around the world and even President Moursi with photographic evidence of emaciated lions, hippos swimming through sewage and wolves sporting bloody, raw wounds, and no one, absolutely no one has stood up to say “but this is wrong!”

A quote attributed to Gandhi floats through the blogosphere.

I don’t know if he really said this or if it even matters, but this string of words has great power to shame the people capable of ignoring the kind of vile cruelty depicted in these images by Khaled Elbarky.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress,” goes the quote, “can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

By Gandhi’s compass, Egypt’s moral progress is in its infancy.

Last week we witnessed hysterical moral indignation in the Arab/Muslim world over an absurd, incendiary film made by a thug, with fatal consequences for several innocent men.

Further analysis has unveiled a host of complex and self-serving motives behind the scene and more is yet to come, but in the meantime this terrible theater highlights the MENA region’s extraordinary hypocrisy.

Egyptian mobs demand respect for Prophet Muhammad, who devoted his lifetime to compassion, dignity and honor, but back home it’s OK to sexually harass women and condemn wild beasts to a lifetime of starvation and torture?

Don’t get me wrong. Better than most westerners, I understand that pure Islam condemns animal cruelty – nay, all cruelty – and urges followers to be custodians of all living things.

But the zookeepers who continue to breed and purchase more elephants and other animals only to leave them chained up for 22 hours a day, even though they lack the financial resources to ensure these animals have decent habitats and food, are not behaving like real Muslims.

And the people who avenge a foolish film with murder do not deserve the respect for which they ask. How dare we demand respect when we ourselves are so disrespectful to sentient beings – human and otherwise?

I’ve seen these zoos. I’ve watched lions and tigers (in the same cage at that) whipped into submission while the crowd stood idly by. Nobody froths at the mouth demanding justice for these creatures, which are made of the same stuff as you and me and by the same creator.

Although many of the Muslims I have met during my travels are among the most enlightened and generous people on the planet, I refuse to silence my criticism of cruelty and neglect because of sensitive religious issues. Animal cruelty is wrong – in every religion.

The continued neglect of Egypt’s zoo animals is an insult to my prophets – the powerful lion, the loyal elephant, the solitary wolf  –  and offends my religion, which is mother nature. Nor am I alone, because if you care about Allah, God, Buddha, Jesus, Moses, or any other holy man or woman, then by extension you care about all life.

Now, for the love of God, who is going to step up to the plate and hold these torturers to account?

The information used in this Op Ed was sent to Green Prophet by animal advocate Eileen Crossman; photographer Khaled Elbarky sent the following information with his images:

• The lion, whose name is Antar, lives at the Kafr El-Shaikh zoo, where a guard constantly pokes with a long iron rod in order to get him to perform for visitors. Note: We had to remove this image because Google deemed it too violent.
• Sammar the tiger lives at the same zoo. She is over 25 years old and suffers from a variety of ailments, along with extraordinary pain. The zoo refuses to put her to sleep, which would be the humane thing to do.
• The hippo lives with others at the Fayoum zoo, which lacks adequate resources to keep the water clean. As you can see, it is full of sewage that imperils the hippos’ health.
• And the wolf? On the brink of starvation, a pack of wolves at Fayoum zoo are believed to fight each other for food – leading to terrible injuries that go untreated.
• At 49, the female Asian elephant is kept on this short chain day after day, year after year at the Giza zoo.
• Lastly, this solitary baboon at Tanta zoo has spent its entire life in a 1.5 meter square cage. He/she sleeps on a bed of refuse.

We’re sorry to be the bearer of such awful news, so to cheer you up a little bit, we’d like to introduce you to Jessica – the world’s sweetest hippo. A little tender loving and hippo kisses go a long way, but we don’t recommend that you do this at home.

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The worldwide heatwave is also showing effects in the Middle East. To help its zoo and safari animals cool down, the Israel Ramat Gan Safari Zoo has started introducing popsicles into the diets of the animals. The popsicles cool down the body’s core temperature, having a physiological effect on the animals, safari curator Amelia Turkel told Sky News.

The treats have been given to the bears, monkeys and lemurs. And the popsicles have been made of blood, fish and fruit depending on the animal’s taste. The lemurs apparently prefer the sweet fruity popsicles, while the tigers go for the blood-sicles.

The icy treats have also been given to animals in zoos in London and in the United States. We hope other Middle East zoos will “pop” the treat to their animals too.

::Sky News

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Remember Mr. Splashypants the whale that was named during an online Greenpeace campaign? Like it or not, that’s what voters chose for the whale now being tracked as part of the Great Whale Trail Expedition. Picking up on naming competitions as a way to educate people about animals, zookeepers at an Abu Dhabi zoo are hoping to create some positive publicity for gazelles. Can you name this baby orphaned Mhorr gazelle pictured above? 

Now only two months old, the baby Mhorr gazelle’s mom died two hours after he was born, and is now being cared for by professionals: “Our naming competition in Social Media is a fun and creative way to learn more about these beautiful animals,” said Dr Arshad Toosy, from the Al Ain Zoo.

He says that the Mhorr is the largest of the “true” gazelles and it once lived in the Sahara, in Morocco. Hunting and overgrazing by livestock has put them on a slippery slope, and they exist only in captivity.

If you come up with the winning name you will:

a) get the honor of naming this little sweetie
b) get free tickets to the zoo. Yay. And
c) help create a little more awareness about animals on the verge of extinction.

Winners will be announced in December, so cast your vote by November 27 to mhorrgazelle@awpr.ae.

The Al Ain Zoo (entrance pictured above) was founded in 1968 by the much loved late Sheikh Zayed. An animal lover, the zoo was his contribution to protecting the wildlife that he loved so much.

::Al Ain Zoo

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After contracting a curable illness, fourteen lions at the Tehran zoo were killed. The Jam-e Jam daily reported that the lions had contracted glanders, a sometimes rapidly fatal disease caused by the bacteria Burkholderia mallei, which is common among domestic animals such as goats and horses.

Veterinarian Houman Moloukpour told the paper that the lions probably contracted the disease as a result of the zoo’s negligence. Though transmitted from animals to humans following prolonged contact, human to human spread is unlikely. Not known to have occurred naturally in the United States since 1940, glanders is still common in Africa, Asia, Central and Latin America, and the Middle East.

According to the Lion Conservation Fund, there are less than 20,000 lions left in the world. Threatened by poaching and retribution (when lions attack livestock) and habitat loss, in just one decade, 90% of the lion population has disappeared.

This is not the first case of animal cruelty reported from the Middle East. Last year scores of activists were outraged to learn about dolphins kept captive in a private Egyptian pool and Lebanese circus animals were subjected to terrible conditions. Also in Egypt, Muslims condemned widespread animal slaughter during  Eid.

:: News 24

More wildlife news from the Middle East:

What Happens When Hyenas Pee On Bedouins

Abu Dhabi’s “Wondering Where The Lions Are”

Where Have All The Leopards Gone?

image via Corey Leopold

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