An emaciated stuffed lion lies on an exhibit cobbled together from crates and shipping pallet, flies hovering over its mangy coat.
Nearby, a monkey missing limbs is frozen in a mummified gaze; a porcupine's brittle spines protrude from its lifeless corpse.
The animals are among those exhibited at the Khan Younis zoo in the impoverished Gaza Strip - where zookeepers, to avoid smuggling animals across borders, stuff and embalm those that die and return them to their enclosures.
There is a unique afterlife for animals who die in the dilapidated park, giving visitors the unusual zoo experience of petting wild animals.
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.
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 1.7million people ruled by Islamic Hamas militants.
Mummified: Palestinian zoo owner Mohammed Awaida holds a taxidermy monkey at the Khan Younis zoo, on the southern Gaza Strip.
Grim: Palestinian schoolchildren watch zoo owner Mohammed Awaida pet a mummified lion at the zoo, where animals are stuffed and placed back in their enclosures after they die.
Emaciated: Children enter the enclosure of a stuffed lion, whose ribs are visible from outside the cage.
Swarms: Flies buzz around a tiger that lies frozen inside a nearby cage at the Khan Younis zoo.
Attraction: The zoo is one of the few places of entertainment in Khan Younis, a city of 200,000 people.
Exhibit: A porcupine is frozen against a wall with pots and other stuffed animals in another display.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...fed-animals-join-live-ones.html#ixzz1smhlhDQl
This is just heartbreaking. You can tell by the state the animals are in how they suffered when they were alive. At least they no longer have to suffer and are now free. Someone has to step in here and get the remaining live animals out of this hell hole they call a zoo.
Nearby, a monkey missing limbs is frozen in a mummified gaze; a porcupine's brittle spines protrude from its lifeless corpse.
The animals are among those exhibited at the Khan Younis zoo in the impoverished Gaza Strip - where zookeepers, to avoid smuggling animals across borders, stuff and embalm those that die and return them to their enclosures.
There is a unique afterlife for animals who die in the dilapidated park, giving visitors the unusual zoo experience of petting wild animals.
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.
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 1.7million people ruled by Islamic Hamas militants.
Mummified: Palestinian zoo owner Mohammed Awaida holds a taxidermy monkey at the Khan Younis zoo, on the southern Gaza Strip.
Grim: Palestinian schoolchildren watch zoo owner Mohammed Awaida pet a mummified lion at the zoo, where animals are stuffed and placed back in their enclosures after they die.
Emaciated: Children enter the enclosure of a stuffed lion, whose ribs are visible from outside the cage.
Swarms: Flies buzz around a tiger that lies frozen inside a nearby cage at the Khan Younis zoo.
Attraction: The zoo is one of the few places of entertainment in Khan Younis, a city of 200,000 people.
Exhibit: A porcupine is frozen against a wall with pots and other stuffed animals in another display.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...fed-animals-join-live-ones.html#ixzz1smhlhDQl
This is just heartbreaking. You can tell by the state the animals are in how they suffered when they were alive. At least they no longer have to suffer and are now free. Someone has to step in here and get the remaining live animals out of this hell hole they call a zoo.
