Mangy Stuffed Animal Displays Draw Swarms of Flies at Gaza Zoo


In this photo taken Wednesday, April 18, 2012 Palestinian schoolchildren watch zoo owner Mohammed Awaida pet a mummified lion at the Khan Younis zoo, southern Gaza Strip. There is an afterlife for animals at Gaza’s Khan Younis zoo. Animals who die in the dilapidated park come to life again as stuffed creatures. (AP)

The Gaza Zoo is starting to display the animals that die there in their former exhibit cages. Flies swarm around the mangy animals that have been embalmed so far.
The AP reported, via ROP:

There is an afterlife for animals at the Khan Younis zoo in the impoverished Gaza Strip.

Animals who die in the dilapidated park return to be displayed as stuffed creatures, giving visitors the unusual zoo experience of petting a lion, tiger or crocodile. 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.

Flies swarm around some of the 10 animals that have been embalmed so far. The makeshift cages housing the exhibits — fashioned from fencing salvaged from Jewish settlements that Israel dismantled in 2005 — are littered with empty soda cans and other trash.

An emaciated-looking stuffed lion, its coat patchy and mangy, lies on an exhibit cobbled together from crates and shipping pallets. A monkey had missing limbs. A porcupine had a hole in its head.

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.

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