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Pakistan to free elephant Kaavan after campaign by U.S. singer Cher

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Life preserves should not be increased just stop importing these forign animals.
i agree with you sir . let animals live in their own climate and region free . i mean to say about local animals so people can go watch them there as safari .
 
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Great news- poor thing is free now- I like to see all zoos around the world closed permanently. We have no right to chain any animals who are born to live freely in their natural environments.
 
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u guys should read comments from filthy Indians on twitter. Ist truly sad how these ppl have become disfunctional
 
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Any update on this?

Why is there no local solution being offered for this?

The time is here to free all animals and end zoos

Did you not make a thread about Bahria Town Zoo to be most humane Zoo just 2 months ago?
 
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Zoo is one of the WORST WEST IMPORTED system.Zoo is pure sadism misquoted as entertainment.

Don't know 'how u call it entertainment or education by jailing one innocent animal'. Anyway, zoos must be banned.
 
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I have seen treatment of animals not only in zoo but on streets as well. Kindly relocate as much animals as you can because these brutal people will kill every animal. No ethics,no moral obligation. Kindly take all dogs and other animals as well. We are corrupt and brutal and we don't deserve any animal in Pakistan.
 
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Pakistan to relocate lonely elephant to Cambodian wildlife sanctuary

Haroon Janjua

July 19, 2020

PAKISTAN-WILDLIFE-ELEPHANT.jpg

Elephant Kaavan will be freed from his small enclosure at Marghazar Zoo in Islamabad in favour of a ranging wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia.

A Pakistani court has approved the relocation of a mistreated elephant from a small Islamabad zoo to an elephant sanctuary in Cambodia following a campaign by animal rights activists backed by the pop star Cher.

The 33-year-old Asian Elephant named Kaavan was chained up, isolated and denied proper care during the hot summer months. Conservation experts say elephants need a roaming area of 150 square kilometres, but Kaavan was kept in an enclosure of less than 2.5 kilometres with little water to bathe in and an inappropriate diet.

“This is a sad step to take, but the correct one for Kaavan,” Mian Aslam Amin, Pakistan’s federal minister for climate change told The National.

The ministry set up a technical team under the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board which recommended that Kaavan be retired from zoo life and rehomed at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary.

“We want to ensure a totally safe relocation without any harm to Kaavan,” Mr Amin said.

Experts will visit from Cambodia to advise on plans for the journey, after which Kaavan is expected to be moved by plane. Once in Cambodia, he will “live in wilderness for the remainder of his life,” Mr Amin said.

Kaavan was given to Pakistan as a young calf in 1985 by the government of Sri Lanka but in recent years he was chained for the safety of the visitors. The elephant was being kept alone after his only companion, an elephant named Saheli, died in 2012.

Wildlife experts said he has recently shown symptoms of mental illness and had become aggressive.

Kaavan’s case gained worldwide attention, including a petition signed by more than 400,000 people to free the chained elephant. He even gained a celebrity fan – the singer Cher – who championed his cause on the world stage.



PAKISTAN-WILDLIFE-ELEPHANT.jpg

Elephant Kaavan will be freed from his small enclosure at Marghazar Zoo in Islamabad in favour of a ranging wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia. AFP

A Pakistani court has approved the relocation of a mistreated elephant from a small Islamabad zoo to an elephant sanctuary in Cambodia following a campaign by animal rights activists backed by the pop star Cher.

The 33-year-old Asian Elephant named Kaavan was chained up, isolated and denied proper care during the hot summer months. Conservation experts say elephants need a roaming area of 150 square kilometres, but Kaavan was kept in an enclosure of less than 2.5 kilometres with little water to bathe in and an inappropriate diet.

“This is a sad step to take, but the correct one for Kaavan,” Mian Aslam Amin, Pakistan’s federal minister for climate change told The National.

The ministry set up a technical team under the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board which recommended that Kaavan be retired from zoo life and rehomed at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary.

“We want to ensure a totally safe relocation without any harm to Kaavan,” Mr Amin said.

Experts will visit from Cambodia to advise on plans for the journey, after which Kaavan is expected to be moved by plane. Once in Cambodia, he will “live in wilderness for the remainder of his life,” Mr Amin said.

Kaavan was given to Pakistan as a young calf in 1985 by the government of Sri Lanka but in recent years he was chained for the safety of the visitors. The elephant was being kept alone after his only companion, an elephant named Saheli, died in 2012.

Wildlife experts said he has recently shown symptoms of mental illness and had become aggressive.

Kaavan’s case gained worldwide attention, including a petition signed by more than 400,000 people to free the chained elephant. He even gained a celebrity fan – the singer Cher – who championed his cause on the world stage.

Eventually the Pakistan courts intervened and ordered Kaavan’s freedom in May, instructing wildlife officials to send him to a suitable sanctuary in short order.

On hearing of the court order for Kaavan’s freedom last month, the pop star and animal rights activist tweeted: “It’s so emotional for us that I have to sit down.”


The Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary said Kaavan is expected to arrive in six to eight weeks.

“Huge thanks to the many people who have fought for his freedom over the last five years, thank you too, to those who signed petitions asking for his release,” a post on the organisation’s Facebook page read.

“Now our task is to prepare for his arrival, including building him a shelter to suit his stature.”

Safwan Shahab Ahmad of the Pakistan Wildlife Foundation has monitored Kaavan since 1992 and is disappointed to see the old elephant go.

“Zoo officials have not provided him [with a] natural habitat,” he told The National.

He believes Kaavan has been suffering from mental illness since 2006 and hopes his new home will provide him with a safe environment to spend the rest of his days.

The average lifespan of an Asian elephant is 47 years but in the wild they can live up to 60. The species, which is classified as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has declined by an estimated 50 per cent over the past 75 years.

May’s court order also issued a ruling ordering the temporary relocation of several other animals in the Islamabad zoo, including lions, bears and birds, until it improves the living standards of the animals under its care.

https://www.thenational.ae/world/as...ant-to-cambodian-wildlife-sanctuary-1.1051430
 
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Moral of the story. Don't import animals you cannot take care of. Also don't export animals such as snow leopards etc.
 
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We should issue a national apology to this, an other animals, we never thought of worthy of any respect.
Once a wise man said: if you really want to see the character of a nation, just see how that nation treats animals.
 
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I guess she never heard before about Pakistani courts' love of freeing white elephants




Pakistan to free elephant Kaavan after campaign by US singer Cher

2 hours ago

f251709204d24f85b14a52241635b2f7_18.jpg

Elephant Kaavan stands under the cover of his shed behind a fence at the Islamabad Zoo

Music icon and animal rights activist Cher shared her delight after a Pakistani court ordered freedom for a lonely elephant, who had become the subject of a high-profile rights campaign backed by the United States singer.

"We have just heard from Pakistan High Court Kaavan is free," the singer and animal rights campaigner said on Twitter on Thursday in capital letters, adding a string of emojis and saying she felt "sick".

"This is one of the greatest moments of my life," she said.

Outrage over the treatment of Kaavan at the capital's Islamabad Zoo went global several years ago with a petition garnering more than 200,000 signatures after it emerged he was being chained up.

The Islamabad High Court ordered wildlife officials to consult with Sri Lanka, where the Asian elephant came from, to find him a "suitable sanctuary" within 30 days.

"The pain and suffering of Kaavan must come to an end by relocating him to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, in or outside the country," the court ordered, criticising the zoo for failing to meet the animal's needs for the past three decades.



The court has also ordered dozens of other animals - including brown bears, lions and birds - to be relocated temporarily while the zoo improves its standards.

Awais Awan, Kavaan's lawyer, said his case was different "because Pakistan is the only country where there are no Asian elephants".

"Any option would be better than the existing option," he told Al Jazeera on Friday. "Experts and the government should determine what's best for him."

Zoo officials have in the past denied that Kaavan was chained up and said he was just in need of a new mate after his partner died in 2012.

'Bold step'
Activists said he had insufficient shelter from Islamabad's searing summer temperatures, which can rise to above 40 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit).

Asian elephants can roam thousands of kilometres through deep tropical and subtropical forests, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

In contrast, Kaavan's 90 by 140-metre (100 by 150-yard) pen had almost no foliage, and only limited shade was provided.

Mark Cowne, CEO of Free The Wild, a charity he runs with Cher, welcome the news of his release.

"It's so exciting. It's remarkable ... I'm so happy for Kavaan," he told Al Jazeera.

"We were concerned about his mental health, he was in a very bad condition. We really wanted to help him. He had been through a terrible time, locked up for 26 years, chained up for all that time."

The Nonhuman Rights Project, a US animal rights group, which has been campaigning for Kaavan, applauded the "bold step".

Arriving as a one-year-old in 1985 from Sri Lanka, Kaavan was temporarily held in chains in 2002 because zookeepers were concerned about increasingly violent tendencies, but he was freed later that year after an outcry.

His mate Saheli, who arrived also from Sri Lanka in 1990, died in 2012, and in 2015 it emerged that Kaavan was regularly being chained once more - for several hours a day.

Many people signed a petition sent to zoo authorities and Pakistan's then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in protest.

A second petition circulated in 2016 and was backed by more than 200,000 animal lovers from across the globe, demanding Kaavan's release to a sanctuary.

Cher, who for years has spoken out about his plight, tweeted her thanks to the Pakistani government, adding: "It's so emotional for us that I have to sit down."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...van-campaign-singer-cher-200522082957974.html
 
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