The condition of zoo elephant Noor Jehan is deteriorating day by day as swelling on her hind knee joints has increased, now involving her spine, putting more stress on the front legs, while her genital area has grossly enlarged, it emerged on Wednesday.
The zoo staff is clueless about the disease the 16-year-old elephant has been suffering from for the past few months. Not a single laboratory test for diagnosis has been carried out yet; the zoo neither has the facility for this purpose nor dedicated staff specialising in this job.
A visit to the zoo revealed that the ailing animal could barely move now in the barren enclosure where she had been confined, along with Madhubala, the other female elephant, for more than a decade.“She has lost weight and appears to be in constant physical and mental distress. Nutritional deficiencies might have contributed to her condition,” an official source told this scribe fearing that the poor animal might lose the ability to stand if immediate intervention wasn’t made.Experts from Four Paws to arrive this month, says zoo headRejecting these concerns, zoo officials claimed that the elephant’s condition wasn’t serious.“We are giving her all the medicines as being prescribed by Four Paws’ experts, who would be here any day this month.
In the meantime, we have contacted the Punjab wildlife director general who has agreed to send a team for animal’s examination,” Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Senior Director Khalid Hashmi, who heads the zoo, said.
