Pakistan Wildlife Conservation News

Link: http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=42256

15,000 visit Wildlife Park at Lohi Bher every month
By Rizwan Ehsan Ali

RAWALPINDI: It's Punjab's only third Wildlife Safari Park that covers a huge area of 450 acres. Around 15,000 people visit the Wildlife Safari Park at Lohi Bher every month and the number rises when children do have summer vacations of schools or there is any public holiday.

From Australian parrots to zebras from Nairobi, the park has a number of imported and local animals and it's still going through its developmental phase. The authorities say soon the park will have more animals and facilities for the visitors.

"The main purpose of this park is to breed animals in natural environment and it's not an easy job," Zahid Iqbal Bhatti, Assistant Director of the park said. "Bringing an animal from wildlife to captivity and then send them back to where it belonged needs a lot of time, patience and money," Zahid added.

The construction of the park started in early 90s and still it's going through developmental phase. "It's not an easy job as we have to cover a huge area," the AD said candidly. The African male zebras are latest addition to the park that were bought at the cost of Rs940,000. Now the authorities are planning to import the female zebras to start the breeding process, but Zahid said it would take some time.

The specialty of the park is a barking deer, which could be found on the Margalla Hills, but it's a tough task to get hold of it. "This beautiful golden coloured deer is only with us and it's not even in the two other wildlife parks of Punjab (one at Bahawalpur and the other at Lahore)," Zahid said.

Beside zebras and barking deer, there are cages of blackbuck, hog deer, llamas, blue bulls, birds, variety of peacocks and pheasants at the park. Around 110 employees work 24 hours a day in looking after the animals and keep the environment clean. However, there are number of problems that are faced by the park authorities.

Shopping bags and burning matchsticks are the two serious problems that might not sound big enough for those who visit the park. Despite the fact that there are a number of dustbins installed for the convenience of the general public, people prefer to throw shopping bags into the cages of the animal!

"Now that's a serious problem for us," said Zahid. The official said that some of the animals are now 'addicted' to these shopping bags. "But for us it causes serious problem because when an animal eats a shopping bag it gets wrapped around its intestines and it affects it's digestive system," Zahid said.

Another problem is that people often light their cigarette inside the park and just throw a burning matchstick into the forest that catches fire quickly. "Although we have fire extinguishers, I don't think it's the right place even for smoking," Zahid said.

Among visitors, children from various schools also occasionally come to the park with their teachers, but Mian Naseem the Deputy Director of the park feels it's more like a fun trip for both teachers and students.

"They just come here, eat, play cricket and then leave," Naseem said. "If they approach us, we can send a guide with them, who can give useful information to the students as the trip can easily be converted into an educational outing," Naseem said.
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