Conservators’ Center News

The Flying Tigers arrive safely at the Baghdad Zoo.

Two of Conservators’ Center’s tigers, Hope and Riley, have completed their long journey to the Baghdad Zoo safely. They entered their new home with excitement and curiosity. To read more about this exciting journey and to see more pictures of Hope and Riley, please visit their very own Flying Tigers page. We will be updating it regularly with more information about their new lives over in Iraq. They will be deeply missed at the Center, but we know that they will have the time of their lives being the center of attention over at the Baghdad Zoo.

Conservators’ Center has applied for a permit to export two tigers to the Baghdad Zoo.

Over the last several years the zoo in Baghdad has undergone a transformation. It has become a safe haven for veterinarians to work in, and for people to visit with their families. There has been no fighting there since the start of the war. During the begining of the war, our soldiers unfortunately killed their tigers. The US Military took notice.

Since then, the US has invested a substantial sum of money in renovating the Baghdad Zoo. The US helped send the keepers and veterinarians to top European zoos for training, and has set up telecommunication systems for the veterinarians to take graduate level wildlife medicine courses at North Carolina State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Over the past 4 years several attempts have been made by various government agencies and non government organizations to replace the tigers killed at the zoo. Honestly, the time has never been right before. It took some time to make the zoo into a place where animals should be living again. It took considerable time to rehire and train the staff, since many keeper level staff were not well trained. There are now well trained keepers and more than a dozen veterinarians on staff. It has taken a serious effort by the US Embassy, US Forces, the Iraqi government and local Baghdad security forces to ensure the continued protection of this zoo today and long into the future. Currently, people have picnics in the grass with their children there. It is the only place in Baghdad where people feel they can bring their families for a day out. Even when our troops withdraw, we will have a lasting presence in the area through staff training, funding support, and most likely, continuing security measures. Without these improvements and security measurements, we would never have considered sending any animals there.

We were contacted initially by a military veterinarian serving in Baghdad who has experience working with tigers. When asked about providing cats for this purpose, our initial major concern was for the animals safety, which is of course critical to us. The only animals that have ever left here have done so on loan, so they will always be contractually obliged to return if they no longer are wanted or if something happens to the facility holding them. Only two big cats have ever left here. They live only an hour away at a wonderful little zoo with a huge exhibit and a great staff. We check on them all the time. So, you can imagine our complete lack of interest in endangering our animals, who we view as our children.

Since then we have spoken with people from the Civil Affairs division at the zoo itself, several US veterinarians attached to the military, the US Embassy, and the USDA who have visited the zoo themselves. We have spoken with US Embassy staff to assess the degree of risk. We have spoken with many people from the State Department about the risks of transport and living at the zoo. We read every article about the zoo that we could find, from both before and after the conflict started. There is never 100% safety anywhere, but after all this research and time, we think these will be some of the most loved, well housed, and well protected cats in the world.

If this permit comes through we would accompany the animals on their journey to their new home. These cats would go on loan, so if they ever need to be moved, evacuated, or have anything provided for them that cannot be done by the Baghdad zoo, they would return to our care.

A great many people have sent their children into our military service with no guarantees of safety, only that they are doing a job that must be done. Since these tigers, our children, cannot consciously choose to become involved making a decision about where they go, we have had to evaluate everything we can to make a decision that is fair to them and in the interest of repairing our national relationship with the people of Iraq. We cannot "replace" the tigers or anything else the Iraqi people have lost in this conflict. We can deliver to them a living trust, a gesture of good will from the American people to the Iraqi people, to become a national treasure and source of pride and excitement for the whole region.

As part of this potential agreement, we will be conducting joint educational projects with the Baghdad Zoo staff and with schoolchildren here in the US. The telecommunications equipment they currently have there will allow us to have children here see the tigers and their keepers in Baghdad, and perhaps other children visiting their zoo. Our facility will not only raise funding to support conservation of wild tigers, but will also raise funds to ensure excellent long-term care of our tiger children in the zoo.

It is even more important to look at the long term view of the species and its survival in the wild. We cannot support tiger conservation by breeding endless numbers of tigers with nowhere to go, or by going ourselves to do field research for which we are not trained. We can support it by funding good research programs and by educating people about the importance of protecting tigers and many other animals in the wild. They will learn about protecting whole ecosystems and top predators. They will speak face to face with people who have been nameless entities in a country our children have grown up seeing as an enemy.

People at the Baghdad Zoo will be able to experience the tigers as we can here. They will engage with the tigers in a way they could never do through photography. Anyone who ever meets a cat like this face to face, who speaks to him and has him respond as these cats do, cannot help but walk away changed. With such an experience, we hope more people will commit to defending these animals in a way they would never be compelled to do by just reading about their plight.

So we have chosen to send our tiger children to a war zone if the permit goes through. They are wonderful individuals who will make tremendous ambassadors, and sharing them is key to educating the people of the world about protecting their kind for all time.

We hope that this will not remain a zone of conflict much longer. We wish for our troops to come home, and the violence to end. We pray that these beloved tigers are as safe and protected as we believe they will be, now and in the future. And we invest in the future of the world through the gesture of sending our tiger children as symbols of a restored Iraq to touch the spirits and minds of the people they meet.

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