Nigerian zoo is accused of animal cruelty after visitor exposes camel that appeared so ‘malnourished’ his daughter could not tell what it was
- Tunde Sawyerr visited the National Children’s Park and Zoo in Abuja on Saturday
- His photo of the extremely frail camel has received thousands of likes on Twitter
- His daughter, 3, regularly identifies camels on television but did not recognize it
A Nigerian zoo is accused of mistreating its animals after a visitor posted a photo of a sick and malnourished-looking camel online.
The camel, which is housed at National Children’s Park and Zoo in the capital city of Abuja, appears extremely frail and its coat is faded and patchy.
Tunde Sawyerr visited the zoo on Saturday with his three-year-old daughter. He took the photo and uploaded it on Twitter, writing: ‘Saw this former camel at the Abuja Zoo.’
Sawyerr told CNN that the camel was so ill that his daughter, who can readily recognize the animal on television, was unable to identify it.
The post has since been liked and retweeted over 2000 times.
A visitor to the National Children’s Park and Zoo in the Nigerian capital Abuja posted this photo on Twitter on Saturday, showing a very frail and clearly underfed camel
‘If there was any animal that stood out in terms of it being malnourished, and it not being taken care of, it was the camel,’ Sawyerr told CNN.
The zoo’s deputy director of wildlife, Aminu Muhammed, refuted the animal cruelty allegations and said instead that the camel had a skin condition, which the zoo is now attempting to treat.
He said that heavy rains had negatively affected the animal’s health as it tried to acclimatize, and added that this particular camel is albino.
But an expert on Animal Rescue contacted by CNN , disagreed with the zoo’s statement.
Environmental and botanical scientist Jon Justin Williamson, who is also the lead investigative officer at the International Animal Rescue Foundation Africa, said the camel had much more than a skin infection.
‘This is a dromedary, a juvenile Arabian camel, which I can see is very sick and very malnourished,’ he said.
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‘There’s little suitable food on the ground for the animal to even graze on, which unfortunately will eventually lead to its slow and painful death,’ Williamson told CNN.
Arabian camels are desert animals which eat a variety of salt bushes, grass, acacia and shrubs in the wild.
The size of the camel’s hump also points to undernourishment. The animals humps act fat stores, and when food is scarce they get their energy from their reserves.
A small hump means that the animal has not eaten well for a while as it is burning through its ever-depleting reserves.
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