Kali­fa Clyne

De­spite crit­i­cism over the size of the tem­po­rary gi­raffe en­clo­sure at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety pres­i­dent Gupte Lutch­me­di­al says the zoo was well-pre­pared to re­ceive the an­i­mals.Yes­ter­day, he de­fend­ed the zoo against com­ments in a let­ter to the T&T Guardian that the gi­raffe en­clo­sure was too small.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Lutch­me­di­al said the en­clo­sure which housed the gi­raffes was ad­e­quate and the of­fi­cial gi­raffe en­clo­sure, which was still be­ing con­struct­ed, met in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards to hold four large mam­mals and was de­signed by an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised zoo ar­chi­tect.The ar­chi­tect was Patrick Janikows­ki, who has de­signed zoos around the world, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States, Africa, Asia and Eu­rope.

Lutch­me­di­al said though some en­clo­sures in oth­er coun­tries were big­ger, peo­ple need­ed to keep in mind the Em­per­or Val­ley zoo was a city zoo.The gi­raffes were brought to this coun­try ear­li­er this month af­ter a week-long trip from a zoo in Hous­ton, Texas. They are liv­ing for now in an os­trich en­clo­sure which has been dou­bled in size for them and is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,000 square feet.

Lutch­me­di­al said: "I don't know what peo­ple think but we had to sat­is­fy the zoo in the US where we got these an­i­mals that we were up to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards be­fore we got the gi­raffes."We are hap­py that peo­ple are in­ter­est­ed and that peo­ple care enough to write about it but we have kept to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards."Lutch­me­di­al said the zoo had sent staff for train­ing to han­dle the an­i­mals."Two years be­fore the an­i­mals got here, we start­ed prepar­ing. We plant­ed the food that we know they eat," he added.

The gi­raffes eat the aca­cia plant."These gi­raffes are from eight gen­er­a­tions bred in cap­tiv­i­ty," Lutch­me­di­al point­ed out. "They are able to ad­just to our en­vi­ron­ment and they have been re­spond­ing very well to their new home."Nev­er­the­less, he said, he could un­der­stand the con­cern of crit­ics and was not de­terred by crit­i­cism.He added: "I don't like an­i­mals in cages. I joined the so­ci­ety to change the way they keep an­i­mals. I get things done. We have two gi­raffes here and they are in the best of health."

He added that no place was ide­al to keep an an­i­mal in cap­tiv­i­ty."Some an­i­mals are on­ly sur­viv­ing be­cause they are in cap­tiv­i­ty, though, and that has to be ac­knowl­edged. Zoos can help an­i­mals con­tin­ue to sur­vive," he added.Lutch­me­di­al said the gi­raffes would re­main in the tem­po­rary en­clo­sure for two months un­til the con­struc­tion of the African ex­hib­it was com­plete.