Zoo Needs Help after Hurricane Lisa Wrecked Enclosures and Displaced the Animals
Hurricane Lisa certainly left its mark long after it ripped through Belize City and the central part of the country. Many are still cleaning up the debris that the category one hurricane left strewn across the affected areas. The situation was no different when we stopped in at the Belize Zoo on Monday, where its staff was out in the sun engaged in laborious work, cutting fallen trees and raking up leaves that were still covering walkways. A few access trails were still blocked by huge fallen trees, but luckily, none of the shelters got damaged and none of the animals got hurt or killed. But the experience left many of them notably stressed and they may require some rehabilitation before they are placed back on display. What’s for certain is that while the zoo remains closed, it needs all the help it can get from you, whether that is in the form of fruits, meats and veggies for the animals, cash, building materials to replace damaged enclosures, or labour to help with the cleaning process. News Five’s Marion Ali reports.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Like hurricanes Richard and Earl that ripped through the Belize Zoo in 2010 and 2016, respectively; last week, Hurricane Lisa caused significant damage to a lot of the infrastructure in place at the facility for the one hundred and fifty animals on display.
Jamal Andrewin Bohn
Jamal Andrewin Bohn, Conservation Program Mgr., Belize Zoo
“There wasn’t a single pathway in the zoo that was clear. We have over a mile of pathway and every single one of them was covered in vegetation. I would say more than seventy-five percent of the vegetation was touched in some way. You had full-on breakage of trunks and trees uprooted all throughout the zoo and its immediate buffer and of course significant to some of the animal habitats as well. Their living spaces got damaged but they themselves are fine.”
The animals had to be secured inside safer enclosures and buildings off the exhibit area. Trees were uprooted right next to their shelters, thankfully, none of them got hurt. But the experience that the hurricane brought might mean that some of them will need rehabilitation before they are put on public display again.
Humberto Wohlers
Humberto Wohlers, General Curator, Belize Zoo
“If you want to medicate an animal, we don’t have to restrain them anymore. They can just freely give you a hand and you can inject. It’s probably going to have to start all over. This has probably changed everything. Let’s take for instance, we have the spider monkeys. In the morning, they’re released in the large habitat where there’s enough space. In the evening time they will come in and that is where we feed them; it’s where we do headcounts and that is not happening. So what we do is we give them food, change their water but it’s not the normal thing for them.”
Humberto Wohlers is the general curator at the Belize Zoo. He explained that protecting the animals from the hurricane is pretty much like effecting a family’s hurricane plan.
Humberto Wohlers
“We assigned different locations to safeguard the animals. One is where we call the quarantine area, two inside the clinic, three we have other concrete buildings where we could say its very safe for animals like jaguars, pumas. Those we could say were already planned with the experience of the past hurricanes.”
The zoo’s staff, along with hired teams with technical expertise and specialized tools, has been cleaning and restoring the facility since last Thursday. But Conservation Program Manager, Jamal Andrewin Bohn says that the degree of damage and debris that the hurricane left in its wake will result in several more weeks of work.
Jamal Andrewin Bohn
“Every manager and staff is still reporting to work, even though we’re closed to the public. It’s just that rather than having the tourism aspect, the education aspect, everybody’s doing manual labour now, so trading in the cash till, for example for a machete and a claw to clean, so that will be the case for a few weeks until it is back in a place where we can welcome the public.”
The length of time of that closure has dug significantly into the facility’s revenues.
Jamal Andrewin Bohn
“It’s cutting into all the programs that we were just restoring post-pandemic – our educational programs, our expansion of the animals habitats, our training for staff – so it now forces us to shift into not only those day-to-day expenses, you know we still have to pay utilities, feed the animals, pay the staff, but now there are additional expenses being incurred with just making the zoo back to what it once was.”
But the zoo has managed to still wow its supporters through its Facebook page. And that is also the medium through which it has been asking for help. The caretakers hope that your empathy towards the ambassadors they look after continues. Their needs are many:
Jamal Andrewin Bohn
“We’re very much open and eager and welcoming of in-kind donations in terms of food for the animals. That’s what most people want to attribute their efforts to, but building materials, construction materials, wood, that sort of thing. We would have need for fencing and so on.”
When Lisa made landfall last Wednesday, the zoo was in the process of preparing upgrades to offer the public more. Bohn says those surprises are still things that you can look for upon the zoo’s re-opening.
Jamal Andrewin Bohn
“There were several very beloved animals that were either getting new habitats on the zoo grounds or getting an upgrade.”
Marion Ali for News Five.
