Ten-year-old leopard Zuri has arrived safely at a rescue centre in Limburg. She was rescued from an abandoned zoo near Toulouse, where 200 other animals are still waiting for a new home.
“It was absolutely crazy there,” says Frederik Thoelen of the Nature Rescue Centre in Oudsbergen. “We drove into the abandoned zoo and the zebras were running in front of our car. The fences had collapsed, fallen over or disappeared, and the rheas, camels and goats were all roaming freely together.” Dangerous animals were still in their cages, but there was no electricity in the zoo.
A vet on site sedated Zuri. She was placed in a transport crate and brought to Belgium after she woke up. Animals are not allowed to travel while under anaesthesia because they may vomit.
“She does have quite a temper,” says Thoelen. “She made her presence felt quite firmly on the way.”
They’re well fed and the enclosures are clean. But they can’t stay there
The zoo in Toulouse was meant to become Europe’s largest, but it turned out to be a fiasco. “There were many accidents: children were attacked and all sorts of things went wrong during the shows,” says Thoelen.
The government closed the zoo three years ago. The search for a new home for the animals began then, but there are still 200 animals there today.
“The animals certainly want for nothing,” says Thoelen. “They’re well fed and the enclosures are clean. But they can’t stay there.”
Zuri will remain in quarantine for the next few weeks. This will allow the carers to monitor her health and let her settle into her new surroundings.
She is the second animal to be saved from the zoo by the Nature Rescue Centre, after the 10-year-old lion Tantor. Four more lions had been due to travel with Zuri before going on to a rescue centre in the Netherlands, but the transport was cancelled at the last minute due to the heat.
