美国国家公共电台 NPR Abused Animals Find Refuge In A New Sanctuary In Jordan（在线收听）

Abused Animals Find Refuge In A New Sanctuary In Jordan

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Now we head to the Middle East. Several animals will be discovering the great outdoors for the first time in a forest, including lions moved from out of a zoo in Gaza. The sanctuary is a new wild animal preserve that has opened its doors to rescued wildlife in one of the Middle East's biggest animal trafficking routes. NPR's Jane Arraf meets some of the animals and their keepers.

SARRA GHAZI: Balou.

JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Jordanian Sarra Ghazi is crawling to a bear, a Syrian brown bear. He's 600 pounds with long claws and sharp teeth. But he grew up cowering at the sight of people.

GHAZI: To get him out of his night room, they would beat him. And if, you know, he was so hurt that he would come out, and then they'd lock him into the exhibit area, which was a completely bear area. And then he would be faced with all these - the screaming crowds poking and prodding and throwing things at him.

ARRAF: That was at a private zoo in Jordan. Then he was brought to a wildlife preserve near Amman. For months after he was rescued, Ghazi spent every evening sitting next to his enclosure with fruit and honey until he wasn't afraid anymore. The foundation Ghazi works for opened a new, much larger preserve in October in the north of Jordan. The bear now has space to roam, plus a wading pool, trees and a rock cave.

GHAZI: Balou bear...

ARRAF: There he is. He's coming out of his cave.

GHAZI: Yes, sweet boy. Balou.

What he's done is he's dug out the back, so who knows? He may actually choose to hibernate, and that would be amazing because he's again one of the animals that has been in captivity his whole life. If we ever got to the point where he would hibernate, it would be a huge success for him.

ARRAF: The government of Abu Dhabi and the international group Four Paws provided most of the $5 million to build al-Maw'a, the sanctuary. It's run by the Jordanian Princess Alia Foundation. Ghazi is the CEO.

The preserve includes an eco-lodge and a visitor's program to raise awareness about animal trafficking. Some of the animals have been confiscated by wildlife rangers as they were smuggled from Iraq in Syria on their way to Gulf countries, where a lot of them end up as high-status pets.

(LION ROARING)

ARRAF: Others have been rescued from zoos that couldn't care for them, including Sabrine and Sultan, two lions from a now closed zoo in the Gaza Strip.

GHAZI: Sabrine, Sabrine, what are you looking at?

ARRAF: They were so traumatized by the war there, Ghazi says that when a car backfired on a nearby road after they first arrived, the two huge lions hit the ground.

GHAZI: Where's Sultan? Hey, where's Sultan?

The first thought was if that is happening, if that's the impact of such a terrible war on a lion, what are the people and those children there suffering?

ARRAF: Over at the foundation's original center near Amman, there are 12 other lions, along with wolves, hyenas, monkeys and baboons.

GHAZI: Hello, you. Hello.

ARRAF: Keepers limit contact with the animals to allow them to revert to more natural behavior. But some, like this baboon, have spent their whole lives with humans.

GHAZI: It's all right, it's all right. Not my beads.

ARRAF: He was holding your hand.

GHAZI: Yes, he does.

ARRAF: There's a - there's a fuzzy cover on this microphone. And it's almost like fur, so he's reached out through the cage and he's grooming it.

GHAZI: We have to go. It's OK. Yes? No, don't be cross.

ARRAF: Ghazi says a recent success was a pelican from Gaza that had spent its entire life in a cage. They nursed it back to health. When migrating pelicans came through recently, they took the once captive pelican with them. Jane Arraf, NPR News near Amman, Jordan.