'Love is tough': Affluent Pakistanis increasingly keep, then abandon, exotic pet lions

Short Url
Updated 16 July 2022
Follow

'Love is tough': Affluent Pakistanis increasingly keep, then abandon, exotic pet lions

  • Owners would previously gift lions to Lahore Zoo but authorities now refusing to take in more due to overcrowding
  • Lion cubs could fetch more than $2,500 a few years ago, now former lion owners say hard to get one fourth of that amount

LAHORE: When Jaun Shah bought Gabbar in 2021, he was a cute, one-month-old African lion cub who loved to play and cuddle with his new companion.

But as the animal grew older and bigger, Shah came face to face with a painful reality: raising a lion was no easy task.

Gabbar, whom Shah had named after an iconic Bollywood villain, had begun to play the part. At one point, he almost chewed off his owner’s shoulder during playtime and Shah and his helpers increasingly became afraid to go near him or into his cage.

Fourteen months after Shah had bought Gabbar for around $4,000, he gave up on trying to raise him and sold the lion off to a local housing society zoo.

“Love is tough, especially when it comes to a full-grown African lion,” Shah told Arab News. “I was wary of the violent tendencies these sublime brutes can develop but I thought we were doing just fine.”

“You can keep a cub until it’s seven eight months old but after that it just grows bigger with every passing day and a 200kg beast is not for any ordinary person to handle.”




This undated photo former lion owner Jaun Shah posing with a lion. (Jaun Shah)

He added wistfully: “Gabbar’s intentions weren’t deadly, he was just excited, mostly.”

Shah is one of several affluent Lahore residents Arab News interviewed, who had bought lions as pets in recent years and then abandoned them after being unable to provide the special care they require and realizing that raising them was both hard and dangerous. Many sold the animals to other private owners, while some approached small housing society zoos.

Unfortunately, the housing society that bought Gabbar was also now looking to rehome him — without much luck, Shah said.

“OUT OF SPACE”

In the past, owners were able to gift their pet lions to the Lahore Zoo after they got tired of them but zoo authorities are now refusing to take in more animals on account of overcrowding.

Kiran Saleem, a deputy director at the Lahore Zoo, said there was no space at the establishment to accommodate more lions.

“We are out of space, we cannot even accommodate the ones rescued by the wildlife department from illegal possession or which were kept in deplorable conditions,” she told Arab News. “In fact, some cages dedicated to tigers and panthers are also occupied by lions at the Lahore Zoo.”

The situation became especially hard to manage after the Lahore Zoo received 10 tigers and eight lions as a gift from the UAE government in 2019, which Saleem said were sent to different zoos across Punjab.

The Lahore Zoo currently houses 26 lions while the city’s Safari Park has 40. The capacity at both facilities is 18 and 34, respectively. The number of surplus lions at 21 parks and zoos across Punjab is more than 20, Saleem said.

An auction scheduled for March 15 to sell surplus lions at these facilities never took place due to lack of interest from buyers, even though the opening bid was kept at Rs 150,000 — much lower than the market price of an adult lion.

Until a few years ago, a lion cub could fetch more than half a million rupees or $2,500. Now, it was hard to get even a quarter of that, previous lion owners said.

Badar Munir, chairman of the Taskforce on Forests and Wildlife Punjab, said: “We have kept the opening bid low knowing that there aren’t many people who would be interested in buying while the market is already high on supply.”

A second auction would be held soon, he said, but the date had not yet been set.

Meanwhile, lion owners who want to give up their animals are struggling to find takers, particularly as few want a pet that is so expensive to feed and house.

“It’s an expensive pet to keep simply,” Syed Imdad Shah, a businessman who has been breeding lions for the past several years, told Arab News. “It consumes 4-5kg meat a day and you have to hire a vet full time.”




The picture posted on May 16, 2021 shows Syed Imdad Shah (second left) posing with a lion in Lahore, Pakistan. (Syed Imdad Haider/Facebook)

A lion owner also needs to spend generously on vitamins and medicines for the pet and appoint a caretaker. If you want to keep a lion as a pet, the businessman said, you should be willing to spend up to $2,500 a month. 

Dr. Rizwan Khan, a veterinary doctor hired by several lion keepers in Lahore, said a lack of behavioral therapy for lions in Pakistan was another reason owners were unable to handle them and often gave them up.

“Lions and tigers go through violent mood swings because of many reasons, including separation anxiety,” the vet told Arab News. “They may seem fearless but they also go through fears and phobias. Some common ones are thunderstorms, crowds, veterinarian visits, car rides and loud noises, and generalized anxiety, typically due to a lack of socialization.”

“TRADE IN BODY PARTS”

Why then do some people still want to keep lions as pets?

“Most of them are those who want to portray a macho image for themselves, flaunt their wealth, while there are some who have kept lions just because it is the election symbol of a political party they support,” Syed, the businessman, said, referring indirectly to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Some even consider the fat of a lion an aphrodisiac, he added, laughing.

Animal rights advocate Uzma Khan, who works for the World Wildlife Fund, said lions in Pakistan were also coveted due to illegal trade in body parts.

A 2016 WWF report titled ‘An Assessment of the Scale of Illegal Wildlife Trade in Pakistan’ says the Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces are top markets for the sale of lions in the country.

The report said the wholesale price of an African lion’s hide was Rs70,000 ($350), while pendants and lockets carved out of lion teeth and claws could fetch thousands of dollars. Hakeems, or local physicians, also used lion fat in medicines meant to relieve muscular and joint pains.

Once you bring the animals into the country, there is no check and balance on their sale, WWF’s Khan said. A set of guidelines issued in 2011 by the National Council for Conservation of Wildlife, the closest to a regulatory regime in Pakistan, had no legal value, she added.

“So where do all these body parts come from? Obviously from dead animals but no one has data on lions who died and how?” she told Arab News. “Autopsies are performed on animals which die at zoos or parks but none are done when it comes to individuals or companies [who own lions].”

Khan lamented the lack of rescue centers for abandoned lions and the fact that authorities were not controlling the growing lion numbers through contraceptives and neutering.

“Breeding big cats is not rocket science. They breed easily, and within a couple of years, their numbers have increased to the extent that we cannot help the unwanted ones,” the animal rights activist said.

She says she had advised authorities on numerous occasions to put lions at zoos on contraceptives or neuter them.

“These methods are used worldwide to control over-population in captivity. I don’t know why we can’t do it here,” she said.

“FEEL BAD FOR MY ANIMAL”

For now, lion enthusiasts warn that often what is mistaken for violent tendencies, and which lead owners to give them up, are just the lions being playful.

“It’s not for the faint hearted to keep lions as pets,” enthusiast Usman Khan said. “When lions are being playful, they jump on you, cuddle with you, but in their own way. Most people get terrified by this playfulness but you have to be lion-hearted yourself to keep a lion, otherwise please don’t.”




The photo posted on April 5, 2020 show Usman Khan holding a cub in Pakistan. (usmanbullet_/instagram)

Khan advised lion keepers not to be afraid when a playful lion bit or hugged them “because if you do try to pull away it will further clench and you will get hurt.”

“Just let it be, it will loosen up the bite,” he said. “Better still, put something bitter on your arms before playing with it. They’re repelled by the taste and won’t probably try to bite you again, even during play.”

But Shah, the past owner of Gabbar, said he still has a hard time getting over his fears. Though he still visits his former pet at his new home at the housing society, he now only watches from a distance.

“It still gets excited to see me but I cannot cuddle it, nor can I stay there for long,” he said. “I feel bad for my animal.”


Detained Pakistan rights activist Dr. Mahrang Baloch launches hunger strike

Updated 12 sec ago
Follow

Detained Pakistan rights activist Dr. Mahrang Baloch launches hunger strike

  • Baloch, 32, was arrested last month on charges of terrorism, sedition and murder
  • Dozen UN experts called on Pakistan in March to immediately release Baloch rights defenders

QUETTA: Detained activist Dr. Mahrang Baloch, one of the leading campaigners for Pakistan’s Baloch minority, has launched a hunger strike along with other detainees, her sister told AFP on Friday.
Mahrang Baloch, 32, was arrested last month on charges of terrorism, sedition and murder.
In her native Balochistan, an impoverished province that borders Afghanistan and Iran, security forces are battling a growing insurgency.
Rights groups say the violence has been countered with a severe crackdown that has swept up innocent people. Authorities deny heavyhandedness. 
Mahrang’s hunger strike “is aimed at denouncing the misconduct of the police and the failure of the justice system to protect... prisoners,” her younger sister, Nadia Baloch, said.
Nadia said the hunger strike was launched on Thursday after the attempted “abduction” of one of the Baloch detainees.
Mahrang’s organization, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), said the inmate was beaten by security officials and taken from the prison to an unknown location.
A security official said the detainee was moved to another prison and denied any mistreatment.
BYC said four other detained Baloch activists have joined the hunger strike.
“All of them are peaceful political workers, imprisoned for raising their voices... Their only ‘crime’ is organizing peacefully in an environment saturated with state terror and violence,” the group said.
Activists say in the crackdown against militancy in the region authorities have harassed and carried out extrajudicial killings of Baloch civilians.
Pakistani authorities reject the “baseless allegations.”
A dozen UN experts called on Pakistan in March to immediately release Baloch rights defenders, including Mahrang, and to end the repression of their peaceful protests.
UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders Mary Lawlor said she was “disturbed by reports of further mistreatment in prison.”
The judiciary has declined to rule on Mahrang’s detention, effectively halting any appeal and placing the matter solely in the hands of the provincial government.
Insurgents in Balochistan accuse outsiders of plundering the province’s rich natural resources and launched a dramatic train siege in March, during which officials said about 60 people were killed.


Pakistan joins Muslim world in sending condolences ahead of Pope’s funeral on Saturday

Updated 25 April 2025
Follow

Pakistan joins Muslim world in sending condolences ahead of Pope’s funeral on Saturday

  • Over 128,000 people have already paid last respects to Francis, whose coffin will be closed at 1800 GMT in ceremony attended by senior cardinals
  • Francis will be interred in the ground, his simple tomb marked with just one word: Franciscus, people will be able to visit the tomb from Sunday morning

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan joined the Muslim world in sending condolences as the Vatican made final preparations Friday for Pope Francis’s funeral and the last of the huge crowds of mourners filed through St. Peter’s Basilica to view his open coffin.
Over 128,000 people have already paid their last respects to Francis, whose coffin will be closed at 8:00pm (1800 GMT) in a ceremony attended by senior cardinals.
Many of the 50 heads of state and 10 monarchs attending Saturday’s ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, including US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, are expected to arrive later Friday in Rome.
“Pakistan conveys its heartfelt condolences on the passing of His Holiness, Pope Francis, a revered spiritual figure and a worldwide advocate for peace, interfaith dialogue and compassion,” the foreign office said. 
“His Holiness demonstrated unwavering commitment to fostering unity among world religions, advocating for the oppressed and promoting the inherent dignity of all humankind. Pakistan deeply values his tireless efforts to enhance mutual respect and understanding among diverse cultures and faiths.”
The foreign office said the pope’s legacy was marked by “profound humility, selfless service and a unifying vision for humanity,” which would serve as an inspiration for generations to come. 
“At this moment of profound sorrow, Pakistan stands in solidarity with our Catholic brothers and sisters worldwide and with all those touched by the extraordinary life of service.”
Italian and Vatican authorities have placed the area around St. Peter’s under tight security with drones blocked, snipers on roofs and fighter jets on standby. Further checkpoints will be activated on Friday night, police said.
Vast crowds of people on Friday morning packed Via della Conciliazione, the wide avenue leading to the Vatican, for the third and final day of the pope’s lying-in-state.
For a second night in a row, the Vatican kept St. Peter’s open past the scheduled hours to accommodate the queues, only closing the doors between 2:30am (0030 GMT) and 5:40am Friday.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, will preside at the Rite of Sealing of the Coffin of the late Pope Francis on Friday, April 25, at 8:00 PM, ahead of the papal funeral on Saturday morning.
The Catholic Church’s first Latin American pope died on Monday aged 88, less than a month after spending weeks in hospital with severe pneumonia.
The Argentine pontiff, who had long suffered failing health, defied doctors’ orders by appearing at Easter, the most important moment in the Catholic calendar.
It was his last public appearance.
Condolences have flooded in from around the world for the Jesuit, an energetic reformer who championed those on the fringes of society in his 12 years as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
He used his last speech to rail against those who stir up “contempt... toward the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants.”
After the funeral, Francis’s coffin will be driven at a walking pace to be buried at his favorite church, Rome’s papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The hearse will pass down Rome’s Fori Imperiali – where the city’s ancient temples lie – and past the Colosseum, according to officials.
Big screens will be set up along the route on which to watch the ceremony, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said.
Francis will be interred in the ground, his simple tomb marked with just one word: Franciscus.
People will be able to visit the tomb from Sunday morning, as all eyes turn to the process of choosing Francis’s successor.
With inputs from AP


Families heartbroken as Pakistan closes airspace for Indian planes, land border shut

Updated 25 April 2025
Follow

Families heartbroken as Pakistan closes airspace for Indian planes, land border shut

  • Militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir has triggered diplomatic crisis between Islamabad and New Delhi
  • Diplomatic relations between Pakistan and India were weak even before the latest measures were announced

KARACHI: A 79-year-old Pakistani man, Ali Hasan Baqai, lamented about not being able to meet his siblings living in India as he sat with his wife and grandchildren at his house in Pakistan’s Karachi, hours after Pakistan closed its air space for Indian airlines on Thursday.
The move came in retaliation to a raft of actions by India after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi says Pakistan is involved in. Pakistani officials have rejected the accusations.
The latest diplomatic crisis was triggered by the killing of 26 men at a popular tourist destination in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday, in the worst attack on civilians since the 2008 Mumbai shootings. The tit-for-tat announcements took relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors, who have fought three wars, to the lowest level in years.
Whenever relations deteriorate between Pakistan and India, elderly Baqai is besieged with a feeling of longing for his siblings and his birthplace on the other side of the border with India.
“I was planning to visit India. My sisters there were also planning to travel to Pakistan. But all of a sudden this attack happened. We could not even think of it. The situation was absolutely normal but suddenly the situation turned bad,” Baqai told Reuters Television.
Ali was born in 1946 in Delhi, India, a year before the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. He was last able to visit Delhi in 2014. Two of his sisters, along with his mother, passed away in the subsequent years. His three brothers died in India last year.
“If we don’t get a chance and the borders are closed for a long time, the only way left is we go to Dubai and meet each other there,” he said.
“You can’t meet your relatives. We can neither go there, nor can they come. It has become a mockery now. There is no hope left.”


Roadside blast kills three paramilitary troops in Pakistan’s volatile southwest

Updated 54 min 31 sec ago
Follow

Roadside blast kills three paramilitary troops in Pakistan’s volatile southwest

  • The blast appeared to target bomb disposal personnel of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force in the Marget coalfield
  • No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion is likely to fall on Baloch separatist militants

QUETTA: A roadside blast killed three paramilitary troops and injured four others in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Friday, a local administration official said.
The blast in Margat area, home to coal mines and located some 60 kilometers from the provincial capital of Quetta, appeared to target the Frontier Corps paramilitary force’s bomb disposal personnel when they were clearing the route.
Balochistan, which shares a porous border with Iran and Afghanistan, has been the site of a decades-long insurgency by Baloch separatists who have targeted security forces protecting mining fields, laborers and truckers transporting minerals.
“An improvised explosive device (IED) was planted along the route being used for the transportation of coal from the Marget coalfield which exploded when the bomb disposal wing of the Frontier Corps was busy in security clearance of the route,” Quetta Deputy Commissioner Saad bin Asad told Arab News.
“Three soldiers of the BD wing were killed and four wounded in the attack.”
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatist militants, who frequently target security forces, Chinese nationals, ethnic Punjabi commuters and laborers in the restive province.
The separatists accuse Islamabad of exploiting the province’s natural resources, such as gold and copper. Successive Pakistani governments have denied the allegations and said they only worked for the uplift of the region and its people.
The latest attack comes a day after three people, including two women, were killed when a vehicle was hit by a powerful explosion in Balochistan’s Kalat district. Last month, the Baloch Liberation Army separatist group hijacked a train with hundreds of passengers aboard near Balochistan’s Bolan Pass, which resulted in the deaths of 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers. At least 33 insurgents were also killed.
Pakistan accuses the neighboring Afghanistan and India of supporting separatist militants in Balochistan, an allegation denied by New Delhi and Kabul.


Pakistan, Afghanistan agree to enhance trade and connectivity in push to reset ties

Updated 25 April 2025
Follow

Pakistan, Afghanistan agree to enhance trade and connectivity in push to reset ties

  • Ties with Kabul have been strained over a spike in militancy and a deportation drive against Afghan nations
  • Pakistani deputy PM and special envoy to Kabul visited Islamabad last week in an attempt to resolve issues

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to enhance trade and connectivity during a visit to Kabul by top officials from Islamabad, the foreign office said on Friday, amid a push by the two neighbors to reset soured relations.
Pakistan-Afghanistan relations have been strained by a spike in militancy in Pakistan’s western regions that border Afghanistan, following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021. Islamabad says anti-Pakistan militants carry out cross-border attacks using safe havens in Afghanistan, a charge Kabul denies.
Another source of tension has been Pakistan’s decision to expel undocumented Afghans and those who had temporary permission to stay, saying it can no longer cope. Since November 2023 when Islamabad first launched the deportation drive against illegal foreigners, over 900,000 Afghans have left the country. The Afghan government has condemned the “unilateral measures” to forcibly deport tens of thousands of Afghans. Afghans have also reported weeks of arbitrary arrests, extortion and harassment by authorities as Islamabad has accelerated the deportation drive since April, a charge officials deny.
Amid these tensions, Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and special envoy to Kabul, Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq, went to Afghanistan on a one-day visit last week widely seen as an attempt to resolve outstanding issues of contention.
“During the visit, the deputy prime minister [and] foreign minister held meetings with the acting Afghan prime minister, acting Afghan deputy prime minister and acting Afghan foreign minister,” Shafqat Ali Khan, a Pakistani foreign office spokesperson, told reporters at a weekly news briefing in Islamabad.
“Both sides held extensive discussions on a range of issues including peace and security, people-to-people contacts and agreed to enhance bilateral trade and economic cooperation to the mutual benefit of people of both countries.”
Pakistan remains at loggerheads with two of its main neighbors, India and Afghanistan, while Islamabad’s relations with Iran have also seen friction in recent weeks over the killing of eight Pakistani laborers in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province. Both Pakistan and Iran last year exchanged strikes against what they called militant hideouts, but quickly moved to de-escalate tensions.
This week, an attack on tourists in India’s Himalayan territory of Kashmir has sparked a new crisis between nuclear armed neighbors India and Pakistan, with New Delhi blaming militants with “cross-border linkages” for the killings, which Islamabad denies. Both nations have announced tit-for-tat measures to downgrade ties in the aftermath of the violence.
The tensions have come as Pakistan navigates a tricky path to economic recovery, seeking to boost trade by enhancing connectivity with regional countries and attract foreign investment from allies in the region and beyond.
In this regard, Dar on Thursday held a telephonic conversation with Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Seyedov Bakhtiar Odilovic and apprised him of his discussions with Afghan officials about a tri-nation railway line project involving Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“The deputy prime minister shared his discussions in Kabul regarding Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway line project and hoped that the three countries would soon sign the framework agreement for this important regional connectivity project,” the foreign office spokesman said at the briefing.
The project is part of Pakistan’s efforts to position itself as a key trade and transit hub, connecting the landlocked Central Asian states to the global market.