Animal exhibitions in the Islamic world

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Bear-baiting

“Punjab [Pakistan] authorities have stopped an illegal bear
baiting event from going ahead for the first time in twenty years,”
World Society for the Protection of Animals publicist Jonathan Owen
announced on April 8, 2005. “The event, to have climaxed a
week-long fair at Pir Mehal in March, famed for bear baiting, was
disbanded after WSPA representatives warned police and wildlife
officials. Mehmood Ahmed, Secretary of Forests & Wildlife in Sindh
state, Pakistan, on March 7 announced at a ceremony in Hyderabad
honoring staff for successful actions against bear baiting with dogs
that his department is seeking amendments to the Sindh Wildlife
Ordinance that will ban bear baiting entirely. Mehmood Ahmed thanked
WSPA for “controlling bear baiting up to 80%,” the Pakistan Times
reported. Repres-enting WSPA, Animals’ Rights in Islam author
Fakhr-I-Abbas told the gathering that while the wild bear population
of Pakistan is in jeopardy, exhibitors of dancing bears and
promoters of bear baiting hold as many as 850 bears captive. In 2002
WSPA donated to the Pakistani government a bear sanctuary at Kund
Park in the North West Frontier province that WSPA built in 2000.

After completion, the sanctuary stood empty for several months,
until exposes by the Daily Mail and The Independent led to the exits
of the two WSPA staff members who oversaw the construction and
management.

Marine mammals

Liz Sandeman, director of operations for the British charity
The Marine Connection, on April 4, 2005 announced that the Egyptian
office of Convention on International Trade in En-dangered Species
management authority had provided “verbal confirmation that Egypt
will not allow future imports of marine mammals.” This came two
months after the El Salam Concorde Hotel in Sharm el Sheikh allegedly
imported two male dolphins and a sea lion. Added Sandeman, “Feel, a
female beluga currently held at Merryland in Cairo who was
confiscated from Dolphinella,” another Sharm el Sheikh attraction,
“is expected to return to Russia imminently following the death of
her tank mate, Hook.” A month later, seven months after the
belugas were confiscated, Feel remained at Merryland.