Mar 28, 2019

For the last two years, a protected forest near the Jordanian capital has been home to animals that suffered in the regional wars. Seventeen African lions, two leopards and four bears currently live at Al Ma'wa for Nature and Wildlife, 48 kilometers (30 miles) from Amman.

Four Paws, founded in Vienna in 1988, brought the animals to the shelter opened by the Jordanian authorities in 2017. Most of these wild animals had been left in the zoos without food or water. Four Paws transported some of the lions and bears from the Magic World Zoo in war-ravaged Aleppo, via the Turkish border. Bear Lula and lion Simba were rescued from the zoo in 2017; they were the sole survivors at the zoo that once housed many animals but was ravaged by the fighting. More animals from Syria followed. Bear Dana, who was smuggled out of Syria in a van provided by the Turkish Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture, was pregnant. Within 12 hours of her arrival in Jordan, she gave birth to a cub that the team named Hajar (Emigrant).

Three lions that were rescued from Al-Bisan Zoo in the Gaza Strip, which was shelled by Israel in 2014, also found their way to Jordan in 2017, after being sheltered in different preserves in the region. More wild animals from Gaza are on their way. Later this spring, at least 40 animals — including five lions, a hyena, monkeys, wolves, porcupines, foxes, cats and dogs — that have been trapped at Rafah Zoo, known as the world’s worst zoo due to the poor living conditions that killed many of the animals there, will find a new home at Al Ma'wa.

According to a statement by Four Paws, the owner of the zoo has finally agreed — after negotiations that lasted more than a year — to hand over the animals to Four Paws at the end of March, when a team of veterinarians, wild animal transporters and animal caretakers will be in Gaza for several days to examine the animals and load them into their transport crates.