Claim: More animals will be brought to the Karachi Zoo, according to the Sindh government’s spokesperson Murtaza Wahab.
Fact: The report being shared is not recent but from November 2022. Moreover, KMC Media Department Director Ali Hassan Sajid confirmed to Soch Fact Check that there is “no such plan formed nor a recommendation” in this regard.
On 12 April 2023, reports started circulating on social media that Murtaza Wahab, the provincial government’s spokesperson and law adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister, announced that more animals will be brought to the Karachi Zoo.
In one such tweet (archive), Anika Saleem — the director of Free The Wild, a worldwide charity co-founded by American singer Cher that fights against the mistreatment of wild animals in captivity — asked “why” this was being done.
The claim made the rounds amid criticism over the Karachi Zoo authorities’ alleged negligence in taking care of the animals, following which the federal government has hinted that it is mulling closing down the wildlife park.
Moreover, the 17-year-old ailing elephant Noor Jehan — one of the two in Karachi Zoo and one of the four in total in the city — was making headlines due to her frail condition after she fell in a pond in her enclosure. Noor Jehan died on 22 April.
The development came after global animal welfare organisation Four Paws visited her as she had a “huge hematoma, or pool of clotted blood, inside her abdomen in addition to intestinal issues”, according to Four Paws member Dr Amir Khalil, who was quoted in a report by CNN (archive).
The director of the Karachi Zoo has been removed due to complaints of negligence and Kanwar Ayub appointed his successor. The Four Paws team, on the other hand, have been requested (archive) to visit again.
As the claim of new animals being brought into the Karachi Zoo went viral, many people were in uproar, considering how Noor Jehan has been treated.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check ascertained first that the report by The News (archive) was published on 26 November 2022.
We also reached out to Ali Hassan Sajid, the director of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) Media Management Department, as well as Murtaza Wahab. The zoo comes under the KMC.
“At the moment, there is no such plan formed nor a recommendation or a tender [in this regard],” Sajid told Soch Fact Check.
Wahab, on the other hand, said he is no longer at the KMC, so he was not in the position to provide a comment. It is important to note that he resigned from his post (archive) as the KMC Administrator on 26 September 2022.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found four more posts that carried the same news item, portraying — perhaps inadvertently — the report as a recent development; these are available here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The report being shared is from November 2022 and is not recent. Moreover, KMC Media Department Director Ali Hassan Sajid confirmed to Soch Fact Check that there is “no such plan formed nor a recommendation” in this regard.
Background image in cover photo: Daiga Ellaby