The Baghdad Zoo

The Baghdad Zoo is a two hundred-acre 81 ha zoo at first opened in 1971 and located in Baghdad, Iraq, in the Al Zawra’a Gardens location along side the Al Zawra’a Dream Park amusement park and Zawra'a Tower. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the zoo housed 650 animals. After being almost destroyed at some stage in the 2003 Iraqi war, while best about 35 animals survived, the zoo become reopened in 2003 and now houses approximately 1,070 animals. The Baghdad Zoo turned into constructed in 1971 beneath Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. The facilities have been inadequate, with small confinement areas taken into consideration inhumane. After the primary Gulf War, Iraq's zoos suffered from the United Nations Iraq sanctions, restrained unique meals, medicines, and vaccines.

Saddam Hussein closed the zoo for renovations in the spring of 2002. The zoo become destroyed at some stage in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. For their very own safety, zoo workers suspended feeding the animals in early April 2003, whilst Fedayeen Saddam troops took up defensive positions across the zoo as U.S. Forces started out the struggle of Baghdad. Out of the authentic 650 to seven-hundred animals within the Baghdad Zoo only 35 had survived to the eighth day of the invasion, and these tended to be some of the larger animals.