Zoo animals in cages

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Lukas writing…While we were in Harar, we stayed at our friend Wynne’s house. Her house is in Haramaya University campus that also had a zoo. One day we visited the zoo and we were amazed at what we saw. There were many animals for such a small zoo, but all the animals had very tiny cages. There were monkeys, birds, lynx, dik-dik, hyena, bunnies, a cheetah, and 3 lions.

One of the monkeys had an infection on its butt and could not sit down, They fed the monkeys stale bread and water and gave them very small cages. The birds were in cages in the back and you could not even see them. There was a lynx type-of-thing and some of the students that were in the zoo at the time started hitting the cage to make it move (we made them stop hitting the cage). The dik-dik was scared of every little thing. The hyena was also really scared with its tail between its legs and not even moving. The cheetah looked okay but not happy, and the lions were very bored.

The animals were probably pretty tame and have been in those cages for a while because the person who took care of the animals would call them and pet the cheetah, monkeys, bunnies, and lions. He told us that we could touch them so the brave and mighty Lukas, Vidas, and Kovas touched / pet the cheetah and the male lion. We’d never be able to do that at home! The cheetah’s hair felt like a dogs hair who has not gotten washed in about 4 months. The lion’s mane felt like very stringy hairs. It felt very weird petting a type of animal that is the fastest animal in the world and the other animal that is known as the king of the jungle.

We brought our small dog Tesfa with us because the car was very hot and the zoo people told us to bring her in. Wow, did the animals in the cages react! The monkeys climbed to the tops of their tiny branches and started screeching when they saw Tesfa. When the cheetah saw Tesfa, it started pacing in its cage back-then-forth
back-then-forth back-then-forth and just kept on pacing. The lions reacted the same wa except that they growled and “roared” softly. We thought that they were so eager to “catch” Tesfa because they have not hunted for animals since they were caught. The hyena, and lynx did not react at all. The dik-dik and Tesfa just stared at each other and then somebody hit the cage and the dik-dik bolted band ran strait into the cage bars. This trip has taught me that even the wildest animals can be tamed, but they still have parts of their old life with them.

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