Photo Of Malnourished Camel Sparks Attention At A Nigerian Zoo

A Nigerian man, identified as Tunde Sawyerr, had gone visiting the National Children’s Park and Zoo in the capital city of Abuja, with his 3-year-old daughter, when he spotted a very malnourished camel.

Mr Sawyerr, who immediately took the photo of the camel, and shared via twitter said, his daughter couldn’t even recognise the animal because of how it looked.

While speaking with CNN, Sawyer said thus;

“Before you put animals in a place, there are certain things to do. If there was any animal that stood out in terms of it being malnourished, and it not being taken care of, it was the camel.”

However, Aminu Muhammed, deputy director of wildlife of the zoo, reacting to Sawyerr’s allegation said the camel wasn’t malnourished but has a heavy skin infection. He further noted that the camel was adversely affected by the heavy rain but has been treated.

“The camel about some months ago was down with a heavy skin infection and was very lean. So we had to collect a fecal sample, blood sample, and equally even scrape some of the skin to determine which medicine we can use to treat the skin disease and we had done that.”

“The camel is an albino camel. They are desert animals and it’s just a young one, so it’s just trying to acclimatize that’s why it comes down with that (skin infection).”

Muhammed, though admitted that the zoo wouldn’t be opposed to additional funding said, noted that animals at the zoo undergo regular checkup every three months.

“We (the zoo) really need to improve some of our structures. we equally need to bring in more animals to attract more visitors.”