It’s ridiculous to kill the Jos lion as it was no threat to humans – Gills

A lion was recently killed in Jos after it escaped from the Jos Zoo.  Do you feel the killing was justifiable? Generally speaking, the incident of a lion escaping from its cage is not unheard of in zoo business. It happens all over the world in different zoos no matter the level of expertise at […]

A lion was recently killed in Jos after it escaped from the Jos Zoo.  Do you feel the killing was justifiable?
Generally speaking, the incident of a lion escaping from its cage is not unheard of in zoo business. It happens all over the world in different zoos no matter the level of expertise at that zoo. We always have issues where animals escape from their cages so, Nigeria would be no exception. The right thing to do in such a situation is to follow the animal, get it chemically immobilized and then taken back to the zoo. The fence is fixed and you get back to business.

The management of the Jos Zoo said it had not been granted access to tranquillizers and that the lion was a threat to people?
They are not justified. If you ask me, I will say close down that zoo. If they can claim that they have no tranquillizers or any necessary drugs/equipment, then they shouldn’t be in the zoo business. They all have contacts for Dr Aisha Abubakar who is a deputy police commissioner, an expert in wildlife veterinary and director with Wildlife Research Centre. She should have been contacted. We should have been called.
If you remember in 2011, a lion strayed in Yobe State. It took us 12 hours to mobilize and we went all over looking for this lion for a couple of days. We would have got it back without having to kill it. We have been dealing with such cases for years. We moved a lion from Kaduna to Ilorin about two years ago.
Some guys in Kaduna had a lion from when it was a cub to an adult. Its roars began terrorizing the neighbourhood and the neighbours spoke to the police and the minister of environment, and they needed the lion to be moved out of that environment. We did that immediately and took it to Ilorin where we donated it to a zoo. Now it’s in a zoo doing really well.
We don’t deal with just lions; we deal with other animals. These drugs are available and all they need to do is call. I saw the media coverage the day the lion got out. I knew that Dr Aisha had gone to Canada and I knew that the next person they would call is me. I was expecting a call from someone. I can’t reach out to them but they know how to reach out to us but then the next thing I heard was that the lion was shot. It was poor judgment on their part.

Do you believe their claim that they have no access to tranqullizers?
They should call us if they really don’t have it. However, the question to ask is, is it true that Jos, Plateau State capital has no access to tranquillizers? These drugs are controlled drugs, let’s just be honest about this. You need to have some high level of approval from NAFDAC for you to be able to obtain those drugs. We have been telling people that we have people in Nigeria that can handle these drugs. They have a network, what they should have done was let us know and not sit back when they are denied.
They have left a bad image considering the fact that we have been able to extract lions successfully under the same or even worse circumstances without having to kill them.  If I ran the zoo and I had no tranquillizers as the zoo manager, I would have built a relationship where I could get anaesthetic tranquillizers because something can happen. Any animal can go out and you need to immobilize it.
They had so many options to consider that could have avoided killing it. 
They claimed that the lion was showing aggression and that it even killed a goat.
Human beings are not naturally on a lion’s food chain. This lion has lived all its life in the zoo and it has seen people for a long period. If that lion was really after a human being, it would have gone straight to a human being. It’s not even used to hunting.
I would call the killing murder because of how it was managed. It could have been managed properly. I’m not talking about this issue as a legal matter. I’m not saying someone could be in court for this. Plateau State government should fire those guys. These people are managing situations they can’t seem to handle properly.

Before you establish a zoo, what sort of important mechanisms should you have in place for it to meet suitable standards?
You are supposed to have an effective and successful veterinary unit and you need to have zoologists who understand the behaviours of these animals. You have to make sure that you have adequate equipment to keep the animals in the zoo. Before you have a zoo, you should have all the necessary personnel and those people should be replaced as they retire. It’s a big scandal when a lion get’s out of the zoo and is shot.

Some people are saying that it’s not clear whether the lion left the zoo intentionally. Is it possible for a lion that has been living in a zoo for 43 years to break out of a zoo?
That is its home. It would even go back. That lion has no association with its kind considering how it grew up. Therefore, it would know the zoo as home. It may have gotten out in error. This lion is somehow used to people already so the first thing it will do is go after what it is being fed and not a human being. The zoo in Jos offers rams and goats; so the first thing it will go for are a rams or goats and it will not go after a human being before exhausting every other option. The lion wasn’t really a big threat to human beings, as some people might believe.

What words would you use to describe their actions and decision to kill the animal?
It is animal cruelty and completely illegal. It’s giving Nigeria a bad name internationally. It doesn’t just end here. Lions are critically endangered species and we only have lions left in two locations in Nigeria. We have Kainji Lake National Park and Yankari Games Reserve. The last time we did a census on lions in Nigeria, we estimated that only 50 lions are living in the wild in Nigeria. These findings are online and contain reasons why the number is around 50. It is not allowed to crossbreed lions so once they die out in Nigeria we are at a loss. Nigeria has been focusing on oil for so long and has failed to diversify. This problem all boils down to the government and something needs to be done now if we want to protect our wildlife.

What is your advice to the government?
This is a lesson. There are other zoos in Nigeria and it can happen again. If you are running a zoo and it’s not prepared for events like this then this is the time we need to step up zoo standards in Nigeria. These animals did not find their way to the zoo; they were taken there or even donated by people who care about the animals and the last thing someone wants to hear is that an animal they know and donated was shot.  People would stop donating and it won’t be good for tourism and zoos in Nigeria.
The decision to kill the animal was not the right one and some of the heads deserve to be fired for not doing their homework.