North Carolina Zoo group withholds funds for Afghan zoo

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The photographs and stories moved readers around the world: An aging, one-eyed lion. A stressed-out bear. Keepers who went unpaid but stayed on to care for animals at the Kabul Zoo.

Last year, a zoo in North Carolina launched a fund-raising drive for its impoverished, war-shattered Afghan counterpart.

The response was so overwhelming that the custodians of the fund face an unexpected dilemma: What to do with the money?

The North Carolina Zoo expected to raise about $30,000 after it started the campaign in November. About $530,000 poured in.

So far, the zoo fund has contributed $70,000 for basic functions at the Kabul Zoo, said North Carolina Zoo director David Jones.

Another $75,000 has been spent to help non-zoo animals in Afghanistan. About $385,000 remains in a North Carolina bank account.

Jones said fund officials are reluctant to release more money until they are sure it won't be wasted.

"Our dilemma is that we do not want to continue to spend $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 and find in a year's time that we have achieved nothing," said Jones, who spearheaded the campaign after reading reports chronicling the Kabul Zoo's plight.

Sher Agha Omar, director of the Kabul Zoo, said Friday the zoo hadn't received any money directly from North Carolina, but that relief organizations had helped pay salaries and restore utilities.

Jones said that money largely comes from his fund, as the $70,000 spent on the Kabul Zoo was funneled through other agencies.

Wary of contributions

Confusion over whether money raised by the North Carolina Zoo is going to the right place -- Omar says staff haven't been paid in months -- has made it wary of continuing contributions.

"The problem right now is determining who is going to be responsible for the zoo so we can establish a working relationship with them," Jones said.

An Associated Press story in November about the Kabul Zoo featured an elderly lion named Marjan, wounded by Afghan guerrillas in the 1990s. Marjan, believed to be around 25, died in January.

This month, a Chinese zoo, Badaling Safari World, donated two lions, two bears, two deer, two pigs and a wolf to the Kabul Zoo.

The London-based World Society for the Protection of Animals said the animals were in danger of suffering and "possibly even death" because of conditions in the zoo.