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CONSERVATION
The Lion's Roar

by Laura Simms
June/July 2005

In the winter of 2003 a Roma woman, part of a storytelling project I was conducting in Bacau, told me a tale about her mother taking her to see lions when she was a child. I was astonished to hear about lions in Romania. That afternoon she took me to the zoo in Buhusi, an old Moldavian factory town in obvious decline, to see the “hungry animals” whose howls awoke her each morning.

The Zoological Park of Buhusi, a past treasure of this once thriving manufacturing community in the north, was in typically deplorable condition. I walked through a decaying entrance to discover a motley collection of stone-faced families watching eight lions pacing in two cramped cages. Five bears reached out through rusted iron bars begging for food, and sickly dingoes barked mournfully. The misery of these animals was mirrored in the stoic expressions of the children who watched them. In a fit of hubris, I decided to try to save these animals.

How did a storyteller from New York become a zoo reformer in a remote city in northern Romania? I have been working here and there in community projects for more than 15 years. Most of my work has centred on the stories of individuals in crisis. In Romania it expanded to the healing of communities when I got to Buhusi.

The source of my attachment to Romania is very personal. My grandmother planted rose bushes in our backyard in Brooklyn and called it “Little Romania.” She spoke lovingly of her country of origin; of the colorful houses in Dorohoi and the seven mountains that surrounded Iasi, “a city more beautiful than Paris.” These stories of an unknown place haunted my childhood. I played in Grandmother’s rose garden with my dolls, engaging in my most important activity: saving stray dogs and cats. I fed them and canvassed the neighbourhood to find them homes. I loved animals the way children love all things responding with natural kindness. The only conditions my mother made were that I never destroy my grandmother’s flowers, and that I not be cruel to anyone.

Forty odd years later, working and traveling in Moldavia, my grandmother’s native land, my dream has become to transform this small, seedy zoo into an animal refuge and education centre brought up to EU standards, and to create a programme of culture, nature and tolerance supported by the community and funded by local and international sources.

The director of the zoo, Constantin Negelescu, and the director of a makeshift education centre now in total disuse, Mr Gheorgiu, have spent the better part of fifteen years keeping the zoo open and the animals alive with only sporadic and paltry funding and a small sponsorship of food. Mr Negelescu’s face relaxes as he tells me of how he used to take the bear cubs, born in captivity, to a park at night to climb in the trees. In those days the children of Buhusi had a club called Prietenii Naturii (eng: Friends of Nature) that raised money to feed and care for the zoo’s inhabitants. Tourists came from throughout the country to see the park, and find solace in its exhibits, gardens and wildlife.

During the communist era more than three million horses were killed to pave the way for industrial development. Peasants secretly saved horses in the forests. The three horses, who were lethargic and skinny when I first visited the zoo, are the descendants of those saved creatures. Today thanks to a Roma horse whisperer and two university students who come to groom and feed them regularly, they are robust and full of energy. Children bring apples on Sundays and watch them graze on the hillside.

Last winter, I started a project called The Lion’s Roar in order to address several of the zoo’s most urgent problems. We got a water system installed. Windows to inner cages were replaced and heaters installed. Dr Gabriele Axinte, a Bacau veterinarian, volunteered to address the parasites and malnourishment of the animals. The zoo was cleaned. Swings and logs were placed in the newly washed baboon cage so they could exercise their intelligence and their bodies as well as their eyes. These small changes have made a modest but important impact.

Most remarkable has been the response of the community. In order to find a way to include the people of Buhusi in this undertaking, a local NGO, Ovidiu Rom, under the direction of Maria Gheorghiu, instituted Sunday Brunch with the Animals. Once a month, student guides and Dr Axinte take visitors from cage to cage to share each animal’s story. In one month, zoo attendance soared from 40 to nearly 200 visitors, many of whom brought bags of food and toys. People loved seeing the zoo awaken. And of course the children, with their natural inclination to communicate and commune with animals, are at the heart of this renaissance.

This spring, Eleonora Popescu, a biologist, is working with the director of the zoo and the local town hall to draw up designs for cage expansion, new habitats and estimates of material costs in order to temporarily close the zoo and rebuild it to EU standards by 2007. As part of Ovidiu Rom’s summer “school recruitment” programme in Buhusi, local children will participate in the renovation. They will learn to care for the animals as they make gardens, plant fruit trees, tend domestic and farm creatures, create signs, do research and engage in a life-changing adventure.

The zoo needs enormous renovation and costly repairs and the animals need a much better diet and medical care. And that takes money as well as enthusiasm. With the help of the European Zoo Association and other American and European organisations and individuals, we can make it happen. We are seeking support from Romanian businesses and individuals who would like to adopt an animal, sponsor a project or help rebuild the education centre.

Romania has 33 zoos in equally poor and sometimes even more terrible condition. I see our zoo renovation becoming a model for their community revivals as well. There is nothing we can do to change the past, but we can each contribute to shaping a better future. It’s interesting how my “Little Romania” in Brooklyn has led back to Moldavia. Grandmother would be pleased.

 

More information on Laura Simms' work can be found at www.laurasimms.com.