Lebanon’s wildlife villain

In the shade the temperature reached 34 degrees celsius as Executive met Samir Ghattas at Animal City for an interview in early August. “I turned this place into nature,” he said, “the zoo is my baby.” Executive had visited the zoo two weekends prior to this meeting, first posing as tourists in order to photograph conditions at Animal City and later to take photographs by invitation. What was clear was that conditions of captivity were less than ideal: wildlife lacked water in the sweltering heat and cages hardly provided shade from the sun. Executive also wanted to learn whether allegations of wildlife trafficking were true and wanted to find out more about the zoo’s business model. It is not profitable, Ghattas says of Animal City, but how much money the zoo is losing is not clear. Over the course of a 90 minute interview Ghattas declined to give many specifics