LIMASSOL Municipality has appointed a committee to oversee the relocation and upgrade of the town’s often-criticised zoo.
The development came after the Agriculture Ministry and city authorities decided earlier this year that the time had come for Cyprus to change its image and develop a modern-day zoo. Now, the municipality has selected the municipal vet and chairmen from the committees of garden advancement and health and environment to make up the new committee. Two officials from the Agriculture Ministry and a prominent expert from the EU will complement the group.
Municipal vet Lambros Lambrou said yesterday the committee was responsible for conducting a technical and financial study to indicate the best location for a new zoo, taking into account the criteria set by the European Union and the costs of its creation.
Lambrou told the Cyprus Mail that no deadline had been set for the Committee to reach its conclusion and much still had to be determined in terms of funding for the project. He did not rule out the possibility of private and EU aid to add to state funding and could not confirm or deny media reports that Polemidia was a potential new location.
The main aim of the Committee would be to provide the animals with their most natural environment for their protection and well being, he said.
The new zoo will have much wider spaces for existing animals and may even accommodate more. As part of its study, the Committee will be using as examples well-established zoos in Europe and zoos that have a similar climate to Cyprus, like the modern Jerusalem Zoo.
The development and upgrade of the current zoo will not be put aside until then, however, and the living space of the brown bears has already been tripled in order to attempt to place them in a more natural habitat, Lambrou said.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
