Present from Riga: Tbilisi welcomes new zoo animals (VIDEO)
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Georgia has warmly welcomed a present from Riga Zoo - a camel, yak, alpacas and parrots – which were all welcomed to their new home at Tbilisi Zoo last night.
Latvia’s capital Riga helped Tbilisi restore the animal collection of the city’s zoo, which was severely damaged in last summer’s deadly flood.
Seven animals from the Riga Zoo collection – a Bactrian camel named Villijs, three alpacas called Tomass, Karmen and Kamene, a domestic yak named Pupols and a pair of blue-and-yellow macaws named Cabulis and Filipina arrived in Tbilisi to become the first animals the city zoo receive since the natural disaster of June 13, 2015.
The camel, yak and alpacas spent about a week being transported from Riga to Georgia’s Black Sea coastal city Batumi by ferry. The animals arrived in Tbilisi last night, where a handful of animal professionals and animal lovers met them and served them apples to ease their stress.
A message on the containers in which the animals were transported said that this was a present from Riga to Tbilisi. The total cost of transporting the animals - €15,000 – was fully covered by the Latvian side.
A ferry carrying the animals from Riga arrives in Batumi, Georgia. Photo source: Tbilisi Zoo/Facebook
Meanwhile the donated birds, which were more sensitive to travel stress, were flown to Tbilisi on March 19.
Tbilisi Zoo lost almost a half of its animals in last year’s flood. The disaster also destroyed the lower part of the animal park and the majority of animals that lived in enclosures in this area either died or escaped from their cages.
Those from the lower section that survived were rehoused in the upper area of the zoo, where most of the enclosures remained intact. After the disaster several new cages were built and more are currently being constructed to house the new animals.
Since the flood a number of foreign zoos expressed their readiness to help Tbilisi Zoo. Riga was the first city to turn their words into action but the Georgian capital is preparing to receive other animals from several other zoos in the future.