He tells of how he found himself a bed with the fighting troops and tank crews of the US 3rd Infantry Division in the derelict Al-Rashid Hotel, made friends with government officials, allied individual soldiers and rallied foreign mercenaries to his cause. Zoo veterinarian Dr Husham Hussan and two brave zoo staff, coming to work when they could, met him and the rescue commenced.Īnthony recounts his many adventures. Hundreds of animals and birds had died, escaped or had been stolen for food. On his arrival Anthony found that a battle had been fought in the surrounding park and that the zoo had been damaged and severely looted. The book focuses on how in early 2003, during the American led invasion of Iraq, South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony, realizing there would be no one looking after the Baghdad Zoo, the biggest zoo in the Middle East, left his Thula Thula Game Reserve home in Zululand South Africa for war blockaded Kuwait.Īnthony somehow wrangled his way into becoming the first civilian, media excepted, to gain military access to Iraq and then quite unbelievably, drove his hired car (from Kuwait) unarmed and unescorted, right into the violent heart of Baghdad itself, truly the last place on earth any unarmed foreigner would want to be.
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