The Kharkiv Zoo is 110 years old. It is home to nearly 7,000 animals whose upkeep costs an annual 1.5 million hryvnias. This year the municipal budget reduced the zoo’s funding from two to one million hryvnias, which is only enough to cover staff salaries. There is a drastic lack of funds for the animals’ upkeep, and the zoo has been living on credit for almost two months.
The extraordinary and unpleasant situation of the Kharkiv Zoo is obviously the result of financial neglect. Its administrators can only envy their colleagues in Kyiv. Whereas the Kyiv Zoo has only 3,600 animals, it has twice as many employees as the Kharkiv Zoo and seven times more financing. The admission fee in Kharkiv is the lowest in Ukraine, although it may increase it early next year if the cost of utilities rises. Even now utility bills reach nearly half a million hryvnias.
The zoo is in dire straits. The administration has to buy food for the animals on credit, and there is no way to explain to them why there is no money for fresh fruit or meat. The elephants and hippos alone require half a ton of food every day. Add here the costs of maintaining pools in summer and heated floors in winter. If an elephant has a toothache, it takes 200 pills of metapyrin at a time to ease the pain.
A few years ago Kharkiv appealed Ukrainians throughout the country to raise funds to purchase an elephant. After all, a zoo is unthinkable without one. Recently, the zoo had an opportunity to add a giraffe to its collection. The giraffe was a gift from the European Association of Zoos. His name is Ramika and he lives at the Kyiv Zoo. The giraffe was supposed to be moved to a cage in Kharkiv this month, which was repaired before his arrival, but according to Kharkiv Zoo director Oleksii Hryhoriev, they can’t afford to feed the animal. An adult giraffe’s daily ration costs 600 hryvnias. The Kharkiv Zoo does not have the money, so if they don’t get funds soon, the children of Kharkiv will never see Ramika, who will then be purchased by a Russian zoo. So far sponsors have not responded to the Kharkiv Zoo’s appeals.
In anticipation of the next session of the city council, the zoo asked the municipal authorities to increase its financing of current expenses, particularly for the animals’ upkeep, by 916,000 hryvnias. So far, even after reallocating budget funds, the city fathers have provided only 270,000. Now the zoo has put a halt to the construction of new cages and repairs of old ones and will spend its funds only on food for the animals. Financing may increase after the fiscal results of the first nine months of this year are summarized, but it’s anyone’s guess.
The city administration plans to ask for funds for the zoo in exchange for the subway. Both enterprises are badly in need of money and are operating on a shoestring budget. However, by concentrating on the Metro the city will be able to pull it out of its monetary crisis. Before transferring the unprofitable state-run Metro to communal property, the city administration wants to make it profitable, which means increasing fares. As for the zoo, the city of Kharkiv intends to assist it and manage it even if the state decides to shoulder the bulk of its care.
So far foreign volunteers and alternative servicemen are helping to care for the animals in the Kharkiv Zoo as best they can. Volunteers from six European countries — Portugal, France, Italy, Croatia, Moldova, and Ukraine — are helping to build cages for the Latin American animals. These volunteers travel to various countries working for free at zoos, carrying out the work of missing personnel.
Meanwhile, the administration of the Kharkiv Zoo has found a way to make sponsors’ lives easier. Prospective donors often lose the desire to help when faced with the prospect of spending time and energy on filling out the tedious paperwork for bank transfers. Now sponsors can make a contribution to the zoo simply by dialing a phone number. The three-hryvnia phone call is charged to the zoo.
