Six years after funds were provided by the Odense Municipality of Denmark to build a giant aviary for the harpy eagles at the Georgetown Zoo, Chairman of the National Parks Commission John Caesar says that an ambitious design and the global downturn were among the reasons the project has not gotten underway.
On April 11, 2003 Mayor of the city of Odense and Chairman of its zoo, Anker Boye, officially handed over US$30,000 towards the building of a giant cage at the back of the National Zoological Park near to where the old elephant cages were located.
The donation by the Odense Zoo was part of an ongoing sister-zoo relationship that it has with the Georgetown Zoo based on an agreement signed with the National Parks Commission in November 2001.
The design of the cage was expected to facilitate trees in the vicinity of the proposed construction area being incorporated into the architecture. This would have allowed for the aviary to carry the dimensions and landscaping features similar to the natural habitats of the eagles.
Caesar said that the delay in the construction of the cage “had to do with the fact that our ambitious architectural design took a long time”. This, he says, was made more complicated because most local architectures were not familiar with the design that was settled on.
When Stabroek News covered the story last year, the project had been handed over to head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Guyana, Lennox Hernandez, for his department’s help in the design of the cage.
However, Hernandez said his department no longer had the project and it had been handed over to Professor Rory Westmaas who was supposed to mobilise a group of his students to work on it but nothing came of this.
The project was reportedly advertised as being up for tender in the local media. This development was reported late last year in this newspaper.
The Harpy Eagle is the largest and most powerful raptor in the world and weighs over 25 lbs and is over 3 ft tall.
The eagle has an average wing span of 6½ feet. Its claws are as thick as a child’s wrist and are used for hunting. In Guyana, the eagle is indigenous to the Pakaraima and Kanuku Mountain ranges.
At the handing over ceremony of the newly refurbished Nature School at the Zoological Park on Tuesday, Caesar said that earlier this year the board had taken a decision to resize the cage after the original plans fell through. The original harpy’s cage was budgeted at $16.5 million, Caesar said and even with the donation from Denmark they were short.
The cage was expected to be 120 feet long, 60 feet wide and 50 feet high which would allow the eagles to move about with greater freedom than is currently permitted by their present cages.
Caesar pointed out that the resizing decision was taken because civil engineering input was needed. He said while the board hopes to have something before the end of next year, it is cautious since it wants the end product to be economically viable and zoologically good for the animals.
Caesar said the money received from Denmark is in a special savings account awaiting use. (Tiffny Rhodius)
