A lack of “technical expertise” is hampering the construction of a new aviary for the harpy eagles at the Georgetown Zoo, General Manager of the National Parks Commission (NPC), Yolanda Vasconcellos says.
She said that the Commission is looking at plans for the giant cage but was unable to give a timeline for when construction could be expected to start and asserted that plans are in train. “There is a lack of the technical expertise that is required to put up such a structure and so we’re still formulating that”, Vasconcellos told Stabroek News yesterday. She added that as soon as this is completed, construction will start. Asked whether there were no local persons with the expertise to build the cage, she said that if there are, the Commission would like them to come forward and offer their services.
The promised new giant cage, announced with fanfare on April 11, 2003 is still to take flight, more than five years later. $6M was provided for the project by the Odense Municipality of Denmark but to date the giant raptors are still housed in their old cages and the construction site remains bare.
‘The plans are in train for it”, Vasconcellos said yesterday. Initially, the project had been handed over to the Department of Architecture at the University of Guyana for them to help in the design of the cage and the NPC General Manager said that they had been given some drawings and “we’re looking at it”.
A letter in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek had questioned where the funds had gone and this concern was acknowledged by the General Manager. “The money is very much there”, she declared.
On 11th April, 2003 the Mayor of the city of Odense and the Chairman of its zoo, Anker Boye had 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 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.
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. It was expected that the project would go up for tender and work would start as soon as this process was completed.
However, when Stabroek News visited the site identified for the cage recently, work on the aviary had not even been started. When questioned, the officials overseeing the zoo said that they were aware of plans to build the cage but did not know what had become of the project. Several other officials too were unable to say what the status of the project was.
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 NPC in November 2001. Under this agreement four manatees were sent from the Georgetown Zoo to the Odense Zoo in order to re-energise the captive breeding in that territory.
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 6 1/2 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.
