Cote d'Ivoire: hard times at Abidjan zoo; Years of dwindling economic fortunes and political conflict have taken their toll on the Abidjan National zoological park. Its administrators are struggling to keep it going, but for how long?, asks Josephine Akarue.

The air is warm and humid. Gentle lights dance from two eyes laced with anticipation. There is no hate in them; no open anger or naked brutality--just dark wells of secret longing and veiled frustration. Around the head is a thick mesh of golden brown mane that has survived over 13 years of captivity. As curious visitors hover around the lion's cage, it ignores them--strutting proudly from one end to the other and occasionally brushing itself on the body of its mate. For Leo and Lea, life here is routine, spare, until meal time comes and the monotony is broken.

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They are lucky. They have company. Not so with the hyenas and pigmy hippos which, because of constant fights, have to contend with solitary walks in their own small worlds, separated by walls from their own kind, until the thick blanket of night envelops the last glimmer of light and the sounds of roaring lions and hooting owls slice through the thick pall of darkness. For the Abidjan National Zoo, these are tough times.

It had not always been so. Tucked some distance from Deux Plateaux, one of the city's most chic neighbourhoods, the park straddles across 19 sprawling hectares of land. …