by Hummam Sheikh Ali<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DAMASCUS, Nov 17 (NNN-XINHUA) – During the Syrian war and the calamities that have come along, people’s dreams seem to have been put on hold. But for Samer al-Homsi, a 43-year-old animal collector, the war was no reason to quit on his dream of developing the best zoo in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Homsi started developing the hobby when he was younger. His love for animals began to grow, when he raised a cat in his house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watching it grow and give birth to kittens, al-Homsi started to discover the animal world and became fascinated by the way his cat treated her babies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then he wanted to dig deeper, as his father was a merchant who used to travel a lot and take al-Homsi with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He bought his first cub and raised it as a pet, starting the first step to become a famous wild animal collector and trainer in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I started thinking of having a wild animal in my house and I brought more animals and took part in many festivals,” he told Xinhua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After obtaining legal permission to run a zoo in the area of the capital, Damascus, al-Homsi put a diverse collection of animals in a piece of land near the airport. However, the Syrian war broke out, during which many of his animals were killed by the rebels, when they stormed areas near the airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Before the war, I had a piece of land near the airport, where I trained several animals, including wild ones, as well as, giraffes and a black cheetah. But during the war, the rebels took my animals and killed them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seeing his animals slaughtered broke his heart, as they were so dear to him, but this didn’t dissuade him from pursuing his dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Homsi managed to salvage some of the animals by bringing them to a small piece of territory his family owns in the Jaramana suburb, east of Damascus, before introducing more wildlife into the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his new venue, al-Homsi has 35 species of animals, including tiger, lion, bear, gazelle, dog, sheep and rare bird of prey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He buys animal feed at his own expense, which costs him about 150 U.S. dollars on a daily basis, in addition to their medical checkups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Syrian man treats his wild animals as pets, giving a name to each one of them and even playing with them inside their cages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Homsi told Xinhua that his favorite one is a nine-year-old lioness called Shaima, who jumps on and hugs him when he enters her cage and plays with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is another lion called Ashhab who is the son of Shaima. Al-Homsi said, Ashhab can sense the odour of his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Animals may not know their parents but they feel love for them, if they are around and this fascinates me,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So far, these animals have been living on al-Homsi’s private premises, which are not opened to the public. He is now applying to invest in Damascus’ Adawi Zoo, which has very few animals under the circumstances of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I aspire to have the best zoo in Syria, where I bring all kinds of animals to show them to the people,” al-Homsi told Xinhua.– NNN-XINHUA <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Hummam Sheikh Ali DAMASCUS, Nov 17 (NNN-XINHUA) – During the Syrian war and the calamities that have come along, people’s dreams seem to have been put on hold. But for Samer al-Homsi, a 43-year-old animal collector, the war was no reason to quit on his dream of developing the best zoo in Syria. Al-Homsi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":50880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[300,286,217,190],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50878"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}