At Karachi Zoo, Jude Allen sang, You Are My Sunshine, to an elephant he could not save. Noor Jehan, the 17-year-old African elephant, was suffering. Allen recalls massaging her legs, nursing her bedsores and spending her final days beside her.
She died on April 22, 2023, surrounded by a few activists. Allen, 45, had held various corporate jobs while volunteering as an animal caregiver since an early age. But Noor Jehan changed something in him, he said.
Now three years later, Allen has turned the grief of Noor Jehan’s loss into care for one of her sisters, Madhubala, who also faces major health challenges. He is part of a growing campaign of Pakistani and international activists and doctors trying to save Madhubala, a victim, her carers say, not just of medical conditions, but also of a system that is simply unable to give animals in captivity the attention and facilities they need. In 2009, four elephant calves captured in Tanzania were brought to Pakistan, allegedly through an animal trader.
Two of them, Noor Jehan and Madhubala, were kept at the Karachi Zoo, while their sisters Sonia and Malika were taken to Safari Park, a larger facility also in Pakistan’s largest city that has both a zoo and other viewing spaces for visitors to watch animals up close. Then, in 2020, Pakistan was gripped by the story of Kaavan, an Asian elephant that had spent 35 years in the capital city of Islamabad, eight of them alone after his companion Saheli died. Four Paws, an international animal welfare organisation, helped move Kaavan to an animal sanctuary in Cambodia, where he now lives with other elephants.
That episode also shone a light on the Karachi sisters. At the time, Allen was helping a friend with another animal shelter, and came to know Four Paws was in town. He reached out to them, and they led him to Noor Jehan and Madhubala.
By 2021, Noor Jehan’s tusk was infected. She suffered from malnutrition and stress, too. Allen and the other activists couldn’t save Noor Jehan, but the campaign had turned into a wider cry, demanding care and justice for captive animals in the urban jungle of Karachi, the coastal home to 20 million people.
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