You're reading: Tbilisi zoo refuses Moscow assistance

MOSCOW - The flood-hit Tbilisi zoo has refused their Moscow colleagues' offer to put the animals in an animal farm in the Moscow region, Olga Vainshtok, the head of the external communications department of the Moscow zoo, said on June 17.

“We have talked with the director of the Tbilisi zoo. They told us they don’t need help now. They thanked us for our offer and said they don’t need it now,” Vainshtok told Govorit Moskva radio.

Vainshtok earlier said the Moscow zoo had invited its Georgian colleagues to put their animals on an animal farm in the Moscow region and to send some animals from Russia to replace the animals killed by the flood in the Tbilisi zoo.

In the meantime, colleagues from the Prague zoo who have “specific experience of dealing with calamities and rescuing animals” have now arrived in Tbilisi, Mzia Sharashidze, press officer for the Tbilisi zoo, told reporters.

According to earlier reports, the heavy rain that hit Tbilisi in the early hours of June 14 caused a disastrous flood. As a result, half of the Tbilisi zoo was damaged and many animals were killed.