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World Jewish News
Moscow Tigers Are Moving to Israel by a Regular El-Al Flight
14.04.2009
El-Al airline will deliver the predators from Moscow to Israel today. "The striped flight" will carry two white baby tigers and almost 200 passengers. The Russian animals will not be tranquilized – El-Al has created special temperature and comfort conditions for them during the flight.
Today at 3:15 pm in Ben Gurion airport, the regular flight 612 of El-Al airline will land. Aboard Boeing-767, besides 190 passengers, will be residents of the Moscow zoo - two white baby tigers of a rare colour. Each of them weighs over 80 kilos.
Normally, animals get a special shot of somnifacient before the flight, so that they sleep all the way. But, according to the IzRus portal, the Head of the El-Al department for Russia and Eastern Europe Igor Weissburd told the Israeli airline has arranged for specific cells in the baggage compartment of the aircraft, where temperature and humidity are regulated. Therefore, Moscow tigers will not be tranquilized.
A special commission decided on which airline would get the right to provide transport for animals from Russia. "It's not so much about the money, but the prestige," noted Weissburd. Many companies wanted to get this unusual job, but El Al offered the best conditions for transporting the animals. This morning at the airport "Domodedovo" Chief Veterinary Officer of Moscow Zoo personally tested and confirmed the readiness and the technical equipment of the Israelis for transportation of predators.
As the IzRus portal found out from the press service of the Moscow zoo, white baby tigers will be transferred to the Haifa zoo. The representative of the Moscow Zoo said that these tigers are not albino. They are called "white" because of the unusual color of wool. They have black stripes on a light background of skin. This is the second litter of the Moscow pair of tigers. The parents of these white tigers had been brought from Holland and Sweden. "A brother and a sister are being brought to Haifa. In principle, they may have a common offspring, but this is undesirable. I think that they will be found pairs," explained the officer of the largest zoo in Russia.
She also noted that preparation of permits for the export always takes a long time. In this case, preparations for the departure for Israel took the striped "Moscovites" almost eight months. The financial side of the Russian-Israeli "tiger deal" remains a mystery. Neither Moscow nor Haifa party wish to disclose the details and the sum of the contract. In doing so, the representative of the Moscow Zoo told the IzRus portal, that usually a white tiger cub costs 20 thousand dollars on the market.
By Shimon Briman
Источник: IzRus
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