Several employees of Yerevan Zoo have written an open letter to the Yerevan city Mayor Taron Margaryan, in which they ask him to appoint a new director.

The letter specifically mentions:

“Dear Mayor Margaryan,

When in 2011 you were elected the Mayor of Yerevan, we hoped that issues of Yerevan Zoo will finally be solved.

But all the issues are still present, and worse, they continue to increase. It must be understandable why there are no individual signatures under this letter, as the previous letter that was signed was transferred to our ‘musician-director-architect’ and most importantly a liar director, which caused most of our staff being fired.

The tower of the zoo is dilapidated. The purpose is to alienate the tower from the park, that is why the doors and windows have been broken purposefully and are not being taken care of, with the goal to give the territory to the neighboring restaurant complex ‘XXX’.

The animals are starving. The meat of the dead animals is being fed to carnivore birds, which is prohibited by the rules of international zoological laws. Things that have been never possible occur, when female lions attack and kill each other in the zoo, but as the animals are hungry, they attacked and killed one of the female lions.

The workers are being made to sign some documents, which then come out as signed papers where we discredit each other.

False information of new animal arrivals is being circulated.

We ask you to appoint a professional, knowledgeable, and experienced new director.

With all due respect,

Staff of Yerevan Zoo.”

Note, on January 15 at 9.30 a.m. one of Yerevan Zoo female lions died. The official web site of Yerevan Zoo informs that the bar of the lion's cage was broken thus the animal was able to enter the neighboring enclosure. The three female lions kept in this enclosure killed the animal.