It’s been a fortnight since our newsfeeds were dominated by bizarre images from Tbilisi: a hippopotamus wandering down a street, a crocodile swimmming past parked cars, and a brown bear clinging, terrified, to a wall-mounted air-conditioning unit.
The pictures were surreal, but the reality behind them sad: flash flooding in the Georgian capital had devastated the city’s zoo, drowning hundreds of animals and enabling others to escape into the streets, where many were killed at the hands of locals. In total over half of the zoo’s 600 animals died.
The news agenda may have moved on, but for Tbilisi Zoo the slow process of rebuilding — on a different site — is yet to begin. We hope you’ll donate to its appeal here, before testing your knowledge of the wonderful beasts of the new east — those in captivity, endangered, or just plain cute — in our specially devised quiz.