"They're thrilled, very happy. It's like a new place for them," said veterinarian Ayelet Shmueli.
A troop of baboons scrambled to get outside through a little gate before it was even fully opened on the first day they were allowed out. Bears paced nervously, and a tiger blinked hard in the morning sun.
"But we don't know what will be the impact of the fact they were enclosed for so long," Shmueli said.
While indoors, zoo officials were forced to get creative to keep the animals from going crazy.
"We hung sacks of meat on the ceilings of the leopards' and tigers' cages so they had to jump to get them," zookeeper Yoav Ratner said. The handlers stuffed pumpkins full of meat, he added. They filled bamboo poles with jelly "so the monkeys had to do a bit of work to get the jelly," he said.
The war also hurt the zoo itself. July and August, usually the busiest months for visitors, were completely wiped out financially because of the war.
"We had no revenues and I had a lot of extra expenses," Ararat, the manager said. Those expenses included buying meat the zoo usually got for free because markets had shut down, and buying tranquilizers just in case one of the animals got loose in the city, he said.
