“NO ALIBABA,” reads a warning sign outside Baghdad zoo, using the common slang for thief.

But it is too late. Only a handful of pitiful animals are left inside the cages and enclosures where 650 animals were looted or slaughtered during fighting for control of the capital. Shocked at the condition of the few remaining beasts, mainly carnivores too dangerous to be stolen, soldiers threw them unwanted ration packs, wolf and boar carcasses to keep them alive.

Corporal Matthew St Pierre, 22, from Illinois, said: “I would say over 90 per cent of the animals were gone before we even got here. The civilians that were hungry pretty much came in and ate everything that wouldn’t eat them.

“We would find dead birds and ducks and put them in the cages. We didn’t really know too much about lions and tigers; just gave them dates and MREs (meals ready to eat) that the guys didn’t like. They ate everything we gave them.” He confirmed that colleagues had to shoot dead four lions that escaped through shell-holes enlarged by looters, who had cleared the park of camels, African and Asian birds, horses, ponies and deer.

“It was either keep the civilians out, which would have been impossible, or kill the lions. We had to kill the lions,” he said.

The full scale of the damage to Iraq’s principal wildlife collection emerged as zookeepers collected a $20 (£13) emergency payment from US administrators to keep them going until salaries can be resumed under an interim government.

The money, paid from $1.4 billion of frozen Iraqi assets being used to boost the Iraqi economy, was widely scorned by the overworked keepers as inadequate to feed their families.

Adel Salman Musa, the zoo’s director, said he was certain that the animals had been looted for sale, not consumption, and he hopes to recover some on the black market. Only two tigers, three lions, three wild pigs, two brown bears and a porcupine remain, with seven other lions, three ostriches and two cheetahs liberated from Uday Hussein’s private collection. This was at his palace topped by an Iraqi eagle a short walk away. There, six ten-day-old lion cubs lie in a green and purple cage, yawning and scratching themselves as their mother, Xena, and father, Brutus, prowl the enclosure.

The lions, starving when US troops arrived, were found living alongside dogs who appeared to be mothering the younger lions without fear of being eaten.

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