Hyderabad: Children quiz zoo staff on care, upkeep of facilities

Hyderabad: On the occasion of 66th Wildlife Week celebrations (October 1-6), Nehru Zoological Park is organising online educational programmes on wildlife and zoo management for school children to promote wildlife education and awareness.

On Thursday, a live Interactive session was conducted wherein 76 students from 26 different schools have participated in the Live Interactive Session while several other students were watching the session live.

N Kshitija, Curator, A Nagamani, Deputy Curator, Dr Syed Asadullah, Veterinary Asst. Surgeon, Sandeep and Laxminaryana, Biologist, Swetha, EO and H M Hanifulla, attended the session which was started from 11 am and was concluded by 12.30 pm.

The session started with an introduction and powerpoint presentation on the zoo by Nagamani. Later, Kshitija answered many queries raised by the students on the various aspects of Zoo Management.

Many interesting questions were posed by the students, one among which is, "How is zoo managed during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown?" Kshitija replied that it was a life-time experience to one and all and in spite of lockdown, due to the committed zoo staff and support from senior officials and government, it became possible to take care of the animals despite the lack of any revenue.

One student asked whether the animals were released into the wild when the zoo was closed for several months,. Nagamani clarified that the zoo animals cannot be released into the wild without proper preparation as they were not acclimatised to the environment and climate. Also, such a need did not arise as all the zoo staff worked during the entire lockdown period to take care of the animals.

Most of the students were worried about the animal food and care as the zoo was closed and they were assured that with some funding from government and own reserves, the animals were being taken good care of. Further, they were also informed about the feed reserves being grown in the fodder plot inside the zoo.

"The hour-long online session was extended to further 30 minutes as the students were obsessed and fired a flurry of questions with regard to the present the situation in the zoo park, the activities of animals in the sanctuary, issues zoo park management is facing due to outbreak of pandemic and loss of revenue due to the ongoing pandemic situation," informed Nagamani.