New guests to greet visitors at Zoo

Visakhapatnam: The Indira Gandhi Zoological Park has received some new guests from Pilikula Biological Park in Mangaluru. Two Royal Bengal tigers (male), one crocodile, three Red Jungle Fowl were brought here under Animal Exchange Programme here on Thursday.

In the current picnic season, the five year old Royal Bengal tigers (Manju and Akshaya) were going to draw more attraction among the visitors and animal lovers.

Indira Gandhi Zoological Park curator Yesoda Bai said that under the animal exchange programme approved by the Central Zoo Authority, Vizag Zoo had given four dholes or wild dogs, five painted storks and five alexandrine parakeets to Pilikula Biological Park in Mangaluru.

As Asiatic wild dog (Dhole), which is on the verge of extinction and coming under schedule 1, the Central Zoo Authority had selected Vizag, Vandalur and Mysore Zoological parks as conservation breeding centre for wild dogs as each zoo are entrusted with a specific animal breeding centre. However, out of these, only Vizag Zoo has emerged as a successful breeding of wild dogs.

For conservation and breeding of this species, Vizag zoo started with one male, two females and one pair of pups were added to zoo guests in the open moat facility between 1992 and 1994. However, when the flagship wild dog conservation programme began, the Zoo had 9 numbers of wild dogs in 2007-08 and now it has a population of over 40.

The new guests are now housed in Animal Rescue Centre close to Zoo and under quarantine process, following which they would be released into Vizag Zoo enclosure for public display, she added.