Team Herald
PANJIM: With no proper facilities in place to accommodate tigers in the State’s lone Bondla zoo, the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) for now, has kept on hold Goa’s proposal for procuring new pair of tigers till the time zoo is modified or restructured to provide the mandated in-house amenities to the animal.
The State forest dept has now taken up phase-wise redevelopment of the zoo, marking shelter area, feeding chambers and night shelters for each animal.
Bondla Zoo lost their former pair of tigers Rana and Sandhya, the major attraction of the zoo in December 2016 and July 2017, respectively. The death of both the animals was attributed to ‘natural cause’ since both had reached old age. The pair was brought in from Indira Gandhi Zoological Park, Vishakhapatnam in 2009.
The State forest dept had in September 2017 written to Dr Shivaram Karnath Biological Park, Mangaluru, Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens- popularly known as ‘Mysuru Zoo’ and a Bengaluru zoo for procuring new pair of tigers in exchange of either a Bison family or Deer family.
However, none of the States have agreed to exchange their tiger pair. More so, the CZA has also declined to grant its permission to Goa for procuring new pair of tigers since it has no proper in-house facilities in place.
A senior forest department official confirmed that not a single zoo, which was approached for tiger exchange programme have agreed to the proposal.
“CZA has also asked us to work on improving the zoo structures,” he said.
An official said that the existing zoo structures are as old as 1969-1975. “They were never modified. The CZA has laid down procedure for each animal. Also, it says that for establishment and scientific management of zoo, animals at zoos be kept in pairs only,” added the official.
He further said that CZA has asked them to put in place all the facilities like shelter area, feeding chambers and night shelters for tiger pair in place and also the space for movement. “So we are now focusing on improving the enclosure of the animals in phased manner. Entire zoo would be redeveloped as per the CZA guidelines,” he said.
