Big cats at Bannerghatta Park get a break

16white.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Being away from the relentless gaze of humans and their intrusive vehicles every alternate day will be a huge relief for the animals of the Bannerghatta Biological Park. The forest department is to initiate steps soon to cut down on human interaction with the zoo animals. The animals will now be divided into two groups. One group will be in the safari enclosure, while the other group will spend a day without being exposed to safari vans. At present, Tuesday is the only day when the animals do not interact with humans as the park is closed.

Located on the outskirts of south Bengaluru, the park is home to about 1,500 animals, including 15 elephants. Three safaris – tiger, lion, and sloth bear - attract large numbers of visitors to the park. Executive director of the park, Dr R. Raju, says the plan of dividing the animals into two groups was necessary because the number of safaris has increased.

“A minimum of 200 safari trips are conducted in a single day and the animals are burdened with frequent visits of vehicles. Hence a decision to divide the animals was taken and was approved by the forest minister C. P. Yogeshwara,” said Dr Raju. The animals can now take a break from being disturbed by people and vehicles every alternate day. There are 32 lions, 40 tigers and 105 sloth bears in the park.

“We are hoping to add new animal attractions such as giraffe and we are hoping to exchange some of our tigers with a foreign zoo and get new animals,” Dr Raju adds. Experts in captive wild animals say that the new plan will ease the pressure on the zoo animals. “As it is, there have been instances of animals in the safari areas being run over by speeding safari vehicles. They don’t get rest at all and don’t have the luxury of privacy within the enclosures. Animals need privacy but here they are always exposed to visitors. They get unnerved with so many pairs of eyes watching them the whole day. Dividing them in groups is a wise decision as far as animal welfare is concerned,” said Suparna Ganguly, trustee of Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA).

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/143253" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-9ce2c500f28d7e06628254d8ff3f4945" value="form-9ce2c500f28d7e06628254d8ff3f4945" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="81532068" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.