Vandalur zoo plans socialisation

Jun 14, 2012 - C.S. Kotteswaran |

chennai

Tags:

Vandalur zoo

Authorities of the Arignar Anna Zoological Park are attempting socialisation of wild animals after training the animals at the zoo.

Animals such as white tiger, Bengal tiger, leopard, hippopotamus, bear and chimpanzees are to be released into separate enclosures as groups, under the plan.

Now most of them are isolated or separated within their enclosures and people may not be able to watch the animals as a group.

The move will be implemented in a phased manner after a study of the behaviour of animals and will be a visual delight for the visitors, zoo sources said.

Zoo director and chief conservator of forests K.S.V.P.P. Reddy said that Vandalur zoo would be the first zoo in the country to adopt such a socialising plan for the captive animals.

Usually, animals in the wild maintain territories and would have aggressive behaviour towards counterparts. However, in zoos, the animals would be less aggressive as they are in captivity.

The plan aims to capitalise on this. Three to four tigers can be put in one enclosure if they learn to live as a group. A group of leopards or hippopotamus can also be put in one enclosure, the official said.

“We tried putting the animals together based on their species. After studying their behaviour for three months they have been put together,” Reddy said.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/160918" 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: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></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-28c3051fd3005179f40259c96e1e0087" value="form-28c3051fd3005179f40259c96e1e0087" /> <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="80543863" /> <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>