The Hindu : City zoo gets jaguars

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 28, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

City zoo gets jaguars

By Our Staff Reporter

Photo:C. Ratheesh Kumar

The Minister for Water Resources, Zoos and Museums, T.M. Jacob, taking a look at the jaguar that was brought to the city zoo on Saturday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Sept. 27. After a gap of more than two decades, jaguars are back at the city zoo.

The arrival of a jaguar pair from Hyderabad this morning _ along with two sloth bear, three silver pheasants and three ring-necked pheasants_ proved to be an event of sorts at the zoo. The security personnel had a tough time controlling the large crowd that gathered to watch the animals being unloaded.

The first to be released into a cage was the female jaguar, which was displaying signs of stress. During the journey, a couple of bars of the cage in which the animal was housed, had broken, as the animal was repeatedly charging at it.

The male jaguar and the two sloth bear were released after the arrival of T.M. Jacob, Minister for Water Resources, Zoos and Museums. For the time being, the jaguars will be housed in the `carnivore cages', which will become vacant once the lions housed there are released into the new half-acre enclosure. The sloth bears were released into the cages by the side of the bear enclosure. As per the exchange-package approved by the Central Zoo Authority (CZA), the city zoo gave eight hog deer, two barking deer and three lion-tailed macaques (LTMs) to the Hyderabad zoo, said C. S. Yelakki, zoo Director. The city zoo is also scheduled to give one LTM to the Delhi zoo in return for a cape buffalo.

A team of zoo officials is preparing to leave for Assam to bring a rhinoceros from the Kaziranga National Park.

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