The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Vasectomy for zoo tigers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 23, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Vasectomy for zoo tigers

By Our Staff Reporter

VISAKHAPATNAM, MAY 22. After lions, now it is the turn of tigers to undergo vasectomy at the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park.

Zoo officials have set in motion work to perform the operation on four male tigers some time in June. Besides four tigers, the zoo has seven tigresses. Vasectomy was conducted for the first time on two lions a couple of years ago. The zoo has two lionesses.

A variety of factors like space and resource constraint, increasing feed cost and the adverse effect due to captive in-breeding have led to imposition of an "undeclared ban'' on wild animals.

"In-breeding -- sex among close relatives of wild cats like mother and its offspring -- will destroy immune system among the new-borns.

Though it is not comparable to HIV, genetic homogeneity causes serious health hazards besides leading to birth of cubs with deformities,'' the zoo curator, B. Vijaya Kumar, told The Hindu.

A decision to put a full stop to the population of lions was taken a couple of years ago after wildlife experts opined that in-breeding among hybrid variety of lions was not advisable.

All the lions now under the possession of the zoo are not of pure Asiatic breed.

For the leopards whose number is four at present, there is no need to undergo vasectomy as there is no female leopard. One of the four leopards was captured dramatically after it strayed into Akkayapalem area in the city from the nearby Kambalakonda reserve forest.

The zoo authorities are also planning to restrict the multiplication of rhesus and bonnet monkeys -- one of the main attractions particularly among children -- as their number has turned into a "problem of plenty''.

After release of several monkeys into the wild, at present the zoo has 15 rhesus and 13 bonnet monkeys.

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